Wale, a Washington, D.C.-born rapper, blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), saying his “crusade” against the Redskins name was hypocritical and started just to make a “bigger name” for himself.
“Senator Reid got a lot to say about other ppl bein racist . But I did a lil research . He sketchy,” Wale Tweeted on Friday.
Wale said Reid is trying to “use racism” to make a “bigger name” for himself. He said it was wrong that the “same dude” that referred to Obama as a “light-skinned” African American Reid with “no Negro dialect” is all of a sudden a “crusader” for racial justice.
On Wednesday, Reid was among 50 senators who signed a letter to the NFL urging the league to change the Redskins name. Invoking Donald Sterling’s racism, they wrote that the “time to act is now.”
“Today, we urge you and the National Football League to send the same clear message as the NBA did: that racism and bigotry have no place in professional sports,” they wrote. “It’s time for the NFL to endorse a name change for the Washington, D.C. football team.”
Reid has also predicted that the Redskins would change their name within the next three years.
“I have 22 tribal organizations in Nevada,” Reid told the New York Times. “They are not mascots. They are human beings. And this term Redskins is offensive to them.”
— Wale Folarin (@Wale) May 23, 2014
" layout="responsive" width="600" height="480">As Breitbart Sports reported:
Reid apologized for the comments, which were in Game Change. Mainstream media journalist Marc Ambinder was the first to uncover Reid’s remarks in the book when he discovered an early copy of the book at a D.C. book store. Ambinder published the excerpt below in 2010. And he probably is responsible for giving the book, which also had plenty of fictitious spin about the 2008 presidential election from campaign consultants who did not want to be blamed for the loss, much of the initial hype and buzz that eventually led to a franchise for the two permanent political class writers. Here is the excerpt:
He was wowed by Obama’s oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama — a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one,” as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama’s race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination.
Photo: Redskins