Did Ballentine Just Call Williams an Uncle Tom?

I have no idea why FOX News political commentator Juan Williams is defending Rush Limbaugh, perhaps the most divisive, hateful person in American media today. I'm not sure why Williams is letting FOX News use him in the same way Armstrong Williams has always trotted out to defend conservative issues. (It's hard out there for a journalist.)

However, I do know that he does not deserve to be told to "go back to the porch," as radio talk show host Warren Ballentine said during a debate about Limbaugh last week.

The comments were made by Ballentine during a discussion with Williams on the 'O'Reilly Factor' about Limbaugh being dropped from a bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams football team. Williams and Ballentine disagreed about whether the 'Barack the Magic Negro' song that Rush Limbaugh played was "racial."

BILL O'REILLY: The reason that Limbaugh is not going to be able to buy in to the NFL is because a bunch of made-up stuff became legend, and he got hammered.

WARREN BALLANTINE: Okay, we won't look at the made-up stuff. Let's look at him playing 'Barack the Magic Negro,' and we're going to say that's just funny, that's just a joke, that's not racial either. It is racial to real black people.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Hey, Warren, you were saying my argument was a red herring. Maybe you should do some research. Go back and find out that it was an article written by a black person, headlined 'Barack the Magic Negro.'

BALLANTINE: He made it a song and played it on his show.

WILLIAMS: So what? He was making fun of it.

BALLANTINE: You can go back to the porch, Juan. You can go back. It's Okay.

O'REILLY: All right guys, good debate. Good, spirited debate.
Despite the false, racist quotes being attributed to Limbaugh in recent days, he has said plenty of terrible, divisive things.

A few years ago, Limbaugh said that Donovan McNabb, one of the most talented quarterbacks in the NFL, was being pumped up solely because he was black. Limbaugh also called Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor a "reverse racist" because of her "wise Latina" comments.

And those are the tame ones. How about this comment about Obama: "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles ... because his father was black."

And this one: "The government's been taking care of [young blacks] their whole lives."

Taste this for dessert: Obama's nomination "goes back to the fact that nobody had the guts to stand up and say no to a black guy."

Make no mistake about it, Limbaugh has tapped in to the worst parts of this country and used it for his own financial gain. He's wealthy enough to bid on a professional football team. But for Ballentine to tell Williams to go "back to the porch," which is essentially the same as calling him a house Negro or an Uncle Tom--perhaps the worst slur you can say to an African American man--simply puts him on the same level as Limbaugh. Someone once called me an Uncle Tom, because I went to college and had a job working for "the Man" at a newspaper.

Ballentine has backed off of his comments a bit on his online radio show.

Boy, they're hitting me up on Twitter, boy. These white folks...call Warren Ballentine out! He told Juan Williams to go back to the porch! They're mad, those conservatives. ' How dare you get on our Negro who is defending us! Let me tell everybody who is a conservative who is listening to the show right now: Rush Limbaugh has created a perception of being racially divisive. I have every right to say that. Now, if you want to take what I said about Juan Williams as racial, you go right ahead. All I said was he could go back to the porch. I didn't call him a house Negro. I said he could go back to the porch. Now if you took it as such, then that means you view him as that.

Ballentine is right about most of his comments. Limbaugh is racially divisive, however, using the words "porch," "Uncle Tom" and "house negro" in relation to a black man mean one thing and one thing only.

Despite the fact that Limbaugh's comments are indefensible, Williams, as foolish as he sounds, has the right to defend them without being called names. That's the easy way out. Ballentine could have countered Williams' comments simply by going down the considerably lengthy list of Limbaugh's horrendous comments.

Here's one he could have used:

Limbaugh on minorities: "The days of them not having any power are over, and they are angry."

Ballentine deserves a chance to go back on FOX. Limbaugh and O'Reilly aren't banned from television for their terrible comments. Williams deserves to be taken to task, but let's not stoop to Limbaugh's level.

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