Mr. Blow and the 'Minstrel Show'

Over the weekend we highlighted Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times about his infiltration of the Grand Prairie, Tex., Tea Party. We questioned why he even bothered attending the event considering that he never interviewed anyone there and seemed to have reached his conclusions about the Tea Party after reading his own paper’s poll on them.

This morning, Laura Ingraham picked up where we left off and grilled Mr. Blow on her nationally syndicated radio program. One of the reasons we love Laura is that she rarely lets guests get away with obfuscation or ducking a direct question. This exchange is particularly enlightening:

[audio:https://media.breitbart.com/media/cdn/bigjournalism/files/2010/04/Blow.mp3]

Laura: What was the worst display of overt racism that you witnessed.

Charles: I didn’t say I had witnessed any overt…

Laura: You called it a minstrel show, Charles. Those are kind of loaded terms, don’t you think?

Charles: Did I say that I had witnessed any overt racism…

Laura: What’s a minstrel show?

[youtube 3zj6o_DZfSw nolink]

Mr. Blow then tried to bring up an interview with Michael Steele in GQ magazine for some reason but Laura kept him on topic and read his sentence back to him on the air referring to a minstrel show and then asked:

Laura: What is an acceptable minstrel show then, a non-racist minstrel show?

Charles: That is a ridiculous question. What does that even mean?

Laura: Actually it’s a good question and it points out the absurdity of your column because you would have written this column regardless of what you saw.

Charles: You’re really a… are you serious? Is that a real question?

Laura: In other words you can’t answer the question.

Let’s help Mr. Blow understand how he’s been owned here by Ms. Ingraham.

Question: What overt racism did you see?

Answer: I did not say I witnessed any overt racism.

Question You called it a “minstrel show,” is there such a thing as a non-racist “minstrel show”

Answer: That’s a ridiculous question.

No Mr. Blow. What is ridiculous is your failure to own up to the loaded, freighted language you used in your Times column. Alfonzo Rachel, whom you singled out in your column and in your interview with Ms. Ingraham, was a part of the “Minstrel Show” you attended. Mr. Rachel’s political positions are certainly worthy of an intellectual debate, but his motivations and personal story are not the stuff of “Minstrel Shows” and if you had bothered to approach him and talk to him that evening instead of leaving without engaging your soon-to-be targets in a respectful exchange of ideas, you might have learned that.

But, further investigation shows that we were right to suggest that Mr. Blow had pre-determined his opinion of the Tea Party event. What were his contemporaneous thoughts while at the Tea Party, and the next day while writing his column? Well, thanks to the magic of Twitter, we now have a pretty good idea. Here are just some of his contemporaneous Tweets as the evening unfolded:

• More diverse at my tea party than the ones you see on tv 3:00 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Oh wait, most of those people work here at the stadium. My bad. 3:05 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• I should have figured that out earlier because when I approached the gate the greeter ask me if I was working tonight. Priceless. Yes, I am! 3:15 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Got a frontrow seat right in front of the stage. Awesome! 3:28 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Had to get off that front row. They asked people to point out “infiltrators”. Oops, did I do that? 4:36 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• In box seats now with handsome young black couple and their son. I’m so curious. 4:39 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• There are so many signs that say “I am not a racist.” Thou does protest too much methinks. 4:51 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Speakers like a Benetton commercial: black, hispanic, even Vietnamese. They’re going deep. 4:55 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Now they have home-schooled black kids speaking. Where am I? Seriously! 5:03 PM Apr 15th via mobile web
• Back from the Tea Party. OMG! Where to begin? Oh wait, I have to save it for the column. Sorry. See you on Saturday. 7:44 PM Apr 15th via web
• Some of the people I talked to were nice, but a problem with the America has always be the abiding of the wicked by the good. 6:37 PM Apr 16th via web

Mr. Blow, you’ve had a little while to think about the “ridiculous question” and we’re still waiting for an answer. Let me rephrase it: You described the Tea Party in Grand Prairie as a “Minstrel Show.” Can you please tell us what racism you saw there to lead you to that conclusion, or did you mean some sort of “non-racist” minstrel show?

We’ll wait for your answer. If you’d like, you can “Tweet” it.