So...so...Soledad!

So…so…Soledad!

Soledad O’Brien is up to her old one-drop rule rhetoric once again. She was interviewed for an Internet publication called Clutch. If you really want to read it, the link to the full story is:
http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2012/12/catching-up-with-black-in-americas-soledad-obrien/

My problems with the article begin with a personal story of the writer, Zettler Clay—a black male—who tells us how he took his cousins, ages four, six, and eight, to Toy’s “R” Us after promising them they could get what they wanted. They came upon two dolls, a white one and what the writer calls a “melanated” doll, which is apparently darker than white.

Mr. Clay “strongly suggested” the darker doll, but the kid said no dice, she wanted the white one. The writer gave in, but then suffered some deep trauma for having allowed what he calls “the notion of colorism—the lighter the skin, the better the “doll.” So he turned to Soledad O’Brien, the queen of dark is better than light. You can read “Shame on CNN” on this blog at http://projectrace.blogspot.com/2012/12/shame-on-cnn.html

Soledad says, “It’s [sic] nothing wrong with seeing color, It becomes a problem when people limit and define you by it.” Oh, but it’s OK as long as you are defined as black. Ms. O’Brien, is multiracial, and self-identifies differently depending on the situation said recently that her mother told her not to let anyone tell her she’s not Black. For this interview she changed it a bit and said her mother told her not to let anyone tell her she’s not Black or Latino.

The writer goes on for a while about his feelings about “colorism,” and then Ms. O’Brien says the following:

“I think White in America would be fascinating,” she said. “Many cultures come to this country Italian, Irish, they’re not considered white. Jews, there [sic] not considered white. There’s this whole process of assimilation that Black people have not done, and for obvious reasons. So I think White in America would be a really interesting question.”

Huh? I think she is confused about race, ethnicity, culture, nationality and religion. CNN has already unleashed her on multiracials, which makes me really skeptical of what she would say about whites.

Then Mr. Clay asks Ms. O’Brien what she was hoping to accomplish with her last “Black in America” show and this was her response:

“We decided to be very honest and shed a strong light on some of the issues that were important and relevant. With a news documentary you can do that. This isn’t about spinning or PR. It’s about embracing tough situations, sometimes telling hopeful stories, sometimes telling sad stories. But really ultimately trying to do a very honest job in the stories that we are telling.” A VERY HONEST job? Oh please. They very honestly took a young woman who was proud to be biracial and turned her into identifying as black. Some really bad things come to mind about what they did, but VERY HONEST isn’t one of them.

It goes on and on. I really could not care less about how Soledad feels about race; however, but she is a public figure and influences young people by virtue of her being on TV. In other words, she has been given a platform to report honestly and with journalistic integrity. Instead, she is using that platform to invoke her personal racial identification. Very honestly, we don’t need someone splashed all over our televisions talking about how multiracial people should identify only as black—or is that “solely” as black? 
Source: Clutch/Susan Graham