Carl Jeffers Can Talk For As Long As He Likes If He Keeps Making So Much Sense

Imus was not surprised that Carl "Two Question" Jeffers, when asked to provide his five favorite songs, instead gave at least fifteen. But they were great songs, featuring legends like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. Also great today were Jeffers's points about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's so-called "racist" remark about President Obama.

Jeffers, a political commentator, took a breath and began, saying he had four points he wanted to make. It felt more like fourteen.

Reid's comment, that Obama's light skin tone and lack of "Negro" dialect made him more elect-able, was not invalid, in Jeffers's view. He believes Obama's fluid transition from speaking like a South Side of Chicago-style preacher one minute to the editor of the Harvard Law Review the next made him more appealing to voters.

As for his complexion, Jeffers said Obama would hardly be the first African-American politician with lighter skin to gain public office. He rattled off names — former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder, former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Brook, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and others — of some who came before.

"Part of it is racism," he said of the tendency to elect African-Americans who, as he put it, "more resemble" white people. Another part of it is what Jeffers called "a caste system of skin color" that existed within the black community itself until the 1950s.

"Blacks have now moved past that," he said. "But many whites have not."

Jeffers criticized the media's approach to the Reid story; they have routinely called it a "crisis," "meltdown," or "bombshell," words that Jeffers finds counterproductive.

"Once the media leads into the story, they focus on, okay, so how do we get past this? When can we put this behind us?" said Jeffers. "Don, we don't need to put this behind us. This is part of what we need to be having conversations about."

He acknowledged the existence not of a double standard, but of a "different standard" applied when a Democrat says something racist versus when a Republican does the same.

"If you make racial comments about me to a friend of yours, but you have spent all of your life helping me to get ahead, then when I hear about those comments I'm going to be more forgiving, more understanding," Jeffers said. "That's the Democratic side."

He continued, "On the Republican side, if you have said the same thing but you have spent all of your life keeping me back, then I'm going to be less forgiving."

Imus applauded Jeffers's excellent analysis of the issue, but divulged an unfortunate instance of black-on-black crime here on the Imus in the Morning program.

"My Executive Producer Tom Bowman is in my ear saying, 'Hey Carl, take a breath!'"

-Julie Kanfer