Reply #38: Well that was taken wildly out of context

[Prism]

Walsh referred to Perry as a professional friend. I have "work friends" who I wouldn't put on the same level as my personal friends. They're colleagues, people I get along with, share meals with, work with on professional issues, people I may be enormously fond of. But they're not the ones I'd run to with, for example, family problems.

I think Walsh's use of that term was exceedingly clear, and Perry's defensive broadside against it (and egregious reading into it as Walsh saying "I have black friends") incredibly unfair and beneath her.

I respect Perry enormously, and I'm going to see her speak in Oakland next month. But she wrote herself into a corner, I think, and muddied the discussion on race by picking an ill-thought out example.

Two things can be true at the same time here. Perry could have used a poor example of liberal racism by not really understanding fully how progressives reacted to Clinton (which Walsh delineates nicely), and there can be a segment of liberal America that is treating President Obama through a privileged, race-informed lens.

These things can both be true.

Perry's not acquitting herself well with this response. It's only going to make further discussion of this particular issue impossible.