Are White People Surprised When We DON'T Cause Rukus?

Bill O'Reilly "treated" Al Sharpton to dinner at Sylvia's in Harlem recently where he claimed everyone in the joint watched his O'Reilly Factor show but that wasn't the most outlandish thing he said.... (Download the audio here if the link wears out but the transcript is below)

Apparently he "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful." - Yeah like we sho nuff should be to Whites. I guess we bess know our place.

Ugh.

I'm actually kinda curious as to why they went to Sylvia's in the first place. According to O'Reilly he treated Al, but his response to how well mannered the Black patrons were suggest Al picked the place. Do real New Yorkers actually even go to Sylvia's? It's kind of a tourist trap isn't it? Al is a bastard (in a way I like) when he's ready though, so I can only imagine how amused he was watching O'Reilly squirm the entire time. I wonder if he shared his observations about how civilised the clientele with Al over that ice tea.

He went on to say that he had the meatloaf and loved it but was surprised that "there wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'
WOW. Yes suh massa O'Reilly, you knows thas how we niggras always be actin'!

The worst of the audio is from Juan Williams, though. He's an NPR correspondent and all round uncle Tom. While I can concede that he has some valid points about Black History being overshadowed by hip hop, he then sinks into Alan Keys territory by laughing and going along with O'Reilly's racist stupidity.

After O'Reilly makes his M-Fer ice tea remark, Williams can actually be heard chuckling and saying "please--" in the background. And him and O'Reilly get into a spirited conversation about how the worst part of Black society (the sewer) is accepted as representative of all of us...namely Twista, Ludacris and Snoop.

This is a man with academic credentials up the ying yang (although I find they're the worse kind sometimes) who even wrote the supplementary book to the Eyes on the Prize documentary.

Read it for yourself below. I'ma wait to see what Al might say about O'Reilly's impressions.

From the September 19 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor:

O"REILLY: Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they've had a very, very tough go of it, and some of them can get past that, and some of them cannot. I don't think there's a black American who hasn't had a personal insult that they've had to deal with because of the color of their skin. I don't think there's one in the country. So you've got to accept that as being the truth. People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible]

"You call me that, I'm gonna be more successful." OK, it depends on the personality.
So it's there. It's there, and I think it's getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out: "Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it." Yes the only thing holding us back is our lack of work ethic.

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. I hope they spit in his food.

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. It was the same, and that's really what this society's all about now here in the U.S.A. There's no difference. There's no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment -- people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you're gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody's skin.
[...]
O'REILLY: No, no, I mean, I like that soul food. I had the meatloaf special. I had coconut shrimp. I had the iced tea. It was great.

WILLIAMS: Well, let me just tell you, the one thing I would say is this. And we're talking about the kids who still like this gangsta rap, this vile poison that I think is absolutely, you know, literally a corruption of culture. I think that what you've got to take into account that it's still a majority white audience -- young, white people who think they're into rebelling against their parents who buy this stuff and think it's just a kick. You know, it's just a way of expressing their anti-authoritarianism.

Why did you bring this up outta nowhere Juan? What does this hafta do with soul food? Does "gangsta rap" even exist anymore? Is it still the 90's?

O'REILLY: But it's a different -- it's a different dynamic, though.

WILLIAMS: Exactly right --

O'REILLY: Because the young, white kids don't have to struggle out of the ghetto. Funny, I know some g-h-e-t-t-o assed White kids who have done their share of strugglin' and actin' out in public.

WILLIAMS: Right, and also, I think they can have that as one phase of their lives.

O'REILLY: Yeah.

WILLIAMS: I think too many of the black kids take it as, "Oh, that's what it means to be authentically black. That's how you make money. That's how you become rich and famous and get on TV and get music videos." And you either get the boys or the girls. The girls think they have to, you know, be half-naked and spinning around like they're on meth in order to get any attention. It really corrupts people, and I think it adds, Bill, to some serious sociological problems, like the high out-of-wedlock birth rate because of this hypersexual imagery that then the kids adapt to some kind of reality. I mean, it's inauthentic. It's not in keeping with great black traditions of struggle and excellence, from Willie Mays to Aretha Franklin, but even in terms of academics, you know, going back to people like

Charles Drew or Ben Carson here, the neurosurgeon at [Johns] Hopkins [University]. That stuff, all of a sudden, is pushed aside. That's treated as, "You're a nerd, you're acting white," if you try to be excellent and black. While some of this is unfortunately true for some of the population, it is hardly true for everyone and has no bearing in this particular argument over our actions in restaurants. Again how did we get here to this topic?

O'REILLY: You know, and I went to the concert by Anita Baker at Radio City Music Hall, and the crowd was 50/50, black/white, and the blacks were well-dressed. And she came out -- Anita Baker came out on the stage and said, "Look, this is a show for the family. We're not gonna have any profanity here. We're not gonna do any rapping here." The band was excellent, but they were dressed in tuxedos, and this is what white America doesn't know, particularly people who don't have a lot of interaction with black Americans. They think that the culture is dominated by Twista, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg. Yeah, they don't know even though they came to the concert as what I can only assume, fans of Anita Baker. They knew something. And why was O'Reilly there anyway?

WILLIAMS: Oh, and it's just so awful. It's just so awful because, I mean, it's literally the sewer come to the surface, and now people take it that the sewer is the whole story --

Wow Juan, why don't you kiss O'Reilly's ass while your down there.

O'REILLY: That's right. That's right. There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming,

"M-Fer, I want more iced tea."

WILLIAMS: Please -- listen to the audio - insert giggling here!

O'REILLY: You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all.