Well, there is something to this. And for someone with a very liberal (and very good) track record in the Illinois legislature, Obama has indeed turned out to be predictably but disappointingly triangulatory in national politics. But it isn't a bad thing that a (moderate liberal) African-American, in his case, literally and recently African!, apparently has a real shot as a serious presidential candidate. Before Obama came along, I would have bet that the first African-American presidential candidate would be a moderate-to-conservative Republican. Anyway, it wasn't going to be Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson or JJ, Jr. Obama's candidacy is indeed based on his being maximally nice and conciliatory, a real uniter-not-a-divider, and no liberal firebrand or race leader. But isn't it a reflection of progress that he's on the map at all? And for all that he wouldn't do a hundredth of what we'd hope, would you prefer McCain or Giuliani or Romney or anyone the GOP has on the table? Or say it would make no difference? Really truly?
--- BklynMagus <magcomm at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Here is my friend David Ehrenstein on Obama.
>
> Rush Limbaugh made quite a thing of the piece.
>
> http://mediamatters.org/items/200703200012
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
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