‘I’m actually black’: Awkwardness ensues when journalist calls radio host Jay Smooth white

Posted in Articles, Interviews, Media Archive, United States, Videos on 2015-03-19 01:28Z by Steven

‘I’m actually black’: Awkwardness ensues when journalist calls radio host Jay Smooth white

Raw Story
2015-03-18

David Ferguson

In one of the most cringe-worthy moments of television you will ever see, on Tuesday night’s All In with Chris Hayes, activist Nancy Giles of CBS Sunday Morning accused hip hop critic and cultural commentator Jay Smooth of being a white man who is trying to “code switch,” i.e., talk “black” to reach the rap audience.

Smooth — who was born John Randolph to a black father and a white mother — gently explained to Giles that he is, in fact, black.

The discussion began innocently enough, with Hayes and his two guests discussing Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s decree that all U.S. baristas should write the words “Race together” in Sharpie on their paper cups in order to foster a dialogue about race with their customers.

But after watching Smooth’s clip “How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist,” Giles took it upon herself to comment on Smooth’s “co-opting blackness.”…

Read the entire article here. Watch the interview here.

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