Look what he spewed all over Europe about Black folks. Compare that to what happened on Super Duper Tuesday.
We will likely hear that a child of a white mother and African father who spent much of his childhood abroad is not a true black American, as has already been observed by Stanley Crouch and Debra Dickerson.
But interestingly, I doubt this issue would come up about Mr Obama if, like even many blacks with histories like his, he had the speech patterns and demeanor associated with "real" American blackness: think Spike Lee, Bernie Mac, Morgan Freeman.
The issue, then, would really be about the extent to which Mr Obama is culturally black American, regardless of his biography. Some would lob this out of a constitutional antipathy to admitting that racism in America is receding (neither Mr Crouch nor Ms Dickerson are among this group). However, when couched more sensibly, the discussion would be one I would welcome.
The amazingly arrogant thing is how he says "a certain contingent" will have problems with an Obama presidency without identifying that contingent, then presents the work of two of his own contingent as an example of the developing "problem."
Obviously, Conservative race baiting is A-OK with McWhorter. It is, after all, his job.
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I stopped reading
I stopped reading McWhorter's piece at the point where he described Giuliani's political views as "leftish." McWhorter is either a fool or he thinks all the rest of us are.
"...And that's why I break
"...And that's why I break my silence: Obama, with his non-black ass, is doing us all a favor. Since he had no part in our racial history, he is free of it. And once he's opened the door to even an awkward embrace of candidates of color for the highest offices, the door will stay open. A side door, but an open door. Yet until Obama survives the scourging he's about to receive from Hillary Clinton (God help him if he really did lie about his Muslim background) and the electoral process, no candidate of color will ever be taken seriously."
I lifted the following quotation from Debra Dickerson's churlish screed that is referenced by McWhorter. Given Dickerson's premises on which she judges Obama not to be a black American, I have a question: Is a black woman who is married to a white man, lives in a nearly all-white community and who has mostly dated and been physically intimate with white men qualified to discuss black culture and politics as if she were black?
My question is, of course, silly but my point about Dickerson is not.
I want his job!
Why does anybody care what John McWhorter thinks about politics? He is a linguist. not a political scientist or historian. His opinions are ill-informed; his arguments lack any semblance or rigor. I blame the Economist for pandering to ignorance.
McW and Dickerson ... the
McW and Dickerson ... the king and queen of the zip coon establishment.
Sounds like these negrobots need their motherboards changed. All they do is repeat the same damn minstrel show over and over
O - you mean the neo-zip
O - you mean the neo-zip coon establisment?
O - you mean the neo-zip
O - you mean the neo-zip coon establisment?
Works for me PT. They are 21st century coons after all!
I read Ebog Johnson's
I read Ebog Johnson's dissection of McWhorter, and I think he got to the heart of what drives the man: some kids teased him for being a nerd once and he never got over it.
Ha! That's what I said about
Ha! That's what I said about Shelby once...he got his ass kicked over his name.
I'm Going To Quote P Diddy
Mc Whorter has a lot of "bitchassness" in him ... I cannot believe he's still obsessing over Obama and his blackness. He seems to have found it a couple decades ago while McWhorter is still searching for his ... Perhaps he should have made a different choice in a spouse.