Barack the Magic Negro Song, the GOP, and African-Americans
by Latoya Peterson
From the Washington Post:
Republicans who are vying to lead the national party offered a mix of reactions yesterday to the decision by one candidate for the job to mail out a music CD including the song “Barack the Magic Negro.”Chip Saltsman defended his actions, telling the Hill newspaper that the song — and others on the CD, which was mailed to party members — was nothing more than a lighthearted parody. But his rivals in the contest to chair the Republican National Committee said it carried an inaccurate message about what the GOP stands for.
My favorite quote:
And former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell defended Saltsman and attacked the media.
“Unfortunately, there is hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race. This is in large measure due to President-elect Obama being the first African American elected president,” Blackwell, who is black, said in a statement.
“I don’t think any of the concerns that have been expressed in the media about any of the other candidates for RNC chairman should disqualify them,” he said. “When looked at in the proper context, these concerns are minimal. All of my competitors for this leadership post are fine people.”
Whenever I read about incidents like this (and there have been many throughout the primaries, the election, and will continue beyond the inauguration), my mind keeps straying back to Keli Goff’s book Party Crashing: How the Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence.
I voted for Barack Obama in the general election. (This should be no secret to regular readers of this blog.) But I still identify as a political independent.
And according to Goff, I’m not alone:
According to the 2001 study from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, approximately 30% of black Americans ages eighteen to thirty-five identify themselves as political independents. It is tempting to dismiss such provocative findings as a fluke, so in 2007, in conjunction with the Political Research Center of Suffolk University, I conducted a follow up study of four hundred randomly selected black Americans ages eighteen to forty five (the age range of respondents was expanded to incorporate the responses of those who would have been thirty-five at the time of the initial Joint Center Study). Our findings confirmed that a definite shift has occurred in how younger black Americans are defining themselves politically. More significantly, more than a third of younger black Americans no longer feel the need to conform to traditional party labeling.
(Goff, pages 4-5)
So here is what drives me insane about this whole situation.
Are we seriously saying that all these well-paid political strategists can’t see the writing on the wall? Thirty percent of young black voters identify as independent and in each general election, the Republicans still can’t pull more than 10% of the black vote?
Goff dedicates a chapter to the GOP in her book, titled “Can the Party of Lincoln become the Party of 50 Cent?” The section of the book goes into detail about GOP strategies for outreach to the black community – and the subsequent setbacks it suffered due to the racism within the higher ranks of the Grand Ol’ Party.
Goff also cites Ken Mehlman, former chair of the Republican National Committee, who made diversifying the Republican Party a key aspect of his work with the GOP. In the book, Mehlman explains that his upbringing influenced his embrace of diversity, pointing out that “historically, the Jewish and the black communities have worked together on a variety of issues.” Staunchly against bigotry, Melhman stood before the NAACP in 2005, famously stating:
“Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit from racial polarization. I am here as Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.”
Unfortunately, that sentiment was not shared by many in his party.
The rest of Goff’s chapter is peppered with political gaffes made by various high profile Republicans that helped to drive away black voters. Starting with Richard Nixon (who earned 32% of the black vote when he ran against JFK in 1960), the Republicans have relied on divisive campaigning based on race (soon to be known as the Southern Strategy).
Goff counts off the various other tactics employed by the GOP: the use of a Willie Horton based, racially inflammatory ad during the Dukakis race, the “Hands” ad run in 1990 by Jesse Helms, G.W. Bush’s speech at Bob Jones University (which at the time had a ban on interracial dating), the Bush administration’s challenge of the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions procedures (with both Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell voicing dissent), Trent Lott’s 2002 comments at Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday, former G.H.W. Bush appointee William Bennett’s comment in 2005 that “you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down*,” and the response to Hurricane Katrina.
And of course, we all saw how race baiting in the 2008 election went down.
Much discussion in political spheres has been on how the GOP can move forward and become a party that can attract a diverse coalition of voters.
However, the GOP doesn’t actually have to do much to attract minority voters. Support good candidates with a solid platform with something to say. Bring candidates to debates that actually add something to the national conversation. Redefine your idea of “real America.”
And it would also help if you took the “racists welcome” sign off your front door.
