Ideological prejudice

I was really late to this story. Late last month Raffi Williams was in a twitter match with senior editor of Ebony magazine Jamilah Lemieux. What is displayed here are strong opinions especially on Ms. Lemieux's part.

It's bad enough when she has strong opinions against Black conservatives, it was made worse because she mistaked Raffi Williams as another white conservative telling her what to do. For this exchange Ebony magazine was forced to apologize for the comments of their senior editor on twitter.

Since Mr. Williams works for the Republican National Committee, it made it much easier for RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to get involved. Also noted is that Raffi, is the son of FOX News contributor Juan Williams who is decidely liberal in his own views.

Either way, we see how media types get their jobs. Often if you're a person with a platform in this case anything from a print magazine magnified by social media it's very easy to spout off with strong opinions. Sometimes depending upon the ferociousness of the dialogue things are said that could be used to drive controversy. That's what happened in this case Williams and Chairman Priebus were able to turn this into a controversy.

That's not to say that what Ms. Lemieux expressed isn't often uncommon amongst a certain segment of Blacks. She was obviously very hostile to Williams thanks to his political affiliation and this match started off with her spouting off about a proposed Black conservative publication to be started by neurosurgeon Ben Carson.

I was reminded of this incident via the Field Negro blog who referred to this incident in this way: "'Ideological prejudice'? Yes. 'Racial prejudice'? Not so much." That comment was directed at Priebus who refered to this twitter match as much as an ideological one as it was racial.