dubliner

crowth:

Shirley Schmidt: My name is Shirley Schmidt, I’m a senior partner at Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Thank you all for coming. It’s nice to see you all turn out when there’s hard news. Yesterday, my partner, Denny Crane, made some regrettable statements, the most offensive being when he told an African-American law student that he ‘didn’t sound black’. I know Denny Crane. He is not a bigot. When he used the word ‘articulate’, as I suspect Joe Biden used it, as I suspect our President used it, what he was attempting to convey was that he thought Mr Givens would play well with white corporate America. The simple but ugly truth is we all look for that. Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not, but we do. We have a primarily white client base, we hire associates we feel will best appeal to that base. Before you point your finger at us, I would invite the media to look at its own industry. Consider the criteria by which you choose your anchors. Denny Crane’s statement speaks not to his own racism but to a much more insidious one that exists in a white-collar society that prefers to take its blacks as it takes its coffee. With a little cream and sugar. I’m not proud of it, but until we confront that truth we will not change it. Thank you all for coming.

This is the only episode I’ve seen all the way through…