This'n'That; January 1st["Magic...";Kennedy]

The Basis Of The "Magic Negro" Fuss [The 04/17/007 entire Ehrenstein Op-Ed as published in the Los Angeles Times, the basis of the "Magic Negro" fuss] [***Begin Ehrenstein Op-Ed piece***] 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.***[End Ehrenstein Op-Ed piece]*** What IS all the fuss about? Are we not allowed our personal opinions? Does not "Freedom of the Press" assure our public expression of that opinion? As a liberal, free-lance journalist, Mr Ehrenstein has as much right to express his opinion as obama has to express his campaign [and now almost presidential] blather. It should be up to the reader/listener to consider the information and make his/her own decisions on the validity of that information. "Barack, The Magic Negro" is the product of humorist and political satirist, Paul Shanklin [ http://www.paulshanklin.com/ ] of Memphis, Tn. Mr Shanklin's work is featured on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, Hannity and Colmes and The O'Reilly Factor. Paul Shanklin's Response This story is based on an interview Shanklin gave Newsmax earlier this year. Paul Shanklin figures, at best, his songs make people laugh, and perhaps think a little. So he was largely unprepared for the firestorm sparked by a parody tweaking critics of Barack Obama. Shanklin got the idea for his controversial tune “Barack the Magic Negro” in March 2007 after reading a column titled “Obama the Magic Negro” by David Ehrenstein in the Los Angeles Times. In the column, Ehrenstein compared Obama to the stereotypical shallow black movie character that exists only to aid the white protagonist. “Magical Negro” is an offensive Hollywood term that has been applied to characters played by the likes of Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman and Will Smith, to name but a few. Almost as soon as Ehrenstein’s column ran, Rev. Al Sharpton joined the anti-Obama chorus, saying the Illinois senator hadn’t done enough to champion black causes. “I started humming it around the house after I read the column,” Shanklin told Newsmax. “But I seriously questioned whether it was appropriate for the show.” For one thing, Shanklin knew the issue required a lot of explanation up front. “It’s a horrible thing to say about Barack,” Shanklin said. “The guy earned his way. For people on the left to try to attack him and shoot him down early, it was amazing. “When Sharpton jumped on board, I thought I had to do something with it. I figured if people understood what this is about, it was going to be good.” The resulting parody quickly rose in popularity on the Limbaugh program, playing repeatedly through March and April. In it, Shanklin imitates Sharpton shouting through a bullhorn to the tune of Pete Yarrow’s classic “Puff the Magic Dragon,” with reworked lyrics such as: Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.// The L.A. Times, they called him that // ‘Cause he’s not authentic like me. // Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper // Said he makes guilty whites feel good// They’ll vote for him, and not for me // ‘Cause he’s not from the hood. // But the song’s popularity created a backlash for Shanklin, who said mainstream media reporters saddled him with coining the “Magic Negro” moniker for Obama and branded him a racist. “The funniest thing I had was a request from the Today show to go on and explain myself,” Shanklin said. “I knew these guys were not my friends. I wasn’t going to go on there and have Matt Lauer asking me, ‘How long have you been a racist?’ They love to make people cry on that show. I didn’t want to be the guy crying in front of Matt Lauer.” On the advice of a friend, Shanklin declined the Today show invitation and issued a simple statement: “The song speaks for itself. It’s a parody of David Ehrenstein’s column in which he called Obama the ‘Magic Negro.’ Go read it.” That didn’t stop Today from covering the story, or from referring to Shanklin in most references as “the white comedian.” “That’s why you’ll hear Rush refer to me as ‘white comedian Paul Shanklin’ on the air now. It’s a leftover from that whole affair,” he told Newsmax. While he tries to stay lighthearted about the incident, Shanklin says he was hurt by the way the story got twisted. “I’m from Memphis, which is probably the most racially polarized city in the country. I take this issue pretty seriously. “This was my first experience in being a part of a story and everybody got it wrong. It was kind of scary and kind of enlightening too. It’s frustrating to be on the business end of the media’s slant. “Rush is the one who gets the slings and arrows for the most part. This time it was my turn.” Kennedy "Victory Tour [Part #20]" Princess Caroline continues to be skewered by the national media, an unheard-of event for those carrying the American royal name!! Seems, with her "ums, ahs and you knows" she's not only verbally aligning herself with obama but continuing the genetic legacy. Both Uncle "Phat" Kennedy and cousin Joe, an ex-US Rep, have individually been dubbed the "Wizard of Uhs" by Boston radio hosts. Even after "Phat" drowned that girl in Martha's Vineyard, Ma., the media was quick to formulate an excuse, an apology and drop the matter. The princess has been recorded using thirty "you knows" in 147 seconds of excerpted speech. Here's a verbatim example of her speech: "You know, I think, really, um, this is sort of a unique moment, both in our, you know, in our country's history and in, you know, my own life, and, um, you know, we are facing, you know, unbelievable challenges." Besides being distracting, these little locutions can make a spearker seem ill-prepared or unsure of his/her point. The 51 year-old princess has never held public office and has faced questions about her preparedness for the Senate. She has pointed to her experience as a lawyer [like we need even more of THEM on Capitol Hill ??], education advocate [that's another real plus-what exactly, has the US Department of Education done for the country other than being another facet of the bloated bureaucracy-wasting most of a $67+Billion budget] and author of books on constitutional law and other subjects [the "other subjects" might be ok, but the princess is at a definite disadvantage on the constitutional law topic. The US Congress has all but abandoned the Constitution], as well as her family's long history of public service [So now DNA is a determining factor to be selected as the "Carpetbagger-In-Waiting?"]. Til Nex'Time.......