- – -
*The full quote is:
If you wanted to reduce crime, you could – if that was your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in the country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
If you follow the Wikipedia link in the text, you see the full context of Bennett’s remarks, as they stemmed from a Freakonomics theory that proposed the legalization of abortion led to the declines in crime. But the rub is that the Freakonomics study did not focus on race. They focused on “teenagers, unmarried women, and the economically disadvantaged” in the press surrounding their study and in the analysis. Race is discussed on page twelve of the study as another marginal factor and some statistics are provided about crimes committed by blacks versus crimes committed by whites, correlated with the number of abortions for each racial group. The other 41 pages of the study mainly touch on class, crime rates, and break downs by region.
So, the question here is why did Bennett equate crime with black? Or abortion with black, depending on your interpretation of his comments?
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
UGLY PUNK GURL! wrote:
Yep, yep, and I thought the GOP couldn’t go any lower after the Palin pick.
Boy, was I wrong. I used to respect the Republican party, but all my respect has disappeared. and now I feel nothing but pure hatred for the GOP. hahahahaha! bloody fools.
LaToya, everytime people say “crime,” “rape,” “murder,” “robber,” “thug,” etc, it WILL always be associated with Black people, even if it’s not.
like “terrorists” will always be associated with Muslims, even if they’re talking about white anti-abortion terrorist bombers.
Disgusting, ain’t it? Sad to say.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 11:43 am ¶
jen* wrote:
And it would also help if you took the “racists welcome” sign off your front door.
That would be THE point. I mentioned this in my comment on the Black Republican post. Cuz yeah, we might share some ideas with one or another party – be completely disillusioned with the 2 party system – or whatever… But who wants to take the side of the folks who will all but tell you to your face, “We don’t want your kind around here”? Precious few.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 11:45 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@UGP –
I know, it is disgusting. But I added that in because he tried to say he was taken out of context.
@Jen* –
It is the point. So what – 10% of blacks feel like the Republican’s aren’t racist (or, if they are, then what they stand for outweighs the racism) then the other 90% of us are just trippin? Even if they completely write off blacks, they’ve got the same pattern emerging with Latinos. This shit is simple – you want more diverse voters? Stop being racist!
Denial is a terrible thing.
And the worse part is that the Dems don’t have the greatest track record on this either. Pre-Obama, Repubs had a good thing when they could point the Bush administration and their record of promoting conservatives of color to top spots. They were right – and that dynamic didn’t magically wash away with Obama.
There is so much opportunity, yet they squander it by openly pandering to racists.
A healthy democracy needs dissent and debate and there is no good reason that Repubs shouldn’t catch 20 – 30% of the black vote. I can think of at least four people I know who are functionally Republican, but vote Dem everytime.
How many different ways do we have to say it? Stop aiding and abetting racism!
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 11:54 am ¶
Lisa J wrote:
I remember when Bill Bennet said that. What a sick man. Truly sick. Maybe someone should have aborted him. I know that is a terrible thing to say but my God, it is sickening the level of undeserved hate and bile that gets spewed towards people of color that gets a pass. There was very little uproar when he said that. COuld you imagine if someone said something like that about aborting white babies? I even remember pro-life people coming to my school and giving us pamphlets about some poor child that was aborted and how if she had been born she’d have had blonde hair and blue eyes and loved flower. I wasn’t even racially aware then (thought only the use of the n-word qualified as racism) but it made me mad, like it only counts if it is a white kid who gets aborted. Anyway, that is slightly off topic. As I said in the response to the last piece, the Republican party has a long way to go to get a large chunk of black voters. I’ve had people throw that the party of Lincoln crap and then I go all political science major on them and tell them that the party had a realignment from the late 1950’s until the early 70’s and the party of Lincoln is dead, dead, dead. Personally, I think either the Republican party is going to shrink substantially and be replaced by another party (b/c we can’t seem to stand to have more than 2 parties in this country) or it will have to go through another serious realignment to remain relevant and the moderates and the intellectuals will have to take it back because after this election and 8 years of Bush they look like the party of anti-intellectuals and charlatans.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:04 pm ¶
Monie wrote:
The Republican Party and the Democratic Party have been playing good cop/ bad cop with African Americans for a very long time now. It is a strategy that works well for both the GOP and the Dems.
Just look at the Presidential election; Barack Obama made a lot of promises to all sorts of ethnic groups but none to African Americans. In fact Obama didn’t even campaign to African Americans after the primaries were over.
He could get away with doing that because he and the Dems know that African Americans won’t vote for the GOP candidate.
