In a surprising but valid attack today, National Journal‘s serial tweeter and occasional political writer Ron Fournier accuses Jamelle Bouie, a black writer for Slate, of using a racial slur.
The hullaballoo began with a story Fournier, who is Caucasian, published Tuesday about what kind of tone President Obama might take in tonight’s State of the Union speech and what the ramifications of that would be. In short: What are the president’s motives? In pretty typical inside-the-Beltway fashion, Fournier offers a primer on how to listen to the speech.
Excerpts from Fournier’s story:
Enter Jamelle Bouie, who sees most things through some deformed prism of race. He took to Twitter to offer a racially-tinged interpretation of Fournier’s words. He expects to get away with it because he’s black.
For starters, Bouie disliked his interpretation of what moderate Democrats were initially drawn to in an Obama presidency and what they actually received.
“Even for Fournier, this is dishonest,” he began.
Followed up with: “Is this a real thing Fournier wrote?”
Bouie wrote, “This is the dumbest thing I’ve read this week and I spent 30 minutes yesterday reading stupid MLK Day tweets.” He added, Honestly, most of this list of questions can be boiled down to ‘Does Obama sound uppity, or nah?'”
Fournier never used the word “uppity” or anything like it. This is when he rightfully accused Bouie of racism.
Bouie said Fournier’s reaction took a “predictable turn.”
But Bouie, after a little race baiting, appears to be moving on with his day. “And now I return to doing actual work and honestly feeling a bit bad about being mean on the internet,” he wrote.