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Tavis Smiley: Obama Lectures Blacks, Jokes With Whites
Tuesday, December 9, 2014 07:53 AM
By: Greg Richter
Talk show host Tavis Smiley criticized President Barack Obama for his two very different TV appearances Monday — one on Black Entertainment Television and other on Comedy Central.
"With all due respect to our president, Barack Obama, black folk don’t need lectures on Black Entertainment Television," Smiley said on Fox News Channel's "Hannity."
"You go to Black Entertainment Television, Mr. President — respectfully — to lecture black folk, and then you’re wrong — respectfully — when you tell them that these things take time."
Smiley pointed out that Obama has a bust of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in his office, and King wrote a book on the civil rights struggle called "Why We Can't Wait."
Smiley also was unhappy that Obama told BET that the racial problems of today can't be compared with the struggles of 50 years ago.
"Tell that to the parents of these kids who have been gunned down in America’s streets. It is open season on black men, and it is in many ways as bad as it was 50 years ago," Smiley said.
He also hit Obama for doing comedy on "The Colbert Report" on the same day.
"Why go to BET and give black folk a lecture, but go to Stephen Colbert and tell jokes?" Smiley said. "I don’t get that."
