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Complete the Sentence

June 10th, 2008 · 6 Comments

Instapundit:

DAVE WEIGEL: “The ‘Michelle Obama tape’ rumor mill started churning a lot more slowly this weekend, a development that, I’m sure, had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton’s exit from the race. It would be odd if Clinton supporters were only spreading the rumor to keep superdelegates on the fence before it was too late, wouldn’t it?”

The problem for Hillary is that it’s believable her followers would spread a bogus rumor. The problem for Obama is that the bogus rumor itself was believable.

Due to an editorial error, the final sentence of that post was truncated. It should have read “The problem for Obama is that the bogus rumor itself was believable, if you happened to have swallowed five or six blotter sheets of windowpane acid.”

The most remarkable thing about this rumor has always been that it somehow kept lurching along like some George Romero extra despite being utterly, completely, I’ve-got-a-Nigerian-bank-account-to-share-with-you unbelievable in about twelve different ways. The Ivy League educated wife of a half-white state senator (Hi Grandma! Hi Grandpa!), speaking fully three decades after the release of Cleopatra Jones, does a 30 minute rant about “whitey” with cameras rolling? Is there any element of this that doesn’t positively shriek “bullshit”? I have trouble fathoming how far gone down the ideological rabbit hole you’d have to be to even listen to it through once without giggling, never mind find it “believable”.

Update: You know, that’s probably backward.  What I should be asking is: What exactly have we heard out of Michelle Obama that makes this believable? There was her Princeton dissertation on race and assimilation, which folks tried desperately to mine for something controversial without much success. There was some utterly unremarkable Democratic boilerplate about “moving bars” that pundits like Hugh Hewitt made a profoundly lame attempt to cast as bitter and anti-American. But what has she said that makes it plausible that she’s actually a modern Malcolm XX?

Surveying some of these reactions, looks as though a lot of people regard standard leftish rhetoric that would pass without comment in a John Edwards speech as angry and threatening coming from a black woman. Which does suggest another possibility: Suppose there is some kernel of fact, some ur-tape, back at the source of this game of Chinese whispers. (Can one still say “Chinese whispers”?) If there is, I’ll wager that it consists of some uncomfortable but uncontroversial (or at any rate, true) observations about the history of race in America, in which the word “whitey” does not appear, but which nevertheless sound like racist hate speech to some observers. The reactions to Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory sermons have, I think, shown that there are plenty of people out there who, above and beyond their antipathy to his incendiary mode of delivery, get extraordinarily touchy about any reminder that this country has a long and relatively recent history of treating black people badly.

Tags: Horse Race Politics · Sociology


       

 

6 responses so far ↓

  • 1 tp // Jun 10, 2008 at 2:57 am

    Never seen Cleopatra Jones, but Black Belt Jones and Foxy Brown were fine films.

  • 2 Tybalt // Jun 10, 2008 at 5:57 am

    I only find it believable because right now I find myself about 5 minutes of bullshit away from a half-hour rant about “whitey” myself… and I’m white.

  • 3 Sam McManus // Jun 10, 2008 at 4:40 pm

    I think it’s less about being touchy about the mistreatment of blacks in this country and more about the responsibility for that mistreatment. I know personally, I get kind of upset when I’m walking on Market Street in Philly and see the Nation of Islam guys shouting about how it’s white people’s (eg my) fault it’s tough for a black guy to get a job. While it’s probably true I get preferential treatment for being white (or, if you’d prefer, I get OK treatment for not being otherwise), there’s not a whole lot I can do about it. My ancestors never owned slaves because AFAIK they weren’t even in the country while it was still legal. I was already trying to not be racist personally. I never requested any of the benefits of my skin color, and yet I get them anyway, and so I feel guilty even though on some level I feel free of personal responsibility for the sins of the country’s founders even though I have to deal with the consequences. Thus, resentment. I think that that mentality is a little juvenile and something to fight, but a lot of people have trouble accepting responsibility in general, let alone accepting responsibility for something they never had a direct hand in causing.

  • 4 Julian Sanchez // Jun 10, 2008 at 5:10 pm

    Sam-
    That makes a certain amount of sense, but it’s just a reason to keep clear on the distinction between saying YOU, contemporary white guy, should feel guilty about whatever institutional privilege your race affords you, and saying that we ought to be aware of (and work to combat) the persistent effects of historical (and contemporary) racism.

  • 5 Kevin B. O'Reilly // Jun 10, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    Whoa, I don’t think you believe that, Julian? What, for example, are you obliged to do to combat the persistent effects of contemporary racism?

    I agree that I ought not discriminate on the basis of race, but I’m not sure I’m obliged to take some affirmative action to combat the effects of others’ racist behavior. Why do you (appear) to believe so?

  • 6 apk01004 // Jun 10, 2008 at 11:25 pm

    I think your drug lingo is off, Julian. blotter and windowpane are two different preparations of acid. You are not, as the kids say, with it.