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October 18, 2006

omigod; you are so black and huge, obama

Time Magazine put Obama's big black head on its cover this week, breaking up the ad pages inside with a rote profile-cum-trend piece by Joe "Do-the-Right-Thing-Will-Make-Negroes-Riot" Klein. Money quote:

The current Obama mania is reminiscent of the Colin Powell mania of September 1995, when the general--another political rainbow--leveraged speculation that he might run for President into book sales of 2.6 million copies for his memoir, My American Journey. Powell and Obama have another thing in common: they are black people who--like Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan--seem to have an iconic power over the American imagination because they transcend racial stereotypes. "It's all about gratitude," says essayist Shelby Steele, who frequently writes about the psychology of race. "White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn't rub their noses in racial guilt. White people just go crazy over people like that."

When I asked Obama about this, he began to answer before I finished the question. "There's a core decency to the American people that doesn't get enough attention," he said, sitting in his downtown Chicago office, casually dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt. "Figures like Oprah, Tiger, Michael Jordan give people a shortcut to express their better instincts. You can be cynical about this. You can say, It's easy to love Oprah. It's harder to embrace the idea of putting more resources into opportunities for young black men--some of whom aren't so lovable. But I don't feel that way. I think it's healthy, a good instinct. I just don't want it to stop with Oprah. I'd rather say, If you feel good about me, there's a whole lot of young men out there who could be me if given the chance."

But that's not quite true. There aren't very many people--ebony, ivory or other--who have Obama's distinctive portfolio of talents, or what he calls his "exotic" family history. [full story]

Klein is too much of a star-fucker to pass off hack complaints like those of talking android John McWhorter (too light, too new) as handicapping, although I did catch neocon gargoyle Bay Buchanan on CNN today writing Obama off as rookie being rushed to the big show in hopes of offsetting Hillary. Still, Klein can't resist assuring his readers that the wonderfully exotic black man that so excites him is a political unicorn, i.e., rare and singular. Definitely nothing at all like those other black men, the kind that tend to walk four-abreast on the sidewalk in NYC and shout rap lyrics at Klein.

If I were a talking android like McWhorter, I would react to the various, arbitrary, impersonal racial forces structuring Obama's public image by blaming the victim. But since I'm one of those unreconstructed folks who buy into what black neocons call "racial orthodoxy," I tend to root uncritically for the black dude in any given circumstance. For his part, Klein takes Obama to (mild) task for his careful timidity, as if blowing out of the box with some truly mind-blowing, next-level shit wouldn't immediately brand the Illinois senator as the typical black fire-breather. Shelby "Kill-Them-All-And-Let-God-Sort- Them-Out" Steele (who you figure is in the handful of black folks who still talk to Klein) does manage to lay out the basic dynamic fairly succinctly:

"He's working a very dangerous high-wire act," Shelby Steele told me. "He's got to keep on pleasing white folks without offending black folks, and vice versa." Indeed, Obama faces a minefield on issues like the racial gerrymandering of congressional districts and affirmative action. "You're asking him to take policy risks? Just being who he is is taking an enormous risk."

Since we've all already established that my sense of things tends to hew to the, like, fucked-up, psychopathological side of things, it goes without saying that I detect a barely controlled erotic charge running beneath Klein's prose. Like a sailor fresh from his first Tijuana donkey show, Klein just can't get over how Obama drives the white women so completely wild.

Obama's personal appeal is made manifest when he steps down from the podium and is swarmed by well-wishers of all ages and hues, although the difference in reaction between whites and blacks is subtly striking. The African Americans tend to be fairly reserved--quiet pride, knowing nods and be-careful-now looks. The white people, by contrast, are out of control. A nurse named Greta, just off a 12-hour shift, tentatively reaches out to touch the Senator's sleeve. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I just touched a future President! I can't believe it!" She is literally shaking with delight--her voice is quivering--as she asks Obama for an autograph and then a hug.

That Klein finds the reactions of black folks opaque is unsurprising, as, in the scheme of such things, black-on-white invariably runs hotter than black-on-black. Klein, of course, winkingly links Obama to Philanderer-in-Chief and First Black President Bill Clinton, and "although the Senator's compassion tends to be less damp than Clinton's" (did you mean to say "less wet," Joe?), one needs a calculator to tabulate all the ways the following descriptions can be read as euphemisms for "man ho:"

[...] before he became a politician, he admits to cocaine and marijuana use and also to attending socialist meetings. Translation: You know those socialist girls put out, right? And when they're high? I mean, forget about it.

[...] he admits to political "restlessness," which is another way of saying he's ambitious. Translation: He definitely has Clinton's wandering eye, but much higher standards than Bill, meaning no chubby interns.

He flays himself for enjoying private jets, which eliminate the cramped frustrations of commercial flying but--on the other hand!--isolate him from the problems of average folks. Translation: Mile-high-club million-mile member.

[...] He blames himself for "tensions" in his marriage; he doubts his "capacities" as a husband and father. Translation: Don't be surprised if a woman shows up in the tabloids during the '08 Democratic primaries, and anyway: I'm really sorry and my wife forgives me.

But hey, it could be worse. In about three weeks our side may just re-gain control of Congress partially thanks to a national outbreak of gay-pedophile hysteria; turning on Joe Klein is downright All-American in comparison.

Posted by ebogjonson in politricknal sciences, race and other identities, on October 18, 2006 4:10 PM