Olbermann on racism is AWESOME! So smart, so many examples,

[babylonsister]

so worth seeing the rerun, and/or youtube. :thumbsup:

[Cornus]

1. One of his very best...

...special comments. "Where are they?"

[SeattleGirl]

2. Great comment!

:applause: :applause: :applause:

[babylonsister]

3. Was that not wonderful?!! I hope that gets a lot of attention! nt

[RevCheesehead]

4. I really appreciated the measured tone of it.

Sure, there's a place for outrage, but understating it maybe invited others to stop and listen.
I also think Jon Stewart would be proud. :)

[babylonsister]

5. Yes! He also mentioned Reid who was

uncomfortable with what he said or the way he said it. It wasn't a diatribe solely against republicans or teabaggers.

[jenmito]

6. I loved it!

[Atticus]

7. Keith and Rachel: back to back homers tonight! nt

[LeftyAndProud60]

8. In Massachusetts, I've never seen so many angry white people eager to vote. Minorities stayed home.

That's how Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat.

[babylonsister]

10. Do you know why they were angry? After 8 years of Bush? nt

[NOLALady]

11. It's the minorities fault that Brown won?

Who knew?:shrug:

[vaberella]

17. It's always the minorities fault. Minorities are always to blame in the end, next to Obama.

Oh wait...he's a minority too. :eyes: Go figure!

[jmm]

12. There were no exit polls so how can you say minorities stayed home? (n/t)

[BrklynLiberal]

9. It was a superb Special Comment tonight.

[Mira]

13. It was excellent. Important, Precise. N/t Recommended

[Clio the Leo]

14. Reminds me of what one of my favorite educators, Jane Elliot teaches...

.... that American society has racism so engrained into it, that we can't even recognize how each one of is prejudiced, even when we battle against it. If we think that we're not, we kid ourselves.

Whether she planned the exercise previous to April 5, 1968 or not, on that day she implemented the exercise (also called an “experiment”) for the first time. Steven Armstrong was the first child to arrive to Elliott’s classroom on that day, asking why "a King" (referring to Martin Luther King Jr.) was murdered the day before. After the rest of the class arrived, Elliott asked them what others said about Negros. The children responded with various racial stereotypes such as Negros were dumb or could not hold jobs. She then asked these children if they would like to find out what it was like to be a Negro child and they agreed.<2>

On that day, a Tuesday, she decided to make the blue-eyed children the superior first, giving them extra privileges like second helpings at lunch, access to the new jungle gym and five minutes extra at recess.<2> She would not allow blue-eyed and brown-eyed children to drink from the same water fountain.<4> She would offer them praise for being hard-working and intelligent. The “brownies” on the other hand, would be disparaged. She even made the brown-eyed children wear ribbons around their neck.<2>

At first, there was resistance to the idea that brown-eyed children were not the equals of blue-eyed children. To counter this, she used a pseudo-scientific explanation for her actions by stating that the melanin responsible for making blue-eyed children… also was linked to intelligence and ability, therefore the “brownies” pigmentation would result in lack of these qualities.<2> Shortly thereafter, this initial resistance fell away. Those who were deemed “superior” became arrogant, bossy and otherwise unpleasant to their “inferior” classmates. Their grades also improved, doing mathematical and reading tasks that seemed outside their ability before. The “inferior” classmates also transformed – into timid and subservient children, including those who had previously been dominant in the class. These children’s academic performance suffered, even with tasks that had been simple before.<4>

The following day, Elliott reversed the exercise, making the brown-eyed children superior. While the brown-eyed children did taunt the blue-eyed in ways similar to what had occurred the previous day, Elliott reports it was much less intense. At 2:30 on that Wednesday, Elliott told the blue-eyed children to take off their collars and the children cried and hugged each other. To reflect on the experience, she had the children write letters to Coretta Scott King and write compositions about the experience.<2>

This exercise changed her life, both as a teacher and personally. Her reflections on what she had witnessed would influence how she would approach race relations and teaching. “She had not told her pupils to treat each other differently, only that they were different; and yet they developed the characteristic responses of discrimination. Jane Elliott felt that they did this because they had already absorbed discriminatory behavior from their parents and other adults.”<4> Their willingness to accept the "inferiority" of a group of people was no small part due to the fact that children believe what adults, including teachers, tell them and follow their example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott

[FrenchieCat]

15. I'm just amazed that no one else in our so called "Liberal" media

has yet found room to point out what KO did tonight.

I'm talking about all of the talking heads that we have to listen to
if we turn on the TeeVee.

[political_Dem]

16. It was one of the finest of KO's ending comments.

The sad thing is that not one of the Tea Baggers is going to listen. They'll dismiss what he said as "liberal blather". But, I certainly hope that the rest of America hears his words loudly and clearly.

[Number23]

18. Damn, babysis! Can I get a SYNOPSIS or something??!

Not all of us live in countries that carry MSNBC! :)

Edit: Did a search, I think this is the video that this OP is about?? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0y4L_Ue5HY&feature=player_embedded Good stuff...

Edit 2: I'm not an Olberman fan (wayyyy too sensationalistic and melodramatic for me) but when he's right, he's right. His comments tie into alot that we've seen the last year, from Chris Matthews' "trying to be benign but actually being quite offensive" 'I forgot he was black for an hour' comment to the call from some liberals to align with teabaggers to alot of the paranoia and seemingly nonsensical protests against Obama from the right AND the left. It was a good special comment, I think.

[Berry Cool]

20. This comment was neither sensationalistic nor melodramatic.

As I think you can see.

[Number23]

22. Errr... was there supposed to be a point in your post somewhere?

[Lilyeye]

23. Thanks for the video. I didn't watch MSNBC yesterday.

[Saphire]

19. I heart KO.

[Spazito]

21. It was excellent!

Thanks for the heads-up! After reading your OP I went to the Political Videos Forum, found the link and watched it and Olbermann nailed it, imo.

Recommended.