On Mon, 28 Jan 2008, shag wrote:
> Bill Clinton and it made me wonder: *why* did people say he was the
> first black presdinet(tm)?
He was originally dubbed that by Chris Rock and Toni Morrison in 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky brouhaha.
Chris Rock has a routine where where he'd say that Bill Clinton was the first black president, and after the audience did a double take and said "Wha??" he'd say, "You know what I mean, He's the most scrutinized man in history. He spends a hundred dollar bill, they hold it up to the light." The routine was quoted as part of his interview in Vanity Fair in the August 1998 issue.
Toni Morrison elaborated further in October 1998 in an article in the New Yorker:
<quote>
White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black president. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.
<unquote>
She goes on to say that with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, "his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution."
full article here:
http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/clinton/morrison.html
Michael