Mr Uncle Leroy
All Star
- Columnist Richard Cohen wrote that many would have to fight a physical reaction when seeing the mixed-race political family
- Bill de Blasio is married to Chirlaine McCray, who is African American and was previously a lesbian
- De Blasio was elected to be the next mayor of New York City in a landslide
- Cohen has defended his column, saying that he is not racist but he was expressing the opinions of some members of the Tea Party
Writer Richard Cohen has since argued that he was in fact trying to accuse certain members of the Tea Party of holding out-of-date views.
'People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?),' he wrote in the column.
'This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.'
Many media outlets reacted with outrage, with some like The Huffington Post, The Atlantic and Slate calling for the 72-year-old to be fired.
Esquire's political writer Charles Pierce wrote a piece titled 'Stop this man before he writes something again,' while Rebecca Schoenkopf titled her Wonkette post 'So this is the one that is finally going to get Richard Cohen Fired from Washington Post, right? Right?'
The Daily Beast's Jamelle Bouie went further: 'It’s Cohen who feels disgusted when he sees interracial couples, and he’s hoisting that view on social conservatives as if they’re not his own. '
Slate reporter Matt Yglesias wrote that Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of Amazon.com who recently purchased The Washington Post, should consider whether or not it makes business sense for 'the daily paper in a majority-black city' to be 'regularly publishing racist op-ed columns'.
A look at the data proves that there is little support for Cohen's theory, as a recent Gallup poll reported that 87 per cent of Americans approve of interracial marriages.
Unnerving? Cohen argues that a portion of the Tea Party will have to fight off a physical reaction from the sight of the de Blasio family, seen here hugging after Bill was elected as the next mayor of New York City
Even fellow columnists at his own paper, like Ezra Klein, took to their blogs to contextualize- and criticize- the points made by their colleague.
'Given the context of the column, I think that Cohen is using "conventional views" to mean "culturally conservative views." But insofar as "conventional" means "based on or in accordance with what is generally done or believed," acceptance of interracial marriage is overwhelmingly conventional,' Klein wrote.
'And note that the current president of the United States is the biracial child of a white woman married to a black man. America has come a long way.'
Cohen spoke out repeatedly on Tuesday in an effort to explain his opinion- but not to retract his original statement.
'The column is about Tea Party extremism and I was not expressing my views, I was expressing the views of what I think some people in the Tea Party held,' Cohen later told The Huffington Post.
'I don't think everybody in the Tea Party is like that, because I know there are blacks in the Tea Party. So they're not all racist, unless I'm going to start doing mind reading about why those black people are there.'
He went on to say that 'not a single one of my editors-- and believe me, they're super sensitive to this sort of stuff' had a problem with the column.
Full court press: All of the members of the de Blasio family were heavily featured in campaign ads (seen together on election day after Chiara flew in as a surprise from college in California)
Modern family: Seen here in an undated family photo, the de Blasios have been the subject of racial criticism before but the voters of New York support Bill's progressive platform and voted for him en masse
This was not even Cohen's first brush with controversial racial issues this month, as he wrote a hot-button piece about the movie 12 Years A Slave. He also wrote a column this summer from the point of view of George Zimmerman, defending the neighborhood watchman's initial suspicion of a young black teenager.
Bill de Blasio, the city's former public advocate, was elected to take over after Mayor Michael Bloomberg leaves office.
De Blasio beat his Republican competitor in a landslide, winning 73 per cent of the vote compared to Joe Lhota's 24 per cent.
First couple: Bill de Blasio and his wife Chirlaine McCray are liberal Democrats, and he will be the first Democrat to lead the country's biggest city in over two decades
His family played a major part in his campaign, with both of his children- daughter Chiara with her trademark rosebud headband and son Dante with his distinctive afro- starring in their own commercials.
His poet wife Chirlaine McCray, who has previously written an article about her time as a lesbian before meeting Bill, is politically active and expected to play a major role in the administration.
This is not the first time that racism has come up in relation to the de Blasio campaign, as Mayor Bloomberg made a disputed claim in an interview during the months leading up to the election, saying that the candidate was effectively using his family to earn votes in minority communities. De Blasio denied the claim, saying that he is simply proud of their close family and they were helping in the campaign because they are all actively involved in one another's lives.
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1st thing that popped in my head