Why can't you just say the speech was good? So good you wanted the President to get off that podium and make sweet, hot, half-Mandigo love to you, Tweety? I would have respected you more!

You know - it was a good thing I wasn't drinking my tea when I read that.

SMH

I guess black people are not supposed to be like i dunno...smart or intelligent?

Snob,

I'm giving 'Old Yeller' a pass on this one. . . not because the quizzical nature of the comment isn't supremely irksome, but because this guy loves Obama about as much as anyone in the mainstream media can without getting their knees dirty. Moreover, for liberals of a certain age and hue, the race of this President is as much a component in their love affair as his policy platform.

Secondly--and I write this knowing the wrath I'll earn from your readers--there's only so much enlightened racial discourse you can expect from an old white male. There, i said it. They're hopelessly, helplessly, CONSTANTLY hamstrung by their racial and ethnic preoccupations. Try as they might, the remaining generation of his ilk aren't able to see the individual. Only the individuals color.

Now, having said that, I'm pretty sure he voted for him. As did the current Senate Majority Leader. And Old Yeller just finished a two-hour long special on the race issue in the (wait for it...) 'Age of Obama'. So how truly 'racist' can he/they be?

@snobfanforeal',

Just because someone likes Barack Obama doesn't make that way that he's framed his liking that Black man any less objectionable. Just as with, Obama's grandmother who he describes as "fearful" of Black males, what's love got to do with it seeing someone as other? I love my dog (pardon the extreme analogy) but certainly see it as a lesser thing with little likeness to myself.

My advice to well-meaning limousine liberals: Don's speak about things that you don't yet have a grasp of or the vocabulary to begin articulating.

While this post, like many of your others, made me chuckle, I have to say I'm gonna give Chris a pass for this one. I don't think the context of his comments were, "That black man shole can speak well!" (i.e., Harry Reid). I think think he was actually referring to what he felt Obama's speech accomplished, in terms of his bi-partisan efforts and reaching out to the American people. And honestly, I do agree a little -- during his first year, there was such an air of reverence for his breaking of the racial barrier, it was as if no one really heard or appreciated what he was really trying to do for the country (from the angry right or the star-struck left. Maybe for Chris, this was the first time that came through.

You're just seeing the way white liberals view AAs. Repleat with characatures and an intraracial caste hierarchy.

AAs had better be glad that the only businesses liberal fruitcakes run are entertainment, health food stores/restaurants, and green industries. If they did the unemployment in the AA community would be anywhere from 30 to over 50%.

The AA community has never had a caste system, its ironic however that the "supposed" liberal allies are the ones attempting to create one.

I didn't hear it live but I read the transcript and I wasn't offended by it at all. I think he meant that normally a room full of white folk would hold some kind of detest at the fact a black man was speaking to them as their leader much less a black president at the helm.

I guess I'm a bit bothered by the feeling that so many people have that Barack Obama is the only eloquent, intelligent Black person out there. My initial reaction to Chris Matthew's comment was like "why should that be so surprising?". I wasn't so much offended as I was like there are more where he came from you know...

*more where Barack came from* for clarification...

"The African American community has never had a caste system."

@ Not an Idiot- My apologies, but I grew up in the south and tend to think otherwise.

@ Donovan

You wrote--

"I love my dog (pardon the extreme analogy) but certainly see it as a lesser thing with little likeness to myself."

--as does the specific strain of well meaning, big-hearted, Dr. King-loving, left leaning type that Matthew's embodies. Thats exactly how they view black americans. You're analogy is totally in line with the point I'd hoped to make.

I can only imagine the accusations of racism if a Repub said the same thing. However, like Reid, I'm sure folks will give Chris a pass.

@ A Princess -- I grew up in the North and I would tend to agree with you.

"The AA community has never had a caste system"

would lawrence otis graham disagree?

LOL

as black folks we really need to focus on us and stop giving ignorance so much attention.. no matter how hurt, how enraged we become.. it won`t help us..

