NPR Hounded for Calling Africa the 'Dark Continent'

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2008/03/01/npr-hounded-calling-africa-dark-continent ^

[chessplayer]

New NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard took up a flurry of complaints when veteran news anchor Jean Cochran told listeners President Bush was traveling to Africa, the "dark continent." They insisted NPR was sounding racist:

[TN4Liberty]

Cochran is quoted in the article: "Am I insensitive? I don't know how that could be since I didn't know there was anything to be sensitive about"

Isn't that sort of the definition of insensitive?

At least she didn't use the word "niggardly." Then she would have had two groups of uninformed viewers protesting her.

[hinckley buzzard]

The term has nothing to do with the skin color of its residents.

Yes. This rises to the intellectual level of the objection to the word "niggardly"

[Brilliant]

They forgot who their listeners are.

[Straight8]

When I was much younger, Africa was always called the dark continent, which lent an aura of mystery to it. Never, ever did I think it was because of the color of its citizens.
We will be pc’d into oblivion.
Jeez!

[Young Werther]

Or..a more PC term might be

"White Challenged!"

[xp38]

Just my impression but Australia seems just as dark but it only has a minuscule population in comparison to Africa.

[Leo Carpathian]

From now on I declare Africa to be African African continent.

[lmc12]

you’d think they called it Africa The Hussein Continent.

[Godwin1]

This is delicious!

[Recovering_Democrat]

Good Lord. That is what it has been called for years.

I despise NPR, I despise liberalism, but even I will defend their use of this phrase.

What friggin’ IDIOCY.

[Recovering_Democrat]

This is akin to the councilperson using the word "niggardly" and having to resign over it.

Utterly preposterous.

[AbeKrieger]

How about Melaninariffic.

We should all pay reparations immediately.

[MinuteGal]

NPR will never wake up to the fact that even its soulmate lefties, socialists and commies will kick sand in its face at every opportunity.

Years ago NPR tried to court black America by hiring convicted cop killer Mumia abu Jamal as a social commentator. This sick move was hastily cancelled due to a universal uproar, not the least among the disgusted being the fraternal orders of police and Sen. Bob Dole.

Now NPR is accused of being "racist" by the same bunch.....hah!

Lefties, socialists and commies, have you no shame?

Leni

[RichInOC]

A niggling attack, if ever I saw one.

[radiohead]

It’s still a “Dark Continent” in my opinion.

Yup. I just used the term in a class lecture to grad students to refer to researchers who were afraid to deal with ethnic groups with which they were unfamiliar. I'm of the colored gal persuasion myself, so maybe I get a pass. No one jumped up and called me a racist.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

New NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard took up a flurry of complaints when veteran news anchor Jean Cochran told listeners President Bush was traveling to Africa, the "dark continent." They insisted NPR was sounding racist...

Ok. So now it is no longer necessary to actually be a racist. One must only sound racist.

In other words, what the complainants are really saying is;

"I'm an ignorant fool who has insufficient education to be able to determine that the words you are using have a real meaning beyond what my knee-jerk interpretation is telling me. But that's ok...because I'm black. And don't you shake your head and roll your eyes at me, because..."

[spanalot]

It must have been taken the 3hrs that the generators were working in SA

[Bender2]

You know, Hitler's mouthpiece, Joseph Goebbels, always countered any objection to the Nazis modus operandi by calling it a complete and total lie.

Now, change 'lie' to 'racism,' and you have Obama's campaign and the whole Liberal Democrat political strategy in a nutshell.

Yet, they would call me a racists... for pointing this out.

Besides Obama Girl, there are... Obama Boys, too!

Islam, a Religion of Peace? No, it is a religion... of cutting up us nonbelievers into pieces.

If the Baptist... or Episcopalians called for all not in their sects be beheaded, would we still give them tax-exempt status--

And 1st Amendment... protection?

[discipler]

A lot of code language is acceptable due to Darwinian thought. The reference to it being “dark” is a reference to skin color or is it a reference to intellectual deficiencies? Africa, “the cradle of civilization”, is a cousin on the Charles Darwin evolutionary tree that did not evolve the same degree. The Aboriginese are the most “primitive” of men according to an old National Geographic. “Primitive” is code for being lower on the evolution chain and closer to our ape cousins. Darwinian theory makes discrimination more acceptable. Certainly that is not true of all Darwinist, but the implication is clearer to others. It is my belief that this is another example of “science” hindering knowledge. Evolutionary psychology that says men rape to preserve their genetic line is utterly ridiculous, yet in some circles it is given a degree of respectability.

[Doohickey]

At least they didn’t call anybody “niggardly”.