A large chunk of MSNBC host Joy-Ann Reid’s career has been devoted to calling out perceived racism and unfair racial stereotypes whenever she sees them, which is often. It’s a surprise, then, that she would say being black didn’t set her back from success because she worked hard for it.
Reid offered the admission during a Twitter Q&A with Truth in Reality, a nonprofit that campaigns to “change the way women of color and violence are portrayed in the media, especially on reality television.” She was asked to give advice on “how to achieve success as a black woman in a white male-dominated field (journalism).”
Reid, who is ideologically liberal, had one tip: “Show up and be prepared,” she said. “No one can deny you if you know your stuff and assert it.”
As a former blogger, Reid said in another tweet that “people assumed I was a white man because I wrote assertively about politics.” (Even though her name is “Joy-Ann,” people supposedly thought she was a white man.)
In a third tweet, Reid said, “By the time I actually showed up, folks had to admit I knew my subject matter, so it didn’t matter ‘who’ or ‘what’ I was.”
Compare that to remarks on race Reid made eight months ago. Filling in for Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Reid weighed in on the Supreme Court decision to uphold an amendment to Michigan’s constitution which bans state universities from considering a prospective student’s race in the admissions processes.
“If this court has a central narrative, it could be that those who have held the advantage for most of this country’s history deserve to have it back if they can find the legislative or political means to take it back,” Reid said. She added, “[T]he court’s conservative majority has a novel means of explaining why they feel duty-bound to side with the ‘haves’ and the ‘have mores.’ ”
Reid has apparently turned over a new leaf, submitting that hard work will get the underprivileged where they want to be.
Attempts to reach Reid for comment were unsuccessful, as she writes on her personal website’s contact page that she prefers to be reached by Twitter and she did not respond to a tweet from this reporter.
