Cornyn Lectures Reid On African-Americans

This is almost too ridiculous to believe. Texas Senator John Cornyn actually thinks he has the right to lecture Majority Leader Reid about how to treat African-Americans. That sounds to me like the blind leading the slightly visually-impaired.

Senator Reid did make a stupid and bone-headed statement back in 2008 about candidate Barack Obama. It was exposed in a new book that Senator Reid said Obama could be a successful candidate because he had speech patterns "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one." Obviously, Senator Reid doesn't have nearly enough African-American friends or he would have known better than to say that.

What was he thinking? Surely he doesn't think all African-Americans naturally speak ebonics or in the language of Hip-Hop. African-Americans are just like the rest of us -- they speak like the people they are around.

I grew up in the country talking like a hick. I also graduated from college. I speak just as good English as anyone, but when I get back into a country setting I can slip back into that way of talking very quickly. It's just a natural thing for humans to start talking like the people they are around. When I was younger, I spent some time in Canada and it just took a couple of weeks for Canadian speech patterns to start showing up in my speech.

African-Americans are no different. I've never noticed the educated people I've been around as talking "different" from anyone else -- regardless of their color or place of origin. However, Senator Reid has apologized sincerely for his bone-headed mistake and I really don't think he meant to hurt anyone's feelings.

But Senator Cornyn does have a lot of gall to preach to Senator Reid about how to treat African-Americans. Cornyn said, "As we await his explanation, Sen. Reid should do the right thing...and step down as majority leader." First, Senator Reid does not owe any explanation to Cornyn. Second, Cornyn has no right to ask the majority leader to step down -- that is a matter for Democrats to decide.

At least Senator Reid has a good record of voting for issues that are important to African-Americans and other minorities. Senator Cornyn does not, and he has no right to set his lily-white personage up as a spokesman for African-American interests. Just ask the Black Caucus how many times Cornyn has voted with them, and I'll bet their answer would be zero.

Senator Cornyn is a big enough embarrassment to the citizens of Texas without setting himself up as an authority on things he knows nothing about.