September 22, 2007

Billo on race

He is shocked to discover that blacks can be civil. Seriously.
You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he's made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia's, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.

And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Geez. That's one of the most subtly racist things I've read in ages. Between that and what's going on in Jena, I'm stunned that there's still so much racism in this day and age. I thought those people were dying off!

I guess the fact that those remarks came from Bill Orally shouldn't come as much of a surprise, though.

Anonymous said...

Okay, you know what? I stand corrected. I just went and read the Media Matters article you linked to, and there's nothing subtle about these remarks. My jaw literally dropped when I read this quote:

O'Reilly added: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'"

Did he really think that's what a "black" restaurant would be like?

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that wasn't subtle at all. It sounds like something that my now deceased grandmother would have said. She was senile, though.

Streak said...

Yes, this is truly amazing. And Sarah, I think that is exactly what he thinks about a "black" restaurant.

Anonymous said...

He needs to get out more -- there's more to Manhattan than falafel stands.

Anonymous said...

I hate to bring up this old entry, but Bill, along with others, was complaining about how media matters took what he said out of context. I listened to the whole piece (it was quite long) and it discussed a variety of issues related to race and race relations. I am not going to say it was all that brilliant or insightful, but it didn't seem as bad as I originally thought.

Don't get me wrong, Bill says plenty of things I disagree with, but I will give him some credit for talking about a difficult topic.