Obama's protection reveals ugly 'secret'/Satire about Obama isn't the same as Imus flub

Obama's protection reveals ugly 'secret'
Leonard Pitts, a syndicated columnist in Washington: McClatchy-Tribune Newspapers
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published May 8, 2007

Not Rudy Giuliani, who is a supporter of abortion rights.

Not Tom Tancredo, who is a hard-liner on immigration.

Not John Edwards, who is a critic of the war in Iraq.

Only Barack Obama, who is black.

No other presidential candidate, no matter his or her polarizing positions, has felt it necessary to seek protection from the Secret Service. But last week we learned that Obama has sought and will receive that protection, the only candidate ever to do so this early in the process. Only one other candidate even has a Secret Service detail: Hillary Rodham Clinton. And that's because she's a former first lady.

You know who else required early protection? Jesse Jackson, when he ran for president in 1984 and '88.

Neither Obama's campaign nor the Secret Service will comment on precisely what went into the decision to assign a detail to the senator, beyond saying it was based on no specific threat. But one need not be a seer to divine the reason. Put it this way: The darker the candidate's skin and the more serious his candidacy, the earlier he seems to need protecting.

All of which adds a telling dimension to the ongoing debate about Obama and blackness that has percolated for months beneath the surface of his candidacy.

On the one side, you have earnest white people insisting that, because his mother was white, Obama is not really black, but "biracial."

On the other side, you have earnest black people insisting that, because his heritage does not trace to slavery, Obama is not really black enough -- that is, not black in a cultural sense.

Apparently, however, he is both black and black enough for whatever individual or individuals unnerved his handlers enough to seek Secret Service protection.

That's a truth that cuts the clutter.

In a sense, the fact that we have the luxury of debating "what" Obama is testifies to the racial progress this nation has made. Once upon a time, nobody had to debate. Back before Colin and Cosby and Condoleezza, before Air Jordan took wing and Johnson made Magic, before Oprah was America's favorite sister girl and Martin spoke of dreams, back when a Southern restaurant caused an international incident by refusing service to an African diplomat -- back in the day, there was no need of abstract rhetoric on what black is.

You knew. The world made sure of it.

If we have moved beyond that day, if we are proud to think ourselves more enlightened now, it is nevertheless naive to believe the naked meanness of that day has wholly disappeared.

It is fashionable now to speak of systemic racism and the need for black folk to take a greater hand in their own salvation. Those discussions are valid. But it is also occasionally instructive to remember that old-fashioned mean-as-a-snake, thick-as-a-brick hatred is still alive and well and living in the U.S.A.

Sometimes, it lolls in the shade of the intellectual cover provided it by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Sometimes, it is dressed in suit and tie and sounds reasonable when told by the likes of David Duke.

Sometimes, it is sung in wobbly adolescent voices by the likes of Prussian Blue.

And sometimes, it just rears up on its hind legs and brays that it will commit violence rather than accept a black man as its president.

We like to pretend this bile is not still in us. We like to pretend we are beyond it. Then the man who could be our next president must ask to be protected from those who think him too dark for the job.

Something to remember next time you are tempted to debate what black is. The world still has ways of making you know.

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Leonard Pitts is a syndicated columnist in Washington. E-mail: lpitts@miamiherald.com


Satire about Obama isn't the same as Imus' flub
By Clarence Page
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published May 9, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Remember when media pundits were asking whether Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was "black enough" to attract black voters? That was the old media narrative. The new one goes sort of like this: "Maybe he's too black."

Take, for example, his conservative adversaries, such as talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who seems to take gleeful delight in reminding everyone of how black Obama is -- and even more delight when the rest of us notice.

Back in mid-March, for example, el Rushbo began to air a satirical song titled, "Barack the Magic Negro."

He didn't make up the term. He hijacked it fair and square.

Columnist David Ehrenstein employed the term -- which dates to the film industry days before "Negroes" became "black" -- in a Los Angeles Times essay to describe Obama's soaring appeal to white voters.

Ehrenstein compared Obama's rapid rise in the public imagination to some of the roles that actors like Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman or Will Smith have played: the black hero who arises magically to "assuage white guilt."

Ehrenstein, who is black, described "white guilt" as "the minimal discomfort" that the white film characters feel about the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history.

Limbaugh, in the fashion of our times, chastised liberal "racism" for bringing up race in this fashion, then proceeded to air a song about it. Repeatedly. Sung to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon" by voice impersonator Paul Shanklin, imitating Rev. Al Sharpton, the song goes in part like this:

"Barack the Magic Negro / lives in D.C./ The L.A. Times, they called him that/ 'Cause he's not authentic like me ..."

If Limbaugh was looking for something to prove that he's worth caring about, he struck pay dirt.

Predictably, the ever-alert watchdogs at the liberal Media Matters for America Web site immediately posted an indignant news alert and audio clip about the song. That's the same group that posted radio host Don Imus' "nappy-headed hos" sound bite about the Rutgers women's basketball team that led to the loss of his national radio show within a week.

It probably says something about how isolated Limbaugh may be from the rest of us that the song didn't generate much mainstream media controversy until last week. That was when Obama became the first presidential candidate to qualify for Secret Service protection besides Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who as a former first lady never stopped having it.

It was the earliest assignment of Secret Service protection since another black candidate, Rev. Jesse Jackson, ran for president in 1984 and '88. If anyone still needs evidence as to whether the Illinois Democrat is "black enough," the bigot vote appears to have made up its mind.

Citing the large number of wackos in the world, a lot of people on the Web and on talk radio, particularly listeners to Sharpton's radio show, think Limbaugh should meet the same fate as Imus. I don't.

I may not be in sync with Limbaugh's politics, but the two cases are quite different. As satire, Limbaugh's song passes three critical tests that Imus' offhand comment flunked: (1) it's funny, (2) it took at least half of a brain to think up and (3) it contains a nugget of truth.

The song in question actually mocks Sharpton more than Obama. The flamboyant New York preacher and talk-radio host comes off as a resentful old-school polarizer who doesn't like to be upstaged by an upstart. Obama is portrayed as a rising star who would refuse to let the few things that divide us Americans along lines of race and class get in the way of the many things that we have in common.

Funny thing: As a guy who builds audiences by inflaming political differences, Limbaugh has more in common with Sharpton than with Obama. Birds of a feather mock together.

Imus' targets, by contrast, weren't rich, famous, powerful or political. He's entitled to free-speech rights, but the 1st Amendment only protects you from government interference, not from losing sponsors or embarrassing your employer.

Limbaugh's target is a wildly popular presidential candidate, which is precisely the sort of political expression that the 1st Amendment was written to protect. I may not agree with Limbaugh's politics, but he has a right to express them.

Besides, if the potentates of political correctness come after conservative commentators like Limbaugh today, they'll come after liberal commentators tomorrow.

If voters think Obama can close that divide, they really do believe in magic.
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Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: cptime@aol.com