Arkansas Blog

The songs are funny and meant to not be taken seriously. Al Sharpton singing "Barack the Magic Negro"....if you listen to all the words it's humorous-nothing else.

I wish Chip would send out about 500 more. Why white folks got to get all uptight about anything black, that does not even offend most black people is beyond me.

Democrats, after their treatment of Barry over his decision of including Pastor Warren in his inauguration, no longer can claim to be the party of tolerance (well actually that title was officially lost when they voted against the CRA). Tolerance is a two way street. As a woman I could have found the jokes about our President's last name offensive. But, there are so many important things in life than getting worked up over someone else's offensive sense of humor.

So if any Democrat says anything that is the least out of line, that person should resign or be removed from his or her post. Remember a certain Surgeon General who mentioned masturbation?

Or maybe even Barack Obama himself should resign. Or maybe he should have dropped out of the race after the quotations of Rev. Wright were circulated. Guilt by association was a big deal back in those days.

But if a Republican seeking high office in the party casts a derogatory racial slur (redundancy intentional), it's either completely innocent, done in good fun, or just simply no big deal.

Maybe we'll see the return of the Negro minstrel.

Democrat racism: Bad

Republican racism: Good

Wonder what the reaction would be if the ditty was called, George the Magic Redneck....

........or say, Cindy the Magic Cunt??

MAK - Why don't we ask some black folk what they thought of the song.
I'm not pleased Chipper screwed up a song I taught to my kids about hope, love, compassion, sadness and change. It helped build curioisity and creativity as well. What high values do you see in Chipper's version? Or is it just another banal effort at dressing racism up in scales rather than lipstick?

geez Jazzy...such language.

Although I get your point, just goes to show though that the Democrat Party of years ago in the South is the GOP party today.

White Hood anyone?

So political parodies are okay as long as they don't have anything to do with black people?

Are you kidding me? There has been plenty of "offensive" parodies regarding George W. Mainly in offensive plays on his last name. I guess it is okay to offend women but not blacks.

It is offensive. That it is implied that the president is one of "those people," as the song title suggests, is racist.

I'm not saying the mailing can't be justified, boorish behaivior has never had a problem justifying itself, but regardless it's making fun of someone for what they are, not what they do, and it is denegration and by intent, racist.

The main issue for the GOP is that if the leadership wants to expand the party base, songs like this aren't the best way to do it.

Just ask all the black GOP congressmen.

Wait, there aren't any.

The song IS funny. Every bit as funny as the e-mails about "redneck" weddings, inventions, etc., that show up in my in--box almost daily. As funny as blonde jokes.... fat jokes....gay jokes... you get my point. And this song has been around for, maybe, a year. Why such a big deal now?
The problem, as I see it, isn't with the song itself, as much as it is with all this hoopla making the nimrod Limbaugh even more famous. He's loving all the attention he's getting from it. Anything that further glorifies Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly, etal, and causes anybody who might actually believe their bullshit to listen to them if they haven't before, is a problem for humanity. The best thing that could be done is to drop the story.
Humor is often ugly. That's what makes it funny. If you're fighting back laughter because you think you shouldn't....I dunno...seems unhealthy.

"When I heard about the story, I had to figure out what was going on for myself," said Mark Ellis, the chairman of the Maine Republican Party. "When I found out what this was about I had to ask, 'Boy, what's the big deal here?' because there wasn't any."

Alabama Republican Committeeman Paul Reynolds said the fact the Saltsman sent him a CD with the song on it "didn't bother me one bit."

Here's 2 sides to the same coin. I doubt the guy from Maine has ever actually met a black person. And who would expect a guy from Alabama to be offended by a racist song? I'm no Einstein, but I can spot empty rhetoric a mile away.

How about a song suggesting Max Cleland be used for 1st base? How about Bush the Retarded Criminal? How about lyrics that go like this: This morning I was wiping my crack when I looked and there was a MAK going circles down the drain. Round and round, doing circles down the drain. Goddamn that's funny! Too bad I didn't think of writing songs about missing arms for Lt. Gov. Footsy Britt or songs about one eye-ed goobers for Lt. Gov. Bob Riley. Are both of Halter's legs real? Just askin?

But you know....the RNC can elected the Pope as their next leader and it won't do them a bit of good. Cheney-Bush pulled off every Republican's head and shit down their throat over the last 8 miserable years. Won't matter whose the head of the RNC or the Arkansas Republican party...it will be like moving to a better seat on the Titanic. Put Saltsman, put Charles Manson in....it really doesn't matter who heads a dead party.