@ A Princess, Mac, Swiv

How about turning off BET, MTV, and whatever hip hop awards you plant yourselves in front of and pick up a book or do some other form of historical research and then you wouldn't have such uneducated and misinformed beliefs.

Its interesting how its the hip hop crowd that needs to view their own ethnic group as dysfunctional.

@ SWIV

How about researching Thurgood Marshall, the Little Rock nine, the Norfolk 17, and all of those as you hip hoppers like to say "light skinned" slaves, before you speak of what you don't know?

LMAO, it was a joke.

good grief.

hence the LOL

@ Not an Idiot- That is a lot of venom for an alternative opinion posited respectfully. Also, in your response, you made a large number of accusations and assumptions. I would engage you, but given your tone, methinks it would be an exercise in futility. I like the Snob's blog, so I will fight the urge to lead an unproductive conversation. This blog tends to be very productive in thought. I think I will maintain that standard.

Take your pills next time. Have a nice day.

I think his point was that, a year ago, there was this incredible focus on Obama being "The First Black President". I was frankly offended then. His point was that, a year into his presidency, nobody's talking about his race anymore.

Was Matthews inelegant? Yes; perhaps. Was he implying that we should be surprised to hear such marvelous articulation from an AA politician? I didn't hear that, express or implied.

There's a bit more to this, as well: Barack Obama is certainly not the first incredibly, poetically articulate AA man to take the center stage. But often, in the past, these articulate leaders have been educating the American public about race, and as such, their race was an essential part of the image. That's not the case with Mr. Obama. I think what Matthews was trying to say is that the rules are starting to change. That perhaps because of Obama, race doesn't have to be so much in the center of the dialog as it has been in the past. Or maybe that's just me being hopeful...

---

And WRT the AA community having a caste system? It may not be overt like in some of the Indian subcontinent, but spend a couple hours listening to the cleaning staff at the hospital where I work, categorizing each other in terms that make me want to wretch, and there is no doubt that an informal caste system exists. It's wrong. It's disgusting. But to deny it exists and is internally generated is a big mistake. And incidentally, it's not a product of the hip-hop culture. I can remember my neighbor referring to one of the women at work as a "Geechee N****r" when I was 6 years old -- and it wasn't in recognition of the richness of Gullah culture...Can't reverse it if you don't recognize it.

If Obama fooled Chris with some great "non-black" performance; logic says Chris just said the POTUS was acting white. Isn't it one or the other using Matthew's own awesomely dumb rule?

I don't think Chris was being offensive. Let's get real. Barack Obama was the first African American president and everyone across the globe acknowledged and celebrated that fact.

What Chris was saying (I think) is that not a lot of people even notice his skin color anymore.

It's the kind of thing where you know what he was trying to say, but it came out...well, like the way it did. XD
You know---when you say something to someone, immediately realize it could be misinterpreted, and then just keep digging yourself in deeper when trying to clarify the original statement. (This happens to me quite a bit.) I knew Tweety was gonna catch some flack for this. Kind of surprised it hasn't been more.

I know what he was getting at, though. It's been a good number of months since "Gates-gate", the last real excuse anyone had to use Obama's race as a wedge ,and the last opportunity screeching Republican hysterics had to vent their paranoid delusions on the subject. Of course, instead, they've been venting their paranoid delusions on OTHER subjects, but at least they've actually been relevant to policy. So lost in all that muck has been "the first black president" thing. Every now and then, I suddenly stop and remember---"Whoa, America actually elected a black president. Who saw that one coming?." Hits me from time to time. I'm sure a lot of people could say the same thing.

But, as Tweety so inartfully put it, Obama's ethnic makeup has assumed its rightful place in the public consciousness: the backburner.

Which means, of course, that the screeching hysterics will seize the first opportunity they detect to drag it kicking and screaming back into the glare of the spotlight.
Sleazebags.

Snob, you're so funny; for a minute I forgot you were a girl.