Washington Post's Richard Cohen can't keep foot out of mouth on race
OPINION - Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen said it’s not fair that people are calling him racist because of a controversial line he wrote about Bill de Blasio earlier this week...
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen said it’s not fair that people are calling him racist because of a controversial line he wrote about Bill de Blasio earlier this week. But what’s actually not fair is that Richard Cohen still has a column in the influential newspaper.
The column in question was about New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Tea Party conservatives, but for whatever reason, Cohen decided to throw in a few remarks about New York City’s mayor-elect Bill de Blasio”
People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.
After the fallout in the media (from Twitter to blogs to his fellow Washington Post colleagues), Cohen told the Huffington Post that he believes that Tea Partiers with a “gag reflex” at the sight of interracial marriage are indeed racist and he said he could have picked a better word—presumably he meant a better word than “conventional.”
If Cohen were just some hack with a random blog, this would not be an issue, but Cohen is a journalist at the esteemed Washington Post with a career that spans over 30 years and he has been nominated for the coveted Pulitzer Prize multiple times. He knows a thing or two about word choice, so to play the “Why are people so upset with me?” game is ridiculous.
If Cohen meant to say that having a gag reflex was something a racist person would have, then he should have said that. Plain and simple. The definition of “conventional’ according to Merriam-Webster:
used and accepted by most people : usual or traditional
: of a kind that has been around for a long time and is considered to be usual or typical
: common and ordinary : not unusual
By that definition, Cohen was saying that having a gag reflex towards interracial marriage is common, ordinary and accepted by most people. It is true that most people marry within their own race, but to have the urge to vomit at the sight of interracial romance? That’s not typical and it certainly isn’t acceptable.
But Cohen is no stranger to racially insensitive commentary.
Just last week, Cohen wrote about the film 12 Years a Slave and remarked that the film showed him that slavery was bad. No, seriously. Here’s an exact quote: “I had to wonder why I could not recall another time when I was so shockingly confronted by the sheer barbarity of American slavery. Instead, beginning with school, I got a gauzy version. I learned that slavery was wrong, yes, that it was evil, no doubt, but really, that many blacks were sort of content. Slave owners were mostly nice people — fellow Americans, after all — and the sadistic Simon Legree was the concoction of that demented propagandist, Harriet Beecher Stowe.”
Slow clap for Richard Cohen discovering in 2013 that black people were really sad during slavery times and slave owners could be mean. Cohen also made waves earlier this year in a column about Trayvon Martin when he sympathized with the suspicions of Martin’s shooter George Zimmerman and noted that lots of people are afraid of young black males. He shared a similar sentiment in the 1980s in a piece about jewelry store owners in New York City refusing to allow young black men into their establishments. Editors ending up apologizing for that piece.
Over the years, Cohen has written many other ridiculous things, which Mother Jones gloriously documented. This de Blasio controversy is not a one-time whoopsie about word choice and poor editing. This is merely the latest in a series of pieces by Cohen that create a very clear picture of an intolerant and willfully ignorant man. Either that or this is fancy click-bait for the Washington Post.
I’m all for divergent opinions being published, but instead of having to issue retractions, apologies and “what I meant to say was” clarifications, just do it “right” the first time. Cohen knows how to write words that accurately reflect his views, so he should do that and stick with it. If he is unwilling or unable to do that or if the Washington Post is not a-okay with cowardly, racist rants couched in slick syrupy language, perhaps there will be an opening for a columnist soon over at WaPo.
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