a decade ago, before Joy Reid was a star on MSNBC, Ms Reid was a balogger and writer for the Miami Herald. Now that she is in the public eye, a Twitter user Jamie_Maz, Reid has unearthed blog posts that paint Reid as prejudiced against gay people. The posts included now politically incorrect rants calling former Florida governor Charlie Crist“Miss Charlie” and sarcastically using the tags “gay politicians” and “not gay politicians” — despite the fact that the twice-married, heterosexual man has never come-out as gay. Reid went on to spread the crackpot conspiracy theory that Crist was actually a closeted gay man who refused to come out for fear that his sexual orientation would hurt his political career. Additionally, the AM Joy host claimed Crist’s marriages to women were part of an elaborate cover up. As bad as the conspiracy theory is in itself, Reid did not just suggest Cris is gay — she assumed he wA gay and proceeded to attack now Congressman (and since then minted Democrat) by calling out: “Miss Charlie, Miss Charlie. Stop pretending, brother. It’s okay that you don’t go for the ladies,” wrote Reid in a 2007 post. In another, Reid wrote, “Now that he’s married to a girl, Charlie Crist is being sought out for all KINDS of good stuff… [The GOP] are wooing Miss Charlie to run.” One of the more disturbing examples of Reid’s bigotry is her claim that Crist spent his honeymoon checking-out men and dreading physical relations with his wife. “I can just see poor Charlie on the honeymoon, ogling the male waiters and thinking to himself, ‘god, do I actually have to see her naked…?’” She wrote. The same blog post included a joke about Crist having sex with Senator John McCain of Arizona — who she claims is the reason the former Florida governor got married to another woman in the first place, as it would somehow help him become McCain’s 2008 running mate. These attacks on Crist led Reid to share her opinions on why gay men stay in the closet, writing, “When a gay politician gets married, it usually indicates that he is highly ambitious, and desires to put himself in a position to move up the power ladder.” These homophobic remarks and anti-gay jokes were spread throughout 12 of Reid’s blog posts — in which shes uses the term “Miss Charlie” a total of 17 times — and were all written when the pundit was in her late 30s or early 40 years, lest anyone chalk this up to youth. The Reid Report blog no longer exists, but its articles can be accessed using the internet archiving service the Wayback Machine. While Reid received backlash from many of her critics for these posts, but she may have gained some new fans as the alt-right 4Chan forum /Pol/ heaped praise on her. “Joy Reid is one of us,” wrote an internet poster on the hateful message board. Ironically, Reid is infamous for slamming anyone who dares to criticize her political views by calling them a bigot, as she frequently refers to Bernie Sanders supporters and other leftists as sexists or racists. Though, this latest example of hypocrisy shouldn’t surprise anyone as she has a history of doing exactly what she attacks others for doing. (text adapted from post on Medialite by Caleb Ecarma.}
The Politically Correct Police on the left and the right are attacking MSNBC host Joy Reid
Reid, one of my favorite commentators, is doing her best to respond. “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things because they are completely alien to me but I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me,” she said. “I have not been exempt from being cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for. I own that. I get it. And for that I am truly, truly sorry.”
Whether the posts are accurate or not, Joy Reid deserves far more respect for her own life experiences. Many black families are very religious and their religion is not opposed to gay behavior. How many people raised in that world do nto get taken aback by two men or two women kissing? Reid says her views have evolved with age.
“Especially for trans people I feel like I should have known better than to ever write in a way to make fun of or make light of that pain and experience even a decade ago when the country was in a very different place, but I cannot take any of that back,” she said. “I can only say that the person I am now is not the person I was then.”
As for Charlie Chris, isn’t that a very different matter? Hopefully today his sex life is HIS issue and really of no interest to anyone who is not themselves a pervert.
My own bias is against her critics, especially those on the left. In an era of Trump, the ohso goody goody folks who criticize Reid disgust me by their intolerance. Even iof she were uncomfortable around gay people, is that so bad? There is huge difference between knowing bias and the practice of bigotry.
This difference extends to many areas of human behavior. I have many biases. For example, I find the Christian ritual of communion distasteful. The idea of eating flesh, perhaps especially deified flesh or even symbolic flesh is, to me. barbaric. I feel the same way about the institution of celibacy in the priesthood and nunnery. I need to work on these biases and, over my life, I have done that. I do not remember ever writing any sarcasm about Catholics, but if I had why should’t I be given credit for my own growth?
Funny think about me and gay people, I have never been really conscious of private sexual behavior as anything but just that private. I still do not understand why I should care. But. unlike Joy Reid, I grew up in a liberal Jewish home. We had different biases to overcome!