Barbara Walter reveals that she had an affair with married Senator Edward Brooke who just happened to be the first Black person to be elected (by popular vote) to the US Senate (since Reconstruction). (The wording gets tricky on this fact.)
He also likes white women. A lot. He married one, slept with another while married to her and I have a strong hunch that his second and current wife is white.
He is a Republican. He's one of those Black Republicans that despite growing up in a deeply segregated south, didn't think his race was important. He never got called a nigger, so he never had a problem with white people (I understand that light-skinned Blacks experience racism, but have you seen this guy? He's pretty damn light. If I had the skin color of privilege, maybe I wouldn't be so angry either). He ran his campaigns refusing to define himself in terms of his race and more on his ideologies. (Sounds like some other mixed race Black guy I know....I just can't think of his name...or wait, wait: Shelby Steele or Alan Keyes).
He's a member of Alpha Phi Alpha and went to Howard. Black enough for that, but not enough to be deeply involved with the civil rights movement and not be a Republican and certainly to not mess with white women.
His colorblind rhetoric is the same rhetoric I hear white people use to defeat affirmative action measures. He was on NPR last year promoting his autobiography and he didn't say it directly, but he didn't think Obama or Clinton were good enough to run the country. He wouldn't directly voice his support for anyone really, but you'd think of all people, he'd give Obama a break. Or maybe that is his whole point: I don't want to vote for Obama just because he is Black. I just won't vote for him because he is a Democrat. But to talk about race as if we live in a post-race society, just aint gonna work. You know and I know that race is a social construct, but God knows I don't forget that I am Black, or think that the color of my skin and the texture of my hair don't matter.
But for the silky haired, light skinned Brooke who has received numerous accolades from Blacks, whites and Republicans, I guess it never really did. He disagreed with King on the Vietnam war. I hate to think what he thought about Malcolm, Huey or Angela.
His one saving grace: He was pro-choice. YES. He was a pro-choice Republican. I guess this was before Republicans were taken over by the Christian Right and maybe because at the time white women were all over the pro-choice movement. White women dig men who dig choice... AND he opposes the Iraq war.
All color stuff aside, it's just another story of an asshole politician who cheated on his wife.
Another great moment in Black History.
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