Around the time of the 2008 election, there was an irritating trend of questioning Barack Obama's racial authenticity by arguing that he's not "really black" because he is not the descendant of African slaves brought to the United States during the Middle Passage. That mostly went away when he started winning an overwhelming share of the black vote during the primaries, but in the wake of the Shirley Sherrod controversy, Maureen Dowd is attempting to lead a renaissance of stupid:
But unlike Bill Clinton, who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture, Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience, ones who understand “the slave thing,” as a top black Democrat dryly puts it.
Yes, we're back to Bill "Jesse Jackson ran a good campaign in South Carolina" Clinton being "blacker" than Barack Obama, as evaluated by that High Chancellor of American Negritude, Maureen Dowd, who is an expert on the subject because she talked about it with a black person once. Incidentally, the Toni Morrison essay on Bill Clinton as a black president that was the genesis of that CW is a perfect example of how this phenomenon works. A black person said it, black people are more of a hive-mind species like the Zerg than real people, therefore any one black person's statement represents the opinions of black people everywhere. Being black may make you look at race differently, but it doesn't make you an expert on race anymore than being white does.
The president shouldn't give Sherrod her old job back. He should give her a new job: Director of Black Outreach. This White House needs one.
Yeah, I mean if there's anyone whom the administration is hurting with, it's black people, among whom the president has an approval rating hovering around the dangerously low level of 90 percent. Doug Mataconis:
It doesn't take an African-American to realize that you shouldn't base a personnel decision based upon a two and a half minute web video posted on the web site of a guy with a known bias against the Obama Administration.
Well come on Doug, everyone knows only black people are good at black people stuff.
