Richard Prince's Journal -isms has a nice round up of opinions, particularly from the black press, on Time magazine analyst Mark Halperin's colorful characterization of President Obama on MSNBC. Basically, he said that Obama was being a dick.

According to Prince, black journalists are taking the insult much more seriously than their white counterparts:

"In social media, in conversation and among the few who have access to opinion columns, the Halperin remark is seen as nothing less than part of a continuing pattern of disrespect of the nation's first black president and further evidence of an old (white) boys network that controls the plum jobs in the news media."

Prince also asked the three candidates for president of the National Association of Black Journalists for their views on the incident. Basically, they all felt that a strong punishment should be levied against Halperin including Gregory Lee, senior assistant sports editor for the Boston Globe, who said:

"What Mark Halperin said was tasteless and he exercised poor judgment, I think he’d be the first to acknowledge that. I’m not going to comment on a network’s hiring and firing policies, but we cannot forget last year that Juan Williams was fired from NPR for his anti-Muslim remarks that he made on FOX News, and Helen Thomas's resignation because of her Israel comments. There obviously isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to these on-air slip-ups, but the current atmosphere of this continual disrespect of the office of the President has got to stop and a hard example needs to be made that this cannot and will not be tolerated."

My thoughts?  Well, unlike others, I don't feel like this is a slap in the face for the Black community as much as it is for President Obama. And it's not the first questionable remarks made against any sitting president. The thing is, if it was a racial slur or had racial overtones, I would be pretty upset. But Halperin made a statement, although poor choice of words (especially when Joe and crew didn't fulfill their end of the agreement to provide him the seven second delay as promised), about his [President Obama's] performance in front of Congress. I don't know if I would have said it as some descriptions are best left out of the public sphere. And I also believe that his suspension is probably warranted just for being dumb enough to let Joe and crew chump you into saying something dumb. But in no way, do I believe that it was racial.

Harkening back to my previous post about aspirational fulfillment and the black press, I wonder if this unnecessary, and quite dangerous, protective shell we [the black community] has placed around President Obama is reflective of this land of make-believe created by the black middle class?  Anyway, judge for yourself. Below is the clip:
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