Just a week or so after Keith appeared on Colbert Report with his song about lynching, it has come to light that Keith said this about Barack Obama on a radio show:

"I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person."

"What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Glenn Beck replied.

"Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."

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Wow. So black people cannot be articulate, composed, etc? Apparently Keith has never heard of Toni Morrison, Vernon Jordan, Colin Powell, Frederick Douglas, Doug Wilder, Beyonce, Condoleeza Rice, Serena Williams, Newark mayor Corey Booker...

As a person of color who enjoys country music, I think he is backing an unfortunate sterotype of the music and culture as racist when it in fact is filled mostly with good people, unlike his dumb ***. I think the right thing to do, although it would be a ceremonious and admittedly PC gesture, would be for his label or other well-positioned people in country to distance himself from these statements, as they are cleary mis-guided, in-informed and steeped in racist ideology.

More than anything, as an American citizen, this makes me very sad. People actually still think like this in 2008, and it is a shocking reminder that we (meaning unified Americans) still have a long way to go in overcoming prejudice and racism. So, so sad and sobering.  

There really is no other way to intepret or spin these comments.

Get well soon, Toby.

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