Why have we allowed ourselves to be given no option at election time? The GOP does not belong to anyone; it belongs to all of us. So why do we allow it to be what it is?
I’m a card carrying Independent so I’m not pushing the Dems or the GOP. I would just like to see African Americans having a true option like everyone else at election time.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:21 pm ¶
Jess wrote:
Lisa J — right on about realignment post-1964 especially. People forget that it was a Republican (Eisenhower) who was forced to enforce the Brown decision. He could have not done anything, but he did the right thing.
To both Lisa J and Monie — remember that there are structural issues as to why we have two parties — essentially the system is set up so that only two can be viable. That is, in any “winner take all” system, where the winner of the most votes gets to be in office, it devolves to two parties pretty quickly.
The solution is proportional representation, but that would require major constitutional changes. Splitting the electoral votes of each state would help to that end, as it would mean a 3d-party candidate could make a showing and not get shunted from the public consciousness.
I might also offer a parallel with the election of 1912. The GOP took only two states and was nearly replaced by the Progressive Party under Teddy R. Think of how things might have been different… the point is they had a serious re-think about strategy and went on to bigger electoral successes afterwards. Basically the GOP moved sharply to the right, as the old Progressive wing left it.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:44 pm ¶
Amused0472 wrote:
I listened to an NPR report that was talking about the amount of money Obama was able to raise, and the commentator noted that Obama was almost a political party unto himself. In that sense, I think the political landscape has changed. Perhaps the party system, as far as national politics is concerned, is no longer viable and on the decline. If that’s true, I ‘d rather the GOP simply die rather than reconstitute itself with a sham facade of inclusiveness.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 12:47 pm ¶
Deborah wrote:
The situation is a bit more complicated with Barack Obama and Black folks though. Any other Democratic candidate for President would have been campaigning more obviously with Black folks, but BHO couldn’t be seen as favoring Black folks or the Jeremiah Wright stuff would have come back again and again.
BHO did appear in front of various Black communities throughout but he couldn’t be seen as favoring Black people really. This is another item of pathology in the United States. Just about any other group, etc. is fine to show favoritism and allegiance of group (e.g. religious Christian groups – except Mormons I suppose; and White politicians sure have no compunction about appealing to the White populace), but if you get people of color as candidates, the first thing they have to do is prove they can get along with White people.
Reason 130 out of 1, 569 reasons why I am not interested in politics.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 1:09 pm ¶
KuriusJurge612 wrote:
I dont mean to get too dicey. But can we stop refering to Abe Lincoln as some great Racial friend of black people. Yeah, he issued the emancipation proclamation-@ years after the start of the civil war, as a tactic to recruit blacks as soldiers. He also advocated send Blacks americans to Liberia-not just some all. IT just like when people call Columbus the “Discoverer of the Americas” and act like he’s some kind of Hero.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 2:16 pm ¶
jen* wrote:
The 2 party crap is part of the reason I went Green this year. My sister describes R’s as “rich white people” and D’s as “rich white people that ‘care’”…only the same crap happens with both of them. I’m tired of being an assumption, tired of being told to “be patient”, tired of the foolishness. [I turned 30 this year, and apparently that's what comes with it: being tired of foolishness.]
I’d really like to see what will happen in the next couple years, and what change really will take place. Perhaps after the inauguration the Rep’s will stop making these stupid mistakes [glaring racism] and begin to rethink their strategery.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 2:38 pm ¶
Lala wrote:
Can the GOP truly be this dumb?
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 2:40 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:
I just wrote about “magical negroes and Indians” (http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2008/12/magical-negroes-and-indians.html) because Indians also fit the “magical” role in mainstream entertainment. Maybe every minority does. Any thoughts on this hypothesis?
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 3:21 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:
This kind of racial divide really needs to stop. Too many republicans are paying lip service to the issues black people face while doing things that continue to stoke racial animosity.
The democrats are guilty of it too by continually doing their level best to remind people of historical wrongs committed against minorities and women.
This mailing is an embarrassment to civilized people and should not be tolerated.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 4:12 pm ¶
Jenn wrote:
“And it would also help if you took the “racists welcome” sign off your front door.”
