Obama: Liberal MSM and the Barack Blackness Meter

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Obama: Liberal MSM and the Barack Blackness Meter

The Right Color instead of The Right Stuff

The favorite parlor game for liberal, MSM reporters and commentators must be, "Ask Me A Non-Question". Mixing business and pleasure during the spring 2007, they obsessived over the following non-question: "Is Barack Obama black enough?".

By posing non-questions, liberals can give non-answers, which suits them for several reasons. First, it satisfies their regular readers/viewers that they are all thinking. Secondly, it shows they all "care", by just asking. Lastly, they don't have to address real questions: those have much harder solutions.

Asking a non-question to a liberal is like waving the green starting flag at Darlington.

Google the search term, "is obama black enough" and it returns 2.78 million references--overwhelmingly from liberal blogs, newspapers and magazines. It isn't surprising: it was a non-question and any old non-answer was sufficient.

Asking hard, real questions about whether a first-term senator from Illinois had "The Right Stuff", the liberal media was manic about "The Right Color"--or, to be more exact, the right shade of color.

Here's a few representative samples:

As much as his biracial identity has helped Obama build a sizable following in middle America, it's also opened a gap for others to question his authenticity as a black man. In calling Obama the "first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," the implication was that the black people who are regularly seen by whites — or at least those who aspire to the highest office in the land — are none of these things.
--Is Obama Black Enough?
Time: Feb 1 2007

The Democratic hopeful Barack Obama could become the US's first black president. Yet, with his mixed-race background, Ivy League education and midwestern accent, one of his greatest challenges has been convincing African-Americans that he is 'one of us'.
--Is Barack Obama Black Enough?
The Guardian: Gary Younge, March 1 2007

Black enough for government work?

That was the question 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft posed to Obama in an interview that aired on Sunday. Kroft asked the biracial senator why he considered himself black even though he was raised in a white household. Obama responded by telling Kroft that he never decided to be black: “I think if you look African-American in this society, you’re treated as an African-American.”
--Is Obama Black enough?
Columbia Journalism Review, Sarah Sarmah Feb 15 2007

Liberals asked, "What's exactly the right color?"

It was as if American Liberalism had regressed 250 years, to the days of the mulatto, quadroon and octoroon.

The terms mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon originated with the racial policies of European colonizers in the Americas, especially the Spanish. Because civil rights and responsibilities were based directly on the degree of European blood that a person had, such classifications were highly elaborated, and minor distinctions in ancestry were carefully recorded. While these terms have highly precise definitions, in actual practice they were often used based on impressions of skin color rather than definite knowledge of ancestry.
--Ask.com: Octoroon

Conservatives mostly commented on the media's interest in a non-question. The question itself was absurd, as was the liberal's fascination with it. If Obama held conservative positions on the issues, he could have been a bright blue.

"Black enough" non-questions are best left to be considered by the liberal Left. Those that practice racial identity politics are better equipped to comment on that which is familiar.

Apparently, liberals decided that Barack Obama was "black enough". The question disappeared and won't be seen again--unless Obama does something to anger a segment of the black population.

In which case, it will be like waving a red flag to a bull--and liberals will get to play their favorite game once again.