Lindsey Lohan: unpleasant words from an unpleasant mind

I heard about it yesterday, and found it on Youtube today. The brilliance of Lindsey Lohan is stunning to behold I must say. If you have not heard about this I now present you with Lohan handing out a compliment.



The key moment in this conversation is the 13th through 19th seconds. In 6 seconds Lohan both states he thrill at an Obama win, and then insults him harshly. It’s so simple and obviously so common that Maria Menounos of Access Hollywood doesn’t even notice.

Colored. As in the defining word in Jim Crow laws and segregation that prevented Blacks from voting, or even sitting on a bus, for nearly 100 years.

I have a friend, who is 50, and he mentioned to me what she had said and asked why it was a big deal. He honestly had no idea though in several years I’ve never heard him utter the word once. For the benefit of others in the world, it is a big deal to many. NEVER call an African American colored.

That one word was used, along with the n-word in less polite circles, to describe African Americans. And it was meant as a derogatory term. It was a means of separating and belittling. It was meant as a way of inferring both difference and dislike.

Is it a hateful word? Not entirely, depending on the person that states it. But I can say that I have never heard the term uttered by anyone under 60 before. I’ve encountered diehard racists that never used the term, though they did use the n-word with frequency (while they had teeth). And in the years since 1970 the only reference I have been aware of for that usage is when someone is trying to be polite in public and does not want to use the n-word. It’s a tell that would be like jumping up and down at a poker table.

The fact that Lohan uses this term does not surprise me. I am sure that her circle of drug addicted, drunken friends are anything but the most enlightened souls. Often the most ignorant, stupid, small-minded, weak-willed, imbecilic and verbally constrained people are drunks, drug addicts, and/or racist. Which makes perfect sense when considering the crowd around Lohan.

But I did notice that Access Hollywood seems to be taking up for Lohan’s racial remark by stating

“We believe the word in question that Ms. Lohan used was unintelligible.”

Unintelligible? Hardly. I heard it a clear as a day. And it is not some kind of made up word out of the dictionary only Don King uses. It was very intelligible. And no one should be trying to obscure what she said.

I know that the NAACP has stated that they think the use of colored was

“…outdated and antiquated but not offensive.”

And I disagree. Not one friend I know, nor any person of color I have ever known would find her comment inoffensive. Perhaps if I were born in the highly racist 1950’s or earlier in America it wouldn’t matter. But I and most Black Americans alive today were not. Nor was she.

Is it racist? No. Is it racially insensitive and insulting, Yes. The mere fact that as America has become less racist the term has ceased being used is proof enough of that. One day the term Black may be as well. But right now, there is no reason why Lohan would use such a term without being in an environment that fosters and promotes negative stereotypical views of Blacks.

One thing is for sure, the fact that much of America didn’t blink an eye, like Maria Menounos and the editors of Access Hollywood, tells me that thinking of Black people as second-class and offensive still is as much a part of America as it was half a century ago.

President Obama is Black, and that one act did not change America’s racist heritage nor the racially charged problems of today.