I actually think race issues in the GOP is a bit more nuanced and entrenched. I have spent a lot of time on Republican leaning websites researching anti-immigrant talking points and have come to the conclusion that the underlying philosophy of the GOP is not “family values” or “fiscal conservatism,” but preserving the dominance of white/straight/Christian identity. What I mean is, I don’t think you can actually separate the current GOP from racially charged cultural chauvinism – I think chauvinism is their platform. I don’t say this as an insult, but as my personal observation… Scroll through mainstream republican websites, such as redstate.com, on any given day and you fill find a community that is so entrenched in white-dominant perspective, that it is trollish to suggest that GOP should reach out to PoC (in GOP speak its considered ‘pandering’ and ‘identity politics’ to consider interests other than white/straight). Anyway, it’s a bit hard for me to explain to people who are not familiar with the GOP political jargon and politics – but it’s a world view that goes something like this: “I am white, straight and middle class, therefore everything that is not straight, white or middle class is a threat to my world and should be restricted as much as possible.” That’s why code words like “true/real America” make sense to them, and leave the rest of us scratching our heads…so for me, the GOP at its present state, is kind of inherently anti-PoC.
Here is the redstate.com discussion of the parody… http://www.redstate.com/erick/2008/12/27/chip-saltsman-screws-up-mike-duncan-overreacts/
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 5:12 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
This kind of racial divide really needs to stop. Too many republicans are paying lip service to the issues black people face while doing things that continue to stoke racial animosity.
The democrats are guilty of it too by continually doing their level best to remind people of historical wrongs committed against minorities and women.
Your first paragraph is fine but the second pararaph is some straight up bullshit. First of all, I rarely hear the dems “reminding people of historical wrongs” and secondly there are plenty of current wrongs to discuss and since the mainstream in this country have done a piss-poor job of acknowledging, addressing or doing much to write those wrongs current and historical any time those things come up it is a good thing. What a bunch of crap. Until you address history and learn about it you will repeat it.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 6:38 pm ¶
Kelvin wrote:
While this post is off topic, I want to wish Latoya, Carmen, and all the wonderful contributors to Racialiscious a wonderful New Year.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 7:29 pm ¶
ViK wrote:
Ken Blackwell handed Ohio, hence the election, to Bush in 2004. That is all.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 8:28 pm ¶
jen* wrote:
“I am white, straight and middle class, therefore everything that is not straight, white or middle class is a threat to my world and should be restricted as much as possible.” That’s why code words like “true/real America” make sense to them…
Putting it this way really *does* sum up the attitude that I get from many of the white people around here. I couldn’t generalize to the whole GOP, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Scary statement though.
Posted 31 Dec 2008 at 8:58 pm ¶
Antonio wrote:
I’m gay and black, so the Republican party offers NOTHING of interest to me. As I wrote on my blog, they’d have to become something completely unrecognizable from their current state to appeal to me.
There’s a fracturing of the conservative movement occurring. Kathleen Parker called for excision of the Religious Right from the Republican party. A recent Vanity Fair article quotes a Bush insider stating how annoyed they were by James Dobson and others. The fact that Newt Gingrich of all people condemned this “Magic Negro” song when others defended it indicates that the divide is growing.
Posted 01 Jan 2009 at 2:45 am ¶
Allison Farnum wrote:
I think I am most disturbed by Saltsman’s (and his defenders) lack of scope at what something like this means! It smacks of his white privilege and his total lack of awareness about any such concept. This is the same old tired story of the white guy asserting white privilege and not even knowing it. Yelch.
Thanks for the insight about the Indepedents- i wonder if that will shift more with Obama in office, or will his purplish, moderate ways encourage more Indepedents?
Posted 01 Jan 2009 at 1:12 pm ¶
octogalore wrote:
“I can think of at least four people I know who are functionally Republican, but vote Dem everytime. ”
Me too. The philosophy espoused here is pretty close to mine, and they echo the tension you discuss here between feeling it’s not necessarily a “Dems are the best in all respects” situation, but the Repubs sure make it tough to see them as a viable option. The Blue Dog Dems (headed by Harold Ford Jr, I believe) and the DLC try to find compromise, but I wish it were possible for candidates to pick and choose from the different platforms and still find an audience.
