Months ago
I said that I thought Clinton could win big as president, since she'd get huge support from women who might have grown slightly tired of picking between rich white man A and rich white man B in every election during their adult lives. I was less sure Obama could win, even with his formidable speech-making skills, since so many white Americans remain fundamentally racist.
Now that Obama has an essentially insurmountable lead in delegates, (seemingly to everyone but the Clintons, who seem determined to fight on) the right wing attacks that were focused on the Clintons have shifted to him, and as a result we've had months of white panic and stupid debate questions about Obama being a stealth Muslim, things his pastor said, and tons of general nonsense in which anything any black person has ever done in America is viewed through a lens that requires Obama to repudiate it. And we're still months and months from the real start of the presidential election -- it's going to get much, much worse. I assure you, the open lies and slurs that made up the Swift Boating of John Kerry will be a fond memory by November.
For today's example, it's now incumbent upon Obama to repudiate rap music. Not just something one particular rapper said, or a rapper he's been personally associated with, but
rap music in general.
Although the media has finally exposed Barack Obama’s ties to the unhinged pastor his support from rappers who propagate equally pernicious nonsense has gone almost entirely unnoticed.
...The rappers have good reason to praise Obama. He has at times been an apologist for their "music."
...Obama thus far has equivocated on rappers. He has criticized their language, but adamantly refused to denounce the whole sordid genre as the unique cultural problem that it is.
Because after all, rappers are often black people, and Obama is half-black. The fact that rap music happens to be the best selling, most influential style of music in the US, and on earth, over the last decade plus is apparently beside the point. It's scary to reactionary right ring white Republicans, so it's therefore Obama's fault. Look for this talking point to infiltrate the mainstream media in the weeks to come, when everything every black male more intimidating than Will Smith has ever said, in rhyme, will come to symbolize Obama's outlook on society.
Actually, it gets worse, since come to think of it, Obama's not just half-black, he's also half-white. Will his deceptions never end! So now Eminem, Limp Bizkit, and Vanilla Ice are his fault, too! Also, those
creepy Aryan Olsen twins. I demand he prove that he's not secretly aligned with the white power movement to pass stealth laws that would force Black Americans back to African, White Americans to back to Europe, and leave this country to the Indians!
More (sarcasm) directed at this absurdity can
be found here.
Elsewhere,
Roy Edroso makes a point I was going to, but abandoned when I realized it would require me to spend several seconds thinking about country music.
Labels: obama, rap