DBI, I would be HONORED for my name to used in a song and find what you say about me going round-and-round not a bit offensive. You are going to have to try a lot harder, as I am offended by very few things.
I find Ludacris to be offensive, but I guess he isn't since he campaigned for Barrack.
I tend to find the c-u-next-tuesday word a little offensive.
I find the n word offensive when it is used in a way to be offensive. I find it offensive that JayZ and Luda can use the n word to make money but a obvious parody using negro, a word that means black in other languages is suppose to be off limits.
And am I missing something? Are there not ANY songs of parody about Bush? DBI, your post implies there are no songs about Bush the retarded criminal? There are. They just are not as popularly marketed or even...uh heard because left winged radio just can't seem to find any listeners in America, even with the financial backing of Soros. I know it is amazing.
Maybe the songs are not popular because ....they are not actually funny?

http://www.georgybush.com/nra.html

http://www.oakton.edu/user/~billtong/bnsp/

Al Gore, George W. Bush, & Rush Limbaugh are riding in a helicopter together. Rush decides to make one person happy & drops a dollar bill out of the helicopter. Bush wants to make five people happy, & drops five dollar bills out of the helicopter. Al Gore decides to do something to make everyone in the States happy, and drops Bush & Limbaugh out of the helicopter.

What's the difference between God & a republican?
God knows he's not a republican.

What is the difference between Elvis and a smart Republican?
Elvis has been sighted.

If Chuck Schumer sent me a reverse parody CD for Christmas .. from his office as head of the DNC or as a hello from a candidate for such an office. I would be offended.

Chip is not running for or representing Rush Limbaugh.. That defense alone demonstrates the callous disregard and complete lack of professionalism in the Republican hate merchant criminal party today.

If my banker sent me a CD with a song called Poof the magic looting bailout program.. I think I would get no sleep until my money (all twelve dollars) was in a new bank.

Everyone is missing the point. Saltsman is no dummy. The inclusion of the song, like the selection of Palin, is an obvious strategy to unify and motivate the Republican base. The very fact that Dems find it offensive makes it a great selection for the GOP.

WASHINGTON DC DEMOCRAT HUNTING REGULATIONS AND BAG LIMITS GENERAL

Any person with a valid Washington DC hunting license or a Federal Income Tax Return may harvest Democrats.

Killing of Democrats with a vehicle is prohibited. If one is accidentally struck, remove the dead Democrat to side of the road and proceed to the nearest car wash.

It shall be unlawful to shout "pork barrel" or "free social programs" for the purpose of trapping Democrats.

It shall be unlawful to hunt Democrats within 200 feet of Senate or House hearing rooms, libraries, whorehouses, massage parlors, special interest group offices, bars, or strip joints.

Stuffed or mounted Democrats must have a DC Health Department inspection certificate for rabies and vermin.

It shall be illegal for a hunter to disguise him or her self as a reporter, drug dealer, pimp, female congressional aide, male congressional aide, sheep, legislator, policy maker, bookie, lobbyist, or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting Democrats.

YOU MIGHT BE A REPUBLICAN IF...
You think "proletariat" is a type of cheese.
You've named your kids "Deduction one" and "Deduction two"
You've tried to argue that poverty could be abolished if people were
just allowed to keep more of their minimum wage.
You've ever referred to someone as "my (insert racial or ethnic
minority here) friend"
You've ever tried to prove Jesus was a capitalist and opposed to
welfare.
You're a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty.
You think Huey Newton is a cookie.
The only union you support is the Baseball Players, because heck,
they're richer than you.
You think you might remember laughing once as a kid.
You once broke loose at a party and removed your neck tie.
You call mall rent-a-cops "jack-booted thugs."
You've ever referred to the moral fiber of something.
You've ever uttered the phrase, "Why don't we just bomb the sons of
bitches."
You've ever said, "I can't wait to get into business school."
You've ever called a secretary or waitress "Tootsie."
You answer to "The Man."
You don't think "The Simpson's" is all that funny, but you watch it
because that Flanders fellow makes a lot of sense.
You fax the FBI a list of "Commies in my Neighborhood."
You don't let your kids watch Sesame Street because you accuse Bert
and Ernie of "sexual deviance."
You scream "Dit-dit-ditto" while making love.
You've argued that art has a "moral foundation set in Western values."
When people say "Marx," you think "Groucho."
You've ever yelled, "Hey hippie, get a haircut."
You think Birkenstock was that radical rock concert in 1969.
You argue that you need 300 handguns, in case a bear ever attacks your
home.
Vietnam makes a lot of sense to you.
You point to Hootie and the Blowfish as evidence of the end of racism
in America.
You've ever said civil liberties, schmivil schmiberties.
You've ever said "Clean air? Looks clean to me."
You've ever called education a luxury.
You look down through a glass ceiling and chuckle.
You wonder if donations to the Pentagon are tax-deductible.
You came of age in the '60s and don't remember Bob Dylan.
You own a vehicle with an "Ollie North: American Hero" sticker.
You're afraid of the liberal media."
You ever based an argument on the phrase, "Well, tradition
dictates...."
You ever told a child that Oscar the Grouch "lives in a trash can
because he is lazy and doesn't want to contribute to society."
You've ever urged someone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps,
when they don't even have shoes.
You confuse Lenin with Lennon.