Posted 01 Jan 2009 at 10:09 pm ¶
shah8 wrote:
octogalore, I really freakin’ hate the DLC types. One reason is that they seem congenitally unable to work around the fact that there are always going to be a body of white people that will never vote Democrat, unless the Democratic party rejects minorities. Rightfully or not, I was (attempting to) smacking around Ed Kilgore for his essay that was cited in a Matt Yglesias post.http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/12/the_ambiguous_legacy.php#comments
I think it’s mostly a matter of time, though. No matter how much money they can get from their business supporters, the Republican Party just cannot survive as a viable political force without explicitly kicking this people to the curb. They’ll keep the South so long as the urban areas don’t grow too much, but not much else. I don’t really want the Republican Party to die (well yes I do, but that’s just the stupid anti-intellectual racist party) because that would usher in a NewLabor phase for a Democratic Party that is already too triangulating…
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 1:26 am ¶
Jess wrote:
shah8, the Dems already did their New Labour phase when the DLC took over the party in the early 90s.
It’s no accident that the Democratic party shrank under Clinton, mostly because the DLC strategy was not only “triangulating” but decided that it should only try to win with a 50% + 1 strategy, which basically puts you on the defensive.
I know it’s easy to write off both parties as for rich white people, and hell yes, they represent the ruling class so by definition that is going to happen.
But unless and until you have a functional left opposition that isn’t going to change. That can happen either within the Democratic party or outside it — it doesn’t really matter. The point is that you get one.
Also remember that realignments due to “outside” activism can and do have a large effect. Think of the influence the Progressives had on the GOP, and how the very existence of a large Socialist party forced a leftward drift in the US — FDR was by no stretch of the imagination a great progressive guy, but he was basically forced to be so to save capitalism (and he said as much quite explicitly a number of times).
We all forget that it was organized labor that forced Harry Truman to propose the US equivalent of a National Health (IIRC the original proposal resembled the current Canadian system).
So things can happen, even if it isn’t the Greens who bring it.
And while we shouldn’t have illusions, we should recognize when good things do happen. Lincoln is the most obvious example. He didn’t have to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. One could argue that it was unconstitutional anyway. He didn’t have to go to war with the South. And we should remember that he was a very conservative man in anti-slavery circles — he was sort of the Bill Clinton of his day on the slavery issue.
But he did go to war, and he did decide that slavery wasn’t worth preserving.
Eisenhower (as I noted already) enforced Brown, as did Kennedy. Neither had to do it. Johnson — a guy from Texas for crying out loud — put his weight behind the Civil Rights Act, bucking many in his own party who advised against it.
None of these people had to do these things. The organizers on the ground made their voices heard and the politicians listened out of both self-interest and, I hope, a sense of principle.
The GOP responded in a similar way, unfortunately it was to the Goldwater wing of the party. My father used to joke that the South really did win the Civil War, it just took them a while to wrest control of a major party back.
Now, all that said, the interesting part will be whether Republicans decide to be a regional party of crazy nationalists or do something else. In the short term I don’t see a major leftward shift in the GOP to its more traditional stances (which would please a lot of civil libertarians). I know it will sound weird to a lot of people here, but there is a reason black people were a solidly Republican constituency for so long.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 9:25 am ¶
lakergrrl wrote:
Is it just me or does Saltsman bear a striking resemblence to Quagmire from Family Guy?
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 9:51 am ¶
Lxy wrote:
God, Family, Country=Fundamentalism, Patriarchy, Empire.
Add in White Supremacy and some other “isms,” and you just about have the core values and underlying politics of the Republicrats in the USA.
The difference between the Donkey and Elephant wings of the Republicrats is that the former makes some–but not many–concessions to minorities in order to coopt their support.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 10:46 am ¶
Eathan wrote:
I can so relate to your thoughts. I’m considered a Independent.. and all I can say is…
The Republican Party needs to change their leadership. They need to change their identity. They need to connect with the common man and become more diverse. It’s evident that they are holding on to how things were 50 years ago. It’s sad, but they are showing their true colors.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 4:16 pm ¶
jen* wrote:
So – did anybody see the ticker on Fox News? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/02/fox-news-airs-magic-negro_n_154761.html)
I never watch it, but HuffPo caught it [or somebody did].
I think I’m about to die of NOT surprise.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 4:41 pm ¶
Paz wrote:
Deborah – you make a good point. Obama can’t be seen as favoring Blacks, otherwise he’s supposedly just looking out for his own kind.
I think Mike Huckabee was the one who said that with re: to Barack the Magic Negro, Saltsman should “be more careful.” As in, keep that inside the white boys’ club.
BTW – what was the Univ of Minnesota’s admissions process thing?
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 5:04 pm ¶
deb wrote:
Leave it up to Fox News to allow this message to slip past the screeners.
