Bill O’Reilly states that his words from his September 19th radio show, in which he discussed his dinner at Sylvia’s Restaurant with Al Sharpton, were taken out of context. He also asserts that Media Matters and CNN have engaged in a smear campaign.

Karl Frisch, a spokesman for Media Matters, called O’Reilly’s remarks “insensitive and racially charged” and rejected O’Reilly’s contention that his comments were taken out of context.

Frisch said his organization has documented 765 instances since mid-2004 in which O’Reilly has misstated or misrepresented facts or made “insensitive” statements. “His knee-jerk reaction is always that he was taken out of context,” he said. “If he was caught robbing a bank, he’d say his actions are being taken out of context.”

CNN’s Sanchez denied his network was attempting to score points against O’Reilly. “The O’Reilly Factor” on Tuesday drew more than three times as many viewers as the Sanchez-hosted “Out in the Open.”

Sanchez, in a phone interview, said O’Reilly is perpetuating racism by using “the Mandingo argument” against black rappers. “The idea [is] that there’s a big, bad African American out there that we all need protection from,” he said. “It’s a dangerous way of looking at racial relations. The African American community is extremely complex. The thinking that black culture is confined to guys sticking their underwear out is just wrong, and many African Americans resent it.”

Let’s look at the context. First the transcript.

O”REILLY: Now, how do we get to this point? Black people in this country understand that they’ve had a very, very tough go of it, and some of them can get past that, and some of them cannot. I don’t think there’s a black American who hasn’t had a personal insult that they’ve had to deal with because of the color of their skin. I don’t think there’s one in the country. So you’ve got to accept that as being the truth. People deal with that stuff in a variety of ways. Some get bitter. Some say, [unintelligible] “You call me that, I’m gonna be more successful.” OK, it depends on the personality.

So it’s there. It’s there, and I think it’s getting better. I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They’re getting away from the Sharptons and the Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They’re just trying to figure it out: “Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.”

You know, I was up in Harlem a few weeks ago, and I actually had dinner with Al Sharpton, who is a very, very interesting guy. And he comes on The Factor a lot, and then I treated him to dinner, because he’s made himself available to us, and I felt that I wanted to take him up there. And we went to Sylvia’s, a very famous restaurant in Harlem. I had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful. They all watch The Factor. You know, when Sharpton and I walked in, it was like a big commotion and everything, but everybody was very nice.

And I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship. It was the same, and that’s really what this society’s all about now here in the U.S.A. There’s no difference. There’s no difference. There may be a cultural entertainment — people may gravitate toward different cultural entertainment, but you go down to Little Italy, and you’re gonna have that. It has nothing to do with the color of anybody’s skin.

Now the audio. It’s in four parts.

Now that we have placed the full context of Bill O’Reilly’s comments herewith, we simply want to say that what we at Shallow Nation find illuminating in all of this is Bill O’Reilly’s defeatism. He says:

I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.

And that is why we ask the question: what will it take for Bill O’Reilly to get over the fact that black people are people? We think it’s a fair question. We are not calling him a racist; we are just asking a question.

Perhaps Bill O’Reilly can take into consideration that Sylvia’s is not really like any other restaurant in New York City. Not that many New York City restaurants are world famous, and not that many New York City restaurants have had three cookbooks published by William Morrow Company and have a full product line of food, health and beauty products.

We hope that Bill O’Reilly has come away from the experience edified.