You scream "Dit-dit-ditto" while making love....I don't get it, is that unusual?

You ever told a child that Oscar the Grouch "lives in a trash can
because he is lazy and doesn't want to contribute to society."..wel that's not funny, it's just true!

You wonder if donations to the Pentagon are tax-deductible....they are if you have the right CPA

You don't let your kids watch Sesame Street because you accuse Bert
and Ernie of "sexual deviance."...and don't forget Tele-Tubbies and SpongeBob. Damned gay cartoons.

hahaha very funny bejeeus. I will post on my fridge next to the one that has all the women on the right (Coulter, Hoover, Crowley) and the women on the left (Pelosi, Clinton, Reno).

It was a black man who originally referred to Barack Obama as the "Magic Negro." Paul Shanklin wrote the song after Rush Limbaugh highlighted a March editorial in the Los Angeles Times called "Obama the Magic Negro." In the piece, (black) writer David Ehrenstein asserted that Obama could serve to assuage the conscience of whites who feel guilty about the historical treatment of African-Americans. I do hope that all good liberals write to the LA Times to complain about the essay.

Here is the original column from March 19, 2007:

*******
Obama the 'Magic Negro'
The Illinois senator lends himself to white America's idealized, less-than-real black man.
By David Ehrenstein, L.A.-based DAVID EHRENSTEIN writes about Hollywood and politics.
March 19, 2007

AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters - musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.

But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination - the "Magic Negro."

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic - embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

Poitier really poured on the "magic" in "Lilies of the Field" (for which he won a best actor Oscar) and "To Sir, With Love" (which, along with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," made him a No. 1 box-office attraction). In these films, Poitier triumphs through yeoman service to his white benefactors. "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" is particularly striking in this regard, as it posits miscegenation without evoking sex. (Talk about magic!)

The same can't quite be said of Freeman in "Driving Miss Daisy," "Seven" and the seemingly endless series of films in which he plays ersatz paterfamilias to a white woman bedeviled by a serial killer. But at least he survives, unlike Crothers in "The Shining," in which psychic premonitions inspire him to rescue a white family he barely knows and get killed for his trouble. This heart-tug trope is parodied in Gus Van Sant's "Elephant." The film's sole black student at a Columbine-like high school arrives in the midst of a slaughter, helps a girl escape and is immediately gunned down. See what helping the white man gets you?

And what does the white man get out of the bargain? That's a question asked by John Guare in "Six Degrees of Separation," his brilliant retelling of the true saga of David Hampton - a young, personable gay con man who in the 1980s passed himself off as the son of none other than the real Sidney Poitier. Though he started small, using the ruse to get into Studio 54, Hampton discovered that countless gullible, well-heeled New Yorkers, vulnerable to the Magic Negro myth, were only too eager to believe in his baroque fantasy. (One of the few who wasn't fooled was Andy Warhol, who was astonished his underlings believed Hampton's whoppers. Clearly Warhol had no need for the accouterment of interracial "goodwill.")

But the same can't be said of most white Americans, whose desire for a noble, healing Negro hasn't faded. That's where Obama comes in: as Poitier's "real" fake son.

The senator's famously stem-winding stump speeches have been drawing huge crowds to hear him talk of uniting rather than dividing. A praiseworthy goal. Consequently, even the mild criticisms thrown his way have been waved away, "magically." He used to smoke, but now he doesn't; he racked up a bunch of delinquent parking tickets, but he paid them all back with an apology. And hey, is looking good in a bathing suit a bad thing?

