Man in Black

[Grace]

Racist - think Barack the Magic Negro.

Morbidly obese - there is fat; then there is morbidly obese. Morbid means death. While Rush may wish some would die, I would prefer to see people live to a ripe old age. And, as an aside, have you ever taken care of a patient who is morbidly obese? I have and it isn't pleasant - nor was it healthy for me.

Now, it is close to midnight, and I am heading for bed. See you all in the morning . . . . . . .

[blue]

Racist - think Barack the Magic Negro.

Link?

Morbidly obese - there is fat; then there is morbidly obese. Morbid means death. While Rush may wish some would die, I would prefer to see people live to a ripe old age. And, as an aside, have you ever taken care of a patient who is morbidly obese? I have and it isn't pleasant - nor was it healthy for me

So does this mean Michael Moore is full of carp for the same reason?

Why is Limbaugh's weight an issue reguarding his speech?

Do you think Obama has the backbone to take Rush up on his offer?

[caseysmom]

google rush limbaugh barack the magic negro...its out there

[blue]

google rush limbaugh barack the magic negro...its out there

Sorry the Magic Negro is from David Ehrenstein, not Limbaugh.

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.

Edit: Im listening to Limbaughs audio, it is based off of the above quoted text. Grace and Caseysmom, you where taken in by Limbaugh's plan. *Golf Clap*

[caseysmom]

Okay your making me do the work now so I'm gonna be grouchy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Bao4VUQmI

edit to add I just saw your edit...not sure what you mean though??

[blue]

Okay your making me do the work now so I'm gonna be grouchy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Bao4VUQmI

edit to add I just saw your edit...not sure what you mean though??

This site has the actual audio, not a news story. Link.

Edit: I havent listend to Rush for 3 or 4 years now so I didnt hear any of the satiricle musical bits.

[caseysmom]

Well he perpetuated it but it did not originate with him...not that much difference in my book.

[blue]

Well he perpetuated it but it did not originate with him...not that much difference in my book.

Of course it isnt.

Why do I doubt you read or listened to the entire thing?

[caseysmom]

I read it fast I will reread it tomorrow I am on my blackberry

[blue]

On the second listen I got the Barack the magic negro lyric, bad taste, maybe, funny, maybe, but the racist is the LA Times writer.

[blue]

Im going back a step or two here, But Caseysmom and Grace are calling Limbaugh a racist when they havent read or heard his comments about a LA Times oped piece?

I may have 2 or 3 learning disabilities but something is wrong here.

ETA: Im still interested on why Limbaugh's weight is an issue?

[blue]

While Rush may wish some would die

Yes Im slow some times.

Who does Rush wish would die?

[caseysmom]

Im going back a step or two here, But Caseysmom and Grace are calling Limbaugh a racist when they havent read or heard his comments about a LA Times oped piece?

I may have 2 or 3 learning disabilities but something is wrong here.

ETA: Im still interested on why Limbaugh's weight is an issue?

I never said that all I said was that you could go out on the internet and find info about Barack the magic negro. I never said anything about his weight either, I could care less. I really can't even listen to him his style is so obnoxious to me.

[Puckstop31]

Even the SMART liberal commentators think it is quite stupid to go after Limbaugh...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2009/03/11/mercury/

Case in point: The orchestrated attack on radio host Rush Limbaugh, which has made the White House look like an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys. I returned from carnival in Brazil (more on that shortly) to find the Limbaugh affair in full flower. Has the administration gone mad? This entire fracas was set off by the president himself, who lowered his office by targeting a private citizen by name. Limbaugh had every right to counterattack, which he did with gusto. Why have so many Democrats abandoned the hallowed principle of free speech? Limbaugh, like our own liberal culture hero Lenny Bruce, is a professional commentator who can be as rude and crude as he wants.

Yes, I cringe when Rush plays his "Barack the Magic Negro" satire or when he gratuitously racializes the debate over Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who is a constant subject of withering scrutiny for quite different reasons on sports shows here in Philadelphia. On the other hand, I totally agree with Rush about "feminazis," whose amoral tactics and myopic worldview I as a dissident feminist had to battle for decades. As a student of radio and a longtime listener of Rush's show, I have gotten a wealth of pleasure and insight from him over the years. To attack Rush Limbaugh is to attack his audience -- and to intensify the loyalty of his fan base.

If Rush's presence looms too large for the political landscape, it's because of the total vacuity of the Republican leadership, which seems to be in a dithering funk. Rush isn't responsible for the feebleness of Republican voices or the thinness of Republican ideas. Only ignoramuses believe that Rush speaks for the Republican Party. On the contrary, Rush as a proponent of heartland conservatism has waged open warfare with the Washington party establishment for years.

And I'm sick of people impugning Rush's wealth and lifestyle, which is no different from that of another virtuoso broadcaster who hit it big -- Oprah Winfrey. Rush Limbaugh is an embodiment of the American dream: He slowly rose from obscurity to fame on the basis of his own talent and grit. Every penny Rush has earned was the result of his rapport with a vast audience who felt shut out and silenced by the liberal monopoly of major media. As a Democrat and Obama supporter, I certainly do not agree with everything Rush says or does. I was deeply upset, for example, by the sneering tone both Rush and Sean Hannity took on Inauguration Day, when partisan politics should have been set aside for a unifying celebration of American government and history. Nevertheless, I respect Rush for his independence of thought and his always provocative news analysis. He doesn't run with the elite -- he goes his own way.

[Grace]

Im still interested on why Limbaugh's weight is an issue?

It's not. It's a fact. If it is so bothersome to you, I will go back and delete the comment

The Chelsea Clinton comment - I saw him say it. Back in the first Clinton administration, Rush had a TV show. I was watching the day he said it. It was then that the bloom went off the rose, so to speak.

As for the Magic Negro thing - I know he didn't originate it. But he sure made sure it didn't die a natural death.