| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fester" |
| Date: |
19 Mar 2007 09:25:57 PM |
| Object: |
OT: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
<quote>
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized,
less-than-real black man.
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.
</quote>
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| User: "G-Ride" |
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| Title: Re: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
19 Mar 2007 09:51:11 PM |
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"Fester" <not@home.com> wrote in message
news:45ff4638$0$5292$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
lol. I guess satire is too much for Fester to figure out. Your humble
opinion indeed.
--
Aloha, G-Ride
The force that's forcing you to feel like busting up a Starbucks.
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| User: "chibiabos" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
19 Mar 2007 10:56:17 PM |
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In article <45ff4638$0$5292$4c368faf@roadrunner.com>, Fester
<not@home.com> wrote:
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?co
ll=la-opinion-rightrail
<quote>
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
Fester, you look absolutely dreadful in a white sheet.
The pink crotchless panties are a nice touch, though.
-chib
--
Member of S.M.A.S.H.
Sarcastic Middle-aged Atheists with a Sense of Humor
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| User: "Fester" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
20 Mar 2007 04:14:36 AM |
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"chibiabos" <chib@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:190320072056173744%chib@nospam.com...
In article <45ff4638$0$5292$4c368faf@roadrunner.com>, Fester
<not@home.com> wrote:
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?co
ll=la-opinion-rightrail
<quote>
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
Fester, you look absolutely dreadful in a white sheet.
What rubbish, there is nothing racist about this piece. It is a commentary
about attitudes on race which is very relevant. Grow up. Haing thought
about this a little more, some more examples of "magic negros" can be found
everywhere in the works of Faulkner an even in pop culture like Star Trek
(remember the Guynan character played by Whoopi?).
I think it is quite insightful to look at Obama's popularity among the
people like you in this light. It does so much to explain how a man of so
little substance can become the darling of so many libs.
The pink crotchless panties are a nice touch, though.
Yeah, I though you would like lace.
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| User: "Santolina chamaecyparissus" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
19 Mar 2007 09:34:23 PM |
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On Mar 19, 7:25 pm, "Fester" <n...@home.com> wrote:
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
You mean, the centrist mainstream media's infatuation with Obama. You
wouldn't know a genuine leftist if it bit you on your wizened phallus.
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| User: "Pastor Kutchie, ordained atheist minister" |
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| Title: Re: OT: Obama the 'Magic Negro' |
20 Mar 2007 03:56:32 AM |
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On Mar 20, 2:34 am, "Santolina chamaecyparissus" <santol...@juno.com>
wrote:
On Mar 19, 7:25 pm, "Fester" <n...@home.com> wrote:
A rather good explanation, IMHO, of the left's infatuation with Obama:
You mean, the centrist mainstream media's infatuation with Obama. You
wouldn't know a genuine leftist if it bit you on your wizened phallus.
Why would a genuine leftist want to get within a million miles of
Fester's phallus? Anyway, there only ever has been one genuine leftist
in the USA.
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