Urban Semantics

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Rep. Steve King Defends Calling President Obama “Very, Very Urban” On Anderson Cooper

by Hillary Busis | 11:05 pm, December 1st, 2010

Rep. Steve King stopped by Anderson Cooper’s show tonight to discuss his case against the Pigford black farmer settlement—and to discuss semantics, in light of his comment about President Obama being “very, very urban.” When Cooper asked King what he meant by his remark, the representative answered that he was using the word “urban” in the literal sense, and that he had no idea it could ever be construed as a pejorative.

Here, specifically, is what King had to say in response to Cooper’s question:

“We had to go look this up and try to figure out how anybody could hyperventilate over calling the president a very urban, actually a very, very urban president, or a very urban senator at the time. He comes from a very urban area. It is not something that would ever occur to anybody in my background that that would be something that could be some kind of a racial pejorative. It’s just simply, he comes from the city, that’s urban. You come from the country, you’re rural.”

Cooper’s other guest—Dr. John Boyd, the founder of the National Black Farmers Association—took the opposite view, saying that King has been making comments with unsavory racial implications. Boyd did not, however, tell Cooper what he thought of King’s assessment of Obama’s urbanity. Video below.