Dana Bash Conducts The Most Cringe Interview On Race

Honestly, no one who showed their faces on that screen is in the position to discuss anything about race, other than to admit they're racist.
By Aliza Worthington — November 7, 2021

In what might be the cringiest few minutes on TV this morning, Dana Bash and Sen. Mark Warner attempted to discuss whether or not Democrats are "too woke" to win elections, as super-hip and with-it strategist, James Carville snarked we were, after some losses in Virginia. Bash began by playing Carville's "old man shaking fist at clouds" clip for Warner, to start them off.

Carville had opined about the reasons Democrats lost some of their races on Tuesday, "What went wrong was just stupid wokeness. Just defund the police lunacy, take Abraham Lincoln's name off of schools? People see that, and it's just really have a suppressive effect all across the country. The Democrats, some of these people need to go to a woke detox center or something."

Bash and Warner chuckled, as if to say, "Oh, you!"

Then Bash asked, "Are Democrats too woke, Senator?"

Can I just stop everyone right there? Please? Can someone inform Ms. Bash and Mr. Carville that white people should never, EVER utter the term "woke" to refer to one's awareness of systemic racism and bias? We can say, "I woke up from a nap so refreshed!" of "You woke up on time! Good job!" but we need to stop, for the love of all things holy, STOP referring to ourselves or others as "woke." It's not. our. word.

Furthermore, white people are not the arbiters of who are considered actually "woke." It was meant to be a word that referred to one's actual genuine awareness that one had privilege over others in this society. That one was trying to do better about one's own implicit bias and the racism with which one was raised. That it has become an insult, a pejorative is, in and of itself, problematic. It wasn't permitted to exist in the lexicon for more than five minutes in its intended form before we white people began to use it as an insult, because it's too unpleasant for us to have to examine our part in society's ills.

And now, we have Dana Bash, an anchor on CNN's Sunday morning news show, normalizing the use of that word as an insult. A bad thing. Shame on her. I mean, shame on Carville, too, though I've long thought his cranky analyses have outlived their usefulness. For Bash to warmly endorse such a bigoted approach is abhorrent.

As for Warner's answer, he avoided use of the word altogether, but also ignored the question itself, which was really, if translated into proper white racist newspersonspeak: "Have Democrats shown they care too much about racism and its impact on Black and Brown people?" to which the appropriate answer is, "No."

Warner first blathered on about not supporting "Defund the Police," but then said no schools in Virginia teach Critical Race Theory, which is the particular racial pot being stirred all across the country right now.

Bash interrupted him to say, "Can I stop you for a second? It's true it's not in the Virginia curriculum at all, but did Democrats miss a chance to signal to parents in particular that they understand their anxieties?" she asked. "I talked to Democratic candidates and others who say that they didn't really have a good answer to questions about children, and not only what they're being taught in schools, but the anxiety as we're coming out of the pandemic."

Here's how Warner answered:

"Dana, I think Glenn Youngkin touched a nerve blah blah blah the last 18 months through COVID than ever in our history. I do think we need to acknowledge that it's been hell for every parent living through COVID, disrupting their life. I think we need to thank our teachers, blah blah blah should be talking about is I think a lot of those kids and a lot of folks, frankly, that have been working in schools are going to need some mental health assistance blah blah blah hard choices this president has made about vaccines."

Here's how he SHOULD have answered.

"We DID miss an opportunity to show parents we understood their anxieties. Their anxieties are fueled by their racism. We didn't GIVE a good answer to questions about what was being taught in schools, but we HAD a good answer. The answer to their questions, to their anxieties, involves telling them the truth. Republicans are lying to them about what is being taught in schools about race. Republicans want to TEACH lies to children in schools about race, and Democrats should not be okay with that. Republicans want white people to be afraid of people who aren't white, and Democrats should not be okay with that. Republicans don't care how Black children feel in schools, and Democrats should not be okay with that. They only care about how white children feel, and that they not learn the truth about America's history of oppression, and Democrats should not be okay with that."

See how easy? Does any Democratic want to hire ME as their strategist?

Has Dana Bash ever asked a Republican if their party was too "Hitler-ish?"

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