Singer compared Powell to a slave out to please the master
From the "None of this would even be newsworthy if both these folks were white" Department, comes this beauty. Apparently, in exercising his right as an American to toss ill-considered comments into the public domain, Harry Belafonte has compared Colin Powell to a plantation slave trying to please his master. Ouch....
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that comments made by singer Harry Belafonte comparing Powell to a slave out to please his master were "unfortunate."
In a scathing radio interview Tuesday in San Diego, Belafonte blasted Powell in racially charged comments that compared the secretary of state to a plantation slave who moves into the slave owner's house and says only things that will please his master. Belafonte is a longtime political activist.
Both the singer and the secretary of state are black men of Jamaican descent.
"There's an old saying," Belafonte said. "In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and [there] were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him.
"Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."
In an interview taped for Wednesday night's edition of "Larry King Live" on CNN, Powell responded: "I think it's unfortunate that Harry used that characterization. I'm very proud to be serving my nation once again. I'm very proud to be serving this president.
"If Harry had wanted to attack my politics, that was fine. If he wanted to attack a particular position I hold, that was fine," Powell said. "But to use a slave reference, I think, is unfortunate and is a throwback to another time and another place that I wish Harry had thought twice about using."
Well, I would agree that the choice of words may be unfortunate, but the sentiment that generated them may be a different story. I'm not going to interject myself into a racial debate (I don't have Larry Simon's drive to be controversial), but I do think Belafonte has some valid points to make. Of course, it would have been a lot more effective if he'd stuck to politics and left race relations out of it. Of course, if he HAD done that, would anyone have even taken notice of his comments? Doubtful, eh?
