Once Upon a Time in Obama Land

The pervasiveness of racism in American politics…

NOTA BENE: This article was originally posted in my “Notes” section on Facebook several years ago. It has languished in obscurity so long I don’t even know when the first draft was completed. In any case, tho it is clear by its contents that it was originally published while Obama was still president, it remains, in journalism parlance, an “evergreen.”

This is the way it works.

You take people’s deep, intense and sometimes unconscious stereotypes beaten into them by popular culture over their entire lives, and any time a black politician attempts to accomplish good while at the same time making occasional mistakes, their actions will ALWAYS be interpreted from within that framework — black folks are “lazy,” “ethically challenged,” “out for #1,” “shucking and jiving,” “morally corrupt,” etc.

A black woman must fit either the “mammy” or the “hooker” or “welfare queen” stereotype. If somehow she has managed to get a decent education and obtained a position of relatively high status or power, it could happen only by nefarious means, and always undeservedly.

Keep that image in mind when there is the SLIGHTEST MISS-STEP, and suddenly she must be crucified precisely because she has proven the always present, but always denied…