The only mud that momentarily stuck was criticism (white and black alike) concerning Obama's alleged "inauthenticty," as compared to such sterling examples of "genuine" blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg. Speaking as an African American whose last name has led to his racial "credentials" being challenged - often several times a day - I know how pesky this sort of thing can be.

Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).

Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn't project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.

I haven't heard )and won't( the 'song' in question. THANKS to Severus for the origin, so to speak. I find Ehrenstein's column to just be annoying - sorta like the right-wing media assertion that the reason so much of the "other punditry" had a knee-jerk negative reaction to Caribou Barbie was because none of them had her on their short list and so they were simply miffed by THAT.

Just a bunch of words that add up to mostly bullshit.
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I find the stupid thing offensive, especially because Huck, as a preacher, should know better than to imply that he supports anything like that. Is he still in junior high school or what?

You dont have to be a scientific rocket, as one of our fine scholar-athletes once said, to know that song, even the title alone, will offend and hurt many, many people. I also find the 4-letter word that starts with c offensive and am surprised to see it here. How does that support your opinion? I dont think you had to resort to that kind of language to make your point known; we can all agree to disagree without using crude, vulgar language.

"I have not heard it but I've heard of it. I confess that I don't listen to Rush on a daily basis.
On the other hand, I'm not one of these people who, who takes myself so seriously that I get
offended by every comment made about me. What Rush does is entertainment, and I don't
mind folks poking fun at me. That's part of the job."
-- Obama on Rush's "Magic Negro" song,

The C word is what McCain calls his wife, so if its good enough for a senator its good enough
for me............I used it for a year, or more, and no one said a peep.............
in fact, its worse, he called her a TROLLOP C--t....in front of a bunch of newspeople.

Yeah it bothers me....had it been me, with all the money, he would have found his ass on the
sidewalk with his suitcase on the ground.

Women who need a man that bad don't have my pity.

MAK and Severus,

Take your copy of the cd and place it in a boombox and walk from Chester down Roosevelt Road to asher and then to University and report back to us about all the people you encounter enjoying the humor of your harmless tunes.

I'll be looking forward to your report.

Still waiting MAK and Severus for the report!

docholliday,

As a control for your study, why don't you walk from Chester down Roosevelt road to Asher and then to University playing country music and report back to us about all the people you encounter enjoying the tunes. I'll look forward to your idiotic report.

Tell you what doc, I will as soon as Obama apologizes to women for allowing Ludacris to campaign for him. Ludacris....can't think of which of his lyrics I like more

"Is that yo wife, yo girlfriend, or just yo main bitch
You take yo pick while I'm rubbn' her hips
Touchin' lips to the top of my dick"
OR
"You doin ho activities
With ho tendencies
Hos are your friends, hoes are your enemies
With ho energy to do whacha do
Blew whacha blew
Screw whacha screw"

Or maybe this is more offensive.....................................
Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.

The L.A. Times, they called him that

'Cause he's not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper

Said he makes guilty whites feel good

They'll vote for him, and not for me

'Cause he's not from the hood"

Or maybe Obama should apologize for using the JayZ song, 99 Problems and the Bitch Ain't One.

I guess if Paul Shanklin were black, it would be okay for him to do the PARODY song...and then he could also call Michelle a ho and the kids bitches?
What's funny, this song uses the phrase magic negro, which was used by a black writer for the LA Times, and does not even poke fun at Obama. It pokes fun at the LA Times and Sharpton.

Doc, you miss the point of everything I am saying...
a) Of course certain people are going to be offended. TO FUCKING BAD! Get over it. I find every lyric to every rap song offensive, and Obama uses one of the most offensive rappers to campaign for him. It seems to be the liberals and the ACLU that stand up for protection of "free speech" for the rappers....
b) It is a PARODY!!!! It is meant to be humorous and sometimes humor is offensive to some. There are plenty of George Bush t-shirts and parody songs about George Bush that use his last name in ways most women would find offensive. Again these songs are not popular because well no one listens to liberal talk radio and well they are not actually funny.

I did about two weeks ago, not my normal pedestrian route, but I wasn't playing kicker music, since I don't like it either. Then I'm not the one trying to downplay the racism of a song parody called 'Obama the 'Magic Negro', you are.

You shot your mouth off about how it wasn't offensive and many blacks find it hilarious, but you haven't the stones to demonstrate your point, do you.

Both you and MAK miss the point. I don't care, if it is parody or not. It is in bad taste and poor manners, which is why I so glad the CCRRR pundits, you two, and candidates for GOP leadership are all for it.

It couldn't be a better indicator of character.