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I am still waiting. GGA and Chump come on defend your liberal
buddies. He used the "N" word. I am waiting.
How come all you liberals never post anything that a
liberal says about a liberal. Especially one you all love so
much. If I or Yoni had said this, holy smokes, you would
be calling for our head. So I am interested in what you
might want to add to this little article.
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
By David Ehrenstein
L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.
March 19, 2007
AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.
But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .
He's there 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.
As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."
Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)
The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?
And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton — a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")
But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.
The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?
The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged — often several times a day — I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.
Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).
Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.
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You gotta love the double standard......
Come on Clam, I cant wait to hear you take on this.
I am still waiting. GGA and Chump come on defend your liberal
buddies. He used the "N" word. I am waiting.
Hey Ray, "Negro" and "######" are not the same.
Same meaniing the eyes of a liberal!
Ray calm down... I know it's much easier for you and your political kind to lump libs all in one basket. It's easier because you can find any lib and then make it seem like we are all on board. If the guy used the N' word then he's an idiot ok Ray? He shouldn't have used that word..
Unless, of course, he's a black, crotch-grabbing comedian; right George?
But it is okay, since a liberal rag published it, just they shouldn't
have. But no rant about it......strange
Tell that to the NAACP
NAACP, but they are black, it is like two blacks calling each
other the "big" "N" word. No problem.
And the point I am trying to make, Liberals can use any
language they like, but other folks are forbidden from using
the same terms.
Black folks have been calling eachother thar for a long time..so should I condemn all black people?
Just those who persist in using the term. For instance, I doubt you'll hear Bill Cosby or Harry Belafonte saying "######."
If it's a derogatory term, it's a derogatory term...it shouldn't matter who's saying it.
Ok it's a derogatory term.. so what's the big deal? I am going to go out on a limb and say ' got' is a derogatory word.. never saw ray come out and complain..oh wait he's a hypocrite..
From that same liberal rag:
You seem to have some trouble understanding the word "OPINION".
Hey Ray, that same liberal rag just slapped Pelosi. I didn't hear your applause, then. I didn't hear your applause when our wounded were pushed away and their families were ignored. Where did these people have to go to find help?
THE WASHINGTON POST. Can you dig it?
I'm trying to understand what x is upset about. It does a bit to explain the enthusiasm alot of folks feel for Obama. If he's pretending to be upset about the use of the word "Negro" then he's just silly -- but we all knew that.
Chump just used the "N" word. racist
I put a bunch of asterisks on my check the the United ***** College Fund.
Ray loves Rush. We all know how Rush feels about black people. The answer is
Ray loves Rush. Put yourself in x's world. A black president? This would be too big a blast to his ticker.
This is an epic failure.
1. That isn't the n-word.
2. That is what the stereotype is called, intentionally.
3. Censorship is anti-american. Do you hate the U.S. xray?
Nope, just wanted to remind all of you about your double standards.
I'm a racist, while you folks are all open minded, thoughtful and
forgiving. So long as those terms don't include a conservative.
I proved my point.
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