Eugene Robinson: O'Reilly's statement was 'casually racist'

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson joined Keith Olbermann on Countdown to discuss Bill O'Reilly's latest outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease (via Media Matters).



ROBINSON: Hi, Keith, and let me warn you upfront, I'm -- even though I'm black, I'm going to speak standard English tonight. So I don't want you to be surprised or shocked, and I'm actually going to think for myself too, which -- I know you'll be stunned. But -- I mean, this is -- this is incredible, but this is O'Reilly, this is the guy.

OLBERMANN: And it's textbook prejudice. I mean, he expected something because of the color of people's skin. Doesn't matter if he was pleasantly surprised or had his prejudice reinforced. Is this the most insidious part of this that he doesn't know that that is racism, by definition?

ROBINSON: Well, you know I'm not going to go inside of Bill O'Reilly's head -- you know, is he racist, what does he know? You know, all I know is that it was, at best, a casually racist remark. But you know, what really ticks me off is that when you say that, when you point that out, you know, immediately you get charged by O'Reilly and cohorts with, you know, you're the thought police, you're the thought Gestapo, you're the word Nazis, you're interfering with free speech, and somehow cutting off an honest debate about race. Well, tell me what in the year 2007 is debatable about whether or not black people can use a knife and fork. I don't think that's debatable at this point.