On Sun, 4 Mar 2001, Chris Kromm wrote:
> During one segment, Tucker sat beside Clinton in the audience and
> joked that the former commander in chief is so popular among
> minorities that some consider him the first black president.
-I think this line first had its origin in a Chris Rock routine, which was -actually pretty funny at the time.
I remember the routine- it started with Rock noting that Clinton doesn't have Presidential problems, he has regular people problems- "his wife's a b-----, he can't pay his bills" etc. The final punchline was, "I know Bill Clinton. I AM BILL CLINTON." I don't think it was explicitly identifying Clinton as black at that point, but the subtext was there. Or at least the working class aspect of it, which give our racialization of class, inevitably got narrowed to that sense.
-- Nathan Newman
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