You know what’s classy? Magic Negro Political Candidates! This certain goodness was done by Rush Limbaugh himself, no stranger to racial controversy (remember him getting kicked off of ESPN’s pregame football show for saying Donovan McNabb was only a good ‘black’ quarterback?). Well, guess what! Rush Limbaugh the magic dopeman / hillbilly charmer that enthralls millions upon millions of unwashed Middle State caucasians with many a story of delusional tales of liberal wrong doing is back with more fun. Now, of course, it’s this latest episode — Barack Obama the Magic Negro sung by ‘Al Sharpton‘ to the tune of Puff the Magic Dragon. What wonderful timing too! Especially just a couple of weeks after the whole nappy headed hos controversy (which was less magical and more negroe-y). I wonder if Al Sharpton / Jesse Jackson have washed the blood off of Imus’ noose yet??
PS. Keep up to date with the happy fun times of the Rush the Magic Racist discussion at PBH, featuring Rush Limbaugh fans who blames this whole episode on the liberal jew media!
Technorati Tags: Magic Negro, Rush Limbaugh, Barack Obama, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson
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fuck this shit, racist mother fucks
TEH NUTWINGS ARE AFRAID OF THIS MAN. LOOK FOR A LOT MORE OF THIS STUFF, CUZ THE ONLY THING THEY HAVE ON OBAMA IS HIS RACE… WHICH IS HUMAN!
America don’t need no “nappy headed political ho” in the white house.
It’s called the “white” house for a reason!
It seems to be an anti-Sharpton thing, not an anti-Obama thing. But it certainly is foul!
Hey zug zug…it’s not racism, it’s realism.
This PARODY has been out there for over a month – way before Imus. It’s based on an LA Times column by a black columnist who coined the phrase. I don’t particularly like it, but all those parodied are fair game. I’d rather see Obama run than Hillary.
didn’t know Reverend Al could sing so good.
Rush knew this would stir controversy. That is why he did it.
This parody is to call attention to this:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
Limbaugh saw that in the middle of the Imus flap, the L.A. Times could publish something so unbelieveably color/race-centric as this and not get called on it. He knew that he would…and as soon as he did, he could refer to the LA Times article that coined the phrase.
Hey…it is smart and does illustrate the double standard…and I am not a Rush fan.
Shanklin is lampooning racism directed at Obama. David Ehrenstein is the one who dubbed Obama the “Magic Negro”, invoking the label given to a stock character in fiction who exists only to aid the white protagonist. (A classic example: Scatman Crothers in “The Shining.”)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-center
Sharpton is dragged into this because he, like Ehrenstein, is part of that contingent that holds to a narrow view of what constitutes black authenticity. (And because Sharpton has a famous voice, which Shanklin has impersonated before.) Obama fits part of that mold – he’s a staunch leftist – but he draws suspicion because he draws a lot of white supporters.
(One wonders how many people would be miffed if our first black president had no roots to American slavery.)
This parody compares to “Blazing Saddles” – both portray racism in a work intended to lampoon racism.
Oh, you got the Donovan McNabb story wrong. Allen Barra at Slate got it right:
“Rush Limbaugh didn’t say Donovan McNabb was a bad quarterback because he is black. He said that the media have overrated McNabb because he is black, and Limbaugh is right. He didn’t say anything that he shouldn’t have said, and in fact he said things that other commentators should have been saying for some time now.”
The media tend to get a little hyped in favor of black sports players who play sports positions where blacks have been historically scarce. As the McNabb incident illustrates, such bias can dampen objective reporting. As coverage of the last Super Bowl demonstrated, it can also lead reporters to allow talk about black achievement to overshadow talk about the specific talents of the people in question.
Oops, forgot to link the Slate article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2089193/
Limbaugh ought to be above airing this crap. Obama has already proven himself an absolutley worthless candidate. If it’s his fake southen black accent he put on whenever he is down south, his socialist policies, not to mention that fact that he has hardly any experience to be commander in chief, you would think that would be enough to render Obama dead in the water. His horrible performance at the debates last night didn’t help either. But this Magic Negro scetch is a dimwitted scetch and not worthy of being a counter to Obama’s candidacy. I can do better, why can’t Rush Limbaugh?
Allen Barra at Slate got it right
It’s funny how of all the football “experts” that commented on this at the time, Barra was the only one who agreed with Limbaugh, and yet he’s the one Limbaugh fans always point to. It’s also funny that McNabb has been selected for the Pro Bowl five times by coaches and fellow players, when it’s the media that overrates him. It’s also funny that the media overrates McNabb but if anything underrates Steve McNair.
But then Limbaugh is a funny guy.
Surely you jest? Big Pharma? The guy who mocked Michael J. Fox for having Parkinson’s? Rush is a horrible human being. This is just continued evidence of that.
Alan et. All: David Ehrstein actually responded over at PBH about this whole incident if you care to take a look.
Mike,
Rush made the comments when the Eagles in the early 2003 season when the Eagles were 2-0. McNabb was faltering at the time. See Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan_McNabb#2002-2003
When I said that Barra got it right, I meant that he accurately reported what Limbaugh really said. The bloghost’s statement about “him getting kicked off of ESPN’s pregame football show for saying Donovan McNabb was only a good ‘black’ quarberback” is untrue. As to Rush’s and Barra’s assessment of McNabb, I have no opinion – I don’t follow football player stats, and I know that there’s a lot of differing ideas on how to assess a quarterback.
Alec,
I read David Ehrenstein’s comments. He doesn’t really say anything. Blog author “government_employee” is too bigoted to recognize a putdown of he’s-not-a-genuine-black-person racism for what it is.
