Sometimes the mere discussion of racism by the self-appointed guardians of black racial pride is enough to make me want to puke. Yes, puke.
This latest rise in indignation created by a CD containing a parody aimed at President-elect Barack Obama as “Barack the Magic Negro” is just so far over the top that if it wasn’t causing such an uproar with seemingly intelligent political connoisseurs, it would be hilarious to the point that it could be placed with Saturday morning cartoons and be in good company.
It all started when Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and former chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, sent out a CD to RNC members at Christmas. The CD contained songs making fun of several liberals, including Al Gore, written by conservative satirist Paul Shanklin for the Rush Limbaugh show.
I’ve heard many of the songs and they are funny, especially when you consider that conservatives, including me, are the butt of jokes by the liberal left all the time. But of course, Democrats have no sense of humor when they are not the ones making fun of others.
So let’s see what all the hoopla is about. Well, the song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro” has been identified as the latest in the long list of the evil Republicans’ racist assaults on black folk – that is, according to the race police.
The real funny part is that the creation of “Obama the Magic Negro” was by David Ehrenstein, a black Democratic film critic and entertainment journalist who started his writing career with a 1965 interview with Andy Warhol. Ehrenstein, who writes on Hollywood and politics on fablog.ehrensteinland.com, wrote “Obama the Magic Negro” on March 19, 2007 for the Los Angeles Times.
He defines the “Magic Negro” as “a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists…to assuage white “guilt” (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.”
He further includes in his list of “Magic Negroes” such cinematic performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Michael Clarke Duncan, Scatman Crothers, Will Smith, Don Cheadle and Magic Johnson.
But neither the liberal press nor the race police even commented on it. Yet they are all over the CD that Shanklin produced and Saltsman sent out.
Oh, so now you’re mad? Because Obama is the object of the joke? Because black Republicans Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele, both of whom are running for chair of the RNC, did not condemn the joke?
Where was the outrage when the Democrats posted a doctored photograph of Steele, calling him “Simple Sambo” on The News Blog or when
Democrat Juan Williams was called a “Happy Negro” for writing "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-end Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America?"
Where were Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Michael Eric Dyson, Warren Ballentine, Michael Baisden, Tom Joyner, Tavis Smiley and the rest of the race police when other black Republicans were disrespected?
National Black Republican Association (NBRA) President Frances Rice writes, “Cartoonist Jeff Danziger depicted (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice as an ignorant, barefoot “mammy,” reminiscent of the stereotyped black woman in the movie Gone with the Wind, who remarked: "I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies.’’
Harry Belafonte and the Rev. Al Sharpton publicly denounced Powell as a "House Negro." NAACP Chairman Julian Bond equated the Republican Party with the Nazi Party, and called Rice and Powell "tokens."
Oh, but now you’re mad? And you want the same Michael Steele that Obama vilified when Steele was running for the Senate from Maryland to chastise Chip Saltsman, a fellow Republican, for sending out a CD that makes fun of Obama, calling him a name that a Democrat created?
For those of you who are fanning the flames of hatred, calling Republicans racists while ignoring the same behavior by Democrats, I have a name for you – HYPOCRITE, hypocrites all.
It’s obviously not about respect for all black folk; it is about respect only for Democrats. Just like it’s alright for gangsta rappers to use the word n****r 42 times in one foul, misogynistic, violent CD with impunity while Bourgeois black folk have to say the “N-word,” and white folk can’t use the word at all.
It’s pure hypocrisy. So pardon me while I regurgitate the bovine excrement I’ve been fed.
Barbara Howard is president of Barbara Howard & Associates and the Florida state chair for C.O.R.E. (the Congress of Racial Equality).
BHoward@bhowardandassoc.com
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