Am I the only one that found that part a lot more retrograde and offensive than the stuff about homosexuality?
Not the only one. I thought it was worse than Paula Deen’s comments.
I’m offended as a heterosexual that he says being straight comes down to liking vagina. Really, there’s equal opportunity stupidity throughout that article.
Everyone has some pretty messed-up thoughts. It’s just that everyone doesn’t have a microphone and a camera thrust in their face.
So I’m not surprised that we can add one more person to the People Who Said Something Really Stupid Pile.
I also can’t make myself feel particularly bothered.
He said it badly but I understand the point Phil was making. I read his brother Si’s book a couple months ago. The Robertsons (Si and Phil) grew up dirt poor just like my grandfather. Poor field hands worked side by side. It didn’t matter if you were white or black. Everyone’s hands were raw and bleeding at the end of the day. Picking cotton is brutal work.
My grandfather was a sharecropper for much of his life. He didn’t buy a small farm until he was almost 50. I heard a lot of stories from my dad and his sisters. We’re from the same general area of Louisiana as Phil. Thats why I watch Duck Dynasty.
I am baffled why Phil claims he doesn’t recall any racism. Poor whites were called white trash back then. :rolleyes: They were at the bottom just like the blacks.
I’m more disturbed that Duck Dynasty is a thing. Or why there are bathmats at Walmart with their faces on them.
One set of comments were more “the gay is bad.” The race part, from what I read, was just denying that racism exists by his anecdotal evidence. But the article also suggested that the latter will hurt him more.
Re: Paula Deen, her comments weren’t as bad as her hiring exclusive black servers for her whiteass lawn jockey party or whatever.
No, you are not. I am surprised that has not gotten more attention than it has.
I might not toss one of the doormats if someone gave it to me. 
Not having read a transcript of his remarks, I’m curious as to what, specifically, his racist comments were?
I smell a gotcha coming. You don’t have access to Google?
I’m assuming that the kind of people who watch Duck Dynasty don’t really care about some mild casual racism. Also, didn’t you know? We have a black president now. That means racism is over.
I don’t know if a full transcript is available, but here is the interview in GQ in which he made the controversial comments.
One of his comments, "Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” As Stephen Colbert pointed out, this was the time during which the blues were being developed, so, yes, they were in fact singing the blues.
You do know Willie Robertson does have an adopted bi-racial son?
That’s even better than having a black friend!
I don’t have access to sound on this computer. I have read articles which offer what are presumably excerpts, and the only mention of race sounds perhaps a bit blind, but not what I would call racist.
But on a more fundamental level, isn’t it up to the person who claims a given statement is racist to provide the text of that statement? Why is asking for that a “gotcha?”
That is true.
To correct myself, it was actually Jon Stewart who pointed out that this was in fact when and where the blues were developed.
True in a limited way. Take it away, Ta-Nehisi Coates:
But who was the “they” in that sentence? You quoted only a part of that quote insert grey box that appears on page on. Here it is in full:
Shorn of that first part, as you presented it, it sounds like Robertson is saying that as a people, black folks were happy and godly pre-welfare.
It seems to me, though, that when you add the rest of his statement in, Robertson is talking about the specific black people that worked for the farmers, alongside him.
Now, I grant you that there’s a definite tone-deafness in ever saying black people were “singing and happy,” as they worked in the fields hoeing cotton. But I don’t agree it’s racist. And in my view, Robertson is describing a situation in which he viewed himself as no better or worse than the other farm laborers, no matter their color.
Is that not correct, in your estimation?
I don’t know much about the show, but A&E can’t be surprised that these guys have some non-politically correct opinions. The Phil guy should have kept his mouth shut though, because corporations tend to bow to the PC crowd these days.
And after all, it’s a “reality” show, shouldn’t it portray reality for better or worse? A&E should just air a disclaimer saying they don’t share the views of the show cast members and leave it at that.