I'd need to have heard the context, but to be honest, the second and third quotes actually sound like compliments. The attitude surrounding rap (the "gangsta" thing) *is* primarily a black attitude, which leads to the easy (and wrong!) assumption that it's the *only* black attitude. Those two quotes, it sounds like he's just trying to say that rap culture doesn't represent regular black people. I don't believe that Sharpton and Jackson are only about asking for positive discrimination and handouts - that's a simplistic and negative view - but if that *is* what you think about those guys then saying "blacks aren't looking for a handout and want to make it on their own terms" is also a positive statement.

Of course, both those statements should be bleeding obvious. But if you're on a talkshow, you might be dealing with some prat where it would be necessary to make those statements.

As for the first one, yes, it sounds not right. But maybe he's describing that epiphany moment where he *did* get it, having not really absorbed the situation before. I had exactly that moment myself. I'm a white Brit, I grew up in an all-white area, and everywhere I've lived there's been a large white majority. When I was working in Detroit a few years back, I went to the bicentenary events in the city centre. Great fun, good bands, lovely atmosphere. And then my mind just clicked, and I noticed for the first time that there, *I* was the "ethnic minority", and the situation was black folks treating white folks equitably instead of the other way round. For me with my background, it was like a Zen satori - the difference between intellectually thinking something and truly absorbing it. If that's the kind of experience that O'Reilly was describing, then more power to him.

As Mickey says, that probably does mean that he can't accurately report on black issues, because he won't know shit about black issues. Still, at least he'd know not to misrepresent the situation.

Graham.