Earlier I wrote this:
“Sharpton is dragged into this because he, like Ehrenstein,”
I blogged on this post, and have retracted the last two words from the above phrase. Here is the update explaining the retraction:
Update: Actually, Ehrenstein is promoting an entirely different form of racism. Shanklin is making use of the current buzzowrd “Magic Negro” to jab specifically at the long-standing not-an-authentic-black-person prejudice demonstrated by Sharpton and his ilk. Ehrenstein’s racism is directed toward white people who support Obama. His own words from the LA Times article:
“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.
…
“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.”
For pity’s sake, people, RELAX!
This song is a parody on the race-baiting Al Sharpton. It is not an attack on Obama.
It should be pointed out that the Los Angeles Times (part of the “mainstream” media) are the ones that coined this term. However, as a regular Rush fan, I am not very comfortable with hearing this over and over again. He should let it go.
Marc: Yah, but the guy who wrote the article is black. Rush is not. And the author of the piece (David Ehrenstein) commented about everything over at PBH: http://www.prosebeforehos.com/government_employee/04/26/rush-the-magic-racist/
He didn’t comment about everything. He didn’t comment about his charges that Obama supporters are racists. He said nothing about Rush’s remarks (although he somehow got the notion that Rush was unaware of his ethnic background). He said nothing about the Shanklin parody. This is all he said. First comment:
“Thanks for reminding everyon that I’m black, alec. It’s clearly indicated in my op-ed, but the Oxycontin junkie doesn’t know.
“Hell, CBS didn’t know either until I told them an houe ago. They called and want to shoot me watching the thing on the net. I said no in no uncertain times. I am not going to contribute to his further self-agrandizement.
Anyhoo they’re thinking of shooting me anyway on Monday, so stay tuned.”
Second comment:
“They just left after shooting me for several hours. Stay tuned.”
As a couple of the Rush fans pointed out, there is a perfectly good satyrical reasoning behind the song as an extension of the reverse-racism double standard schtick that Limbaugh makes his living off of. That schtick is in itself a kind of ugly white anger-baiting if you ask me, and a sort of rational excuse for anger that is not rational or helpful.
But the reason this really is worse than the usual “reverse discrimination” claim is right on the face. It’s obviously from a white perspective and ridicules black dialect. Proponents of racial equality, whatever their political stripe, will have an uncomfortable reaction to it. Racists will devour it like candy. And it’s hook is to spread the term “Obama the magic negro” among those who genuinely like this kind of stuff.
When you are dealing with intentional pop-culture messages, you can’t pretend the essoteric meaning (that requires a follow through to a deeper conversation) is the primary intent. The intent of this is to call attention to Obama’s race. Rush is not concerned with Sharpton. Sharpton is Limbaugh’s best friend. He makes him money and gives him easy targets. Rush is concerned with Obama. Rush mentions his race literally every single day, calling him a “halfrican american.” Rush wants to keep Obama’s race front and center, highlight it negatively both to racists and to blacks, and reserve the “plausible deniability” that he is really having a deeper conversation. He’s done a very good job here.
The problem Rush has is that he has consistently painted any democrat as worthless, as well as implying that blacks are not at the par of whites. Thus, if there is ever a democrat that has done anything good, he has to lambast them and smear them – otherwise his main convictions are wrong. Thus he’ll even attack Iraq war vets that are against the war yet still say he supports the troops. He’ll spend days and days of his show trying to prove that nothing Carter has done since his less-than-mediocre presidency has done any good in the world. And along this same vein then, Rush is obligated to come up with any reason to deny Obama the praise he gets for his intelligence. So that’s why he says “halfrican”, for surely a “full” black could not do so well – it has to be the other non-black half that has contributed to his success. And he’s a “magic negro” because no way can a black be successful/smart/articulate on his own – it has to be because blacks get more of a pass (he has “magic” help him out, and not something that Obama caused himself). Believe me, Rush is VERY, VERY threatened by Obama – Obama stands to prove Rush’s entire ideology and racism as skewed, and this Rush can not have.
Barack isn’t even black, and he has never claimed to be one. He cannot be a “magic negro”. I think it’s racist to call someone who happens to be part black a black person. He also is half white, why don’t we just call him white? Or better yet, call him for what he really is; a person of mixed race. It’s only a big deal because you guys are racist.
You idiots, Rush DIDN’T do the video. He DID do the audio, which if you actually LISTENED, is aimed at that racist fraud Al Sharpton, not Obama. Liberal dupes will be liberal dupes…
Very late comment here … the first person I ever heard use the phrase “Magic Negro” was Spike Lee. That was at least 15 years ago. he was criticizing Hollywood moviemakers by ridiculizing the kind of roles they were giving to black actors like Morgan Freeman. This was around the time that Lee was making Do The Right Thing. Although I’m not an arch-fan of Spike lee, I thought his rap about “Magic Negro” characters in film was very true and very funny.
I’m also not an arch-fan of NFL football, but I did notice that after Donovan McNabb got hurt last season, his team went on a winning streak and made the playoffs.
How can a black man not claim to be black? When he is a politician. This video/song is hilarious. Why can’t any of you just laugh once in a while. And by the way, it was cutting sharpton, not the magic negro!
The political machine in Cook County is laughing all the way to the bank with any scumbag. Maybe they should bring back Carol Moseley Braun to run on the ticket also. How about Braun vs. Clinton in the primary if the magic negro fizzes out. That would be a real horse race.
Oh my Gawd! a Nihgur to become President of the United States what is our great nation come to now?
Seriously all you racist fvcks should jump off some building
i suppose this is the high point of their billy-bob, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing lives
Its not racist…Talk to the LA times !!!!….The song was written based on the story…Its like saying “The Ballad of Crankster Bob” is written about all white people, nooooo its about trailer trash meth smokin rednecks….
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