The crawl says: “HAPPY NEW YEAR AND LET’S HOPE THE MAGIC NEGRO DOES A GOOD JOB. LOVE JEN AND JOHN C.”
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 6:11 pm ¶
bradski wrote:
Lakegrrl,
You are so right! He looks just like Glenn Quagmire! Spooky! I didn’t think a real human could look like Quagmire.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 7:13 pm ¶
Brigitte wrote:
@lakergrrl
I was just going to post the same comment. It’s uncanny.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 7:39 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:
I was actually going to suggest that he looks like he could be a cousin of Stephen Harper, the smarmy Canadian Prime Minister.
A GOP that cared about racial justice, now THAT would be truly magical…
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 8:12 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
OT: This new format doesn’t quite look like a blog format at all… is it like, a transitory thing, or is it the end result of a transition?
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 8:14 pm ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:
@DivergentDana – what new format?
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 8:22 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:
If the GOP really wants to attract blacks, it needs to discipline its politicians and staff who air racist ads or use dog-whistle terms, needs to put considerable financial and political-capital backing behind recruited black Republican candidates with solid qualifications (no Alan Keyes please!), and needs to appoint blacks to important positions within the party and ensure a decent level of voting representation at conventions.
Posted 02 Jan 2009 at 10:35 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:
A few hours ago, there was a kind of wide-screen thing going on…
Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 1:04 am ¶
Derrick Mathis wrote:
I think it’s interesting how everyone is so focused on the GOP and not how this whole thing started. It was an article written by a bi-racial writer named David Ehrenstein in the LA Times. The article was titled Obama The Magical Negro. Y’all should read it. He’s published a few more articles since then attacking Obama. It’s really not about the blatent racism of some Republican politician as much as it is about some guy who is fast becoming the hero of the white pseudo liberal. That’s far more dangerous and insidious.
Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 3:20 am ¶
bradski wrote:
BTW,
Are we all forgetting the many racist Democrats who responded to Hillary Clinton’s own racist campaign? From whence did Geraldine Ferraro spring?
Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 4:29 pm ¶
Angel H. wrote:
Bradski:
I don’t think anybody’s trying to brush the Democrats’ problems under the rug. As a matter of fact, many of the articles on Racialicious are about intersectionality and the denial of many white progressives to their own white privilege. The difference from my viewpoint, the Democratic Party has always put up a front of inclusiveness, yet is often blind to its own prejudices. However, actions like the GOPs racist campaign makes me question what kind of values they’re putting forward.
I guess the question I’d like to ask is, which is better for us (the anti-racists, feminists/womanists, peace advocates, etc.): the blatant bigotry of the GOP, or the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party?
Posted 03 Jan 2009 at 6:04 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:
@ Jess, you make excellent points. Thank you for providing an excellent analysis and some good food for thought.
As for comments about the original author of the LA Times piece I read and thought he was on point in his discussion of the movie and literary trope of the magic negro and applying it to white America and its acceptance of Obama. Rather than being the oldert type of boogey man black, Obama, kind of like Colin Powell, is looked upon as a real life magic negro who sort of like mammy is a semi-parental magical figure who exists to help white people and enrich their lives with little reward and sometimes to their detriment. I think ultimately Obama will surpass that and become something greater (I hope) and I don’t think he represents a Magic Negro figure to all of white Americans but to a significant number. Also, the author of that article Ehrenstein is black (or at least by the old one drop rule) or at least is bi-racial, his mother or grandmother is black. Not to say being black exempts you from racism against blacks but I don’t think that is the case here and if anything the two articles of his that I read were more a critique of white America and what Obama represents to them and less a criticism of Barak himself
Posted 04 Jan 2009 at 1:52 pm ¶
Ron wrote:
Obama is not the first and will not be the last black man to rule over non-black people. There a many cases of black men or bi-racial men being the most powerful figures in their countries or empires. The condition of black people improved in some cases and in others it worsened. The condition of black people in most part remained constant.
I think we cannot lose sight of history from a worldwide perspective. Barak is not the first Magic Negro or the last Magic Negro.
The root of the issue is why do societies see this need to pigeon-hole black people in these roles.
Some will argue that it is our skewed perception of reality.
I remember Sadat being something akin to Obama and look what happened to him once he tried to transcend regional politics to present true leadership to his people.
Posted 06 Jan 2009 at 1:01 pm ¶