What do people mean about Bill Clinton's perceived "blackness"?
December 14, 2007 11:09 AM Subscribe
Civil rights leader Andrew Young on Bill Clinton: "Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack". Where and why did the "Bill Clinton is black" meme start?
It's been repeated over the years by comedians like Cedric the Entertainer and Chris Rock and plenty of others in the media. I've never really understood the analogy.
It's been repeated over the years by comedians like Cedric the Entertainer and Chris Rock and plenty of others in the media. I've never really understood the analogy.
Best answer: Bill Clinton has successfully communicated that he fundamentally respects and recognizes the humanity of black people . In addition in evidence is the belief among many that Bill Clinton has a genuine affection for black people. These qualities are both rare outside the race. It is often difficult to find people outside the race who notice you as a person without dimishing or inflating your race. Think of it as being a member of Logres instead of Camelot if you get that reference. Its a spiritual thing.
posted by Rubbstone at 11:31 AM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by Rubbstone at 11:31 AM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite]
Rubbstone, that makes a certain amount of serious sense to me, thanks for explaining that. The concept that Clinton "is black" always makes my eyes roll back in my head. It's always seemed to me that it was an idea that was grabbed onto by the (white) media and then sort of broadcast as fact in what might have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. You've given me another way to think about it.
posted by Embryo at 11:40 AM on December 14, 2007
posted by Embryo at 11:40 AM on December 14, 2007
He's probably gone with more black women than Barack.
Oh, that we could come to a day in America where presidential candidates could use this for debate points. Hell, imagine the TV commercial voiceovers, complete with that sanctimonious tone...
"Sure, Senator Opponent claims to have "gone with" dozens of black women during his brief legislative career, but what's the real story? My Candidate's nailed not twenty, not thirty, but over six hundred black women in the state of California alone. Vote for My Candidate. He really brings the honeys home."
(paid for by Concerned Honeys for My Candidate.)
posted by rokusan at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2007 [4 favorites]
Oh, that we could come to a day in America where presidential candidates could use this for debate points. Hell, imagine the TV commercial voiceovers, complete with that sanctimonious tone...
"Sure, Senator Opponent claims to have "gone with" dozens of black women during his brief legislative career, but what's the real story? My Candidate's nailed not twenty, not thirty, but over six hundred black women in the state of California alone. Vote for My Candidate. He really brings the honeys home."
(paid for by Concerned Honeys for My Candidate.)
posted by rokusan at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2007 [4 favorites]
All it really means is that Clinton is a nonracist redneck.
posted by konolia at 2:53 PM on December 14, 2007
posted by konolia at 2:53 PM on December 14, 2007
Because they're too willing to downplay the politically cynical things he did against elements of the black community (Ricky Ray Rector/political calculating/disproportionately harmful "tough on crime and poverty" stance) in favor of his acts of trivial pandering?
Damn well not invited to my family reunion
posted by tyro urge at 3:28 PM on December 14, 2007
Damn well not invited to my family reunion
posted by tyro urge at 3:28 PM on December 14, 2007
I am one of the few black people who didn't think the Bill earned "black" status because he got head in the Oval office, ate collard greens at Sylvia's in Harlem and could play the sax. Too many folks in my community equated his dysfunction with our dysfunction and proclaimed him "black." Where was his blackness when Lani Guinier got hung out to dry?
My southern black friends hated him and all his "look at all my fine little pickaninies" pandering. And I ain't voting for his carpetbagging wife either.
Wait. Did I answer the question?
posted by notjustfoxybrown at 3:52 PM on December 14, 2007
My southern black friends hated him and all his "look at all my fine little pickaninies" pandering. And I ain't voting for his carpetbagging wife either.
Wait. Did I answer the question?
posted by notjustfoxybrown at 3:52 PM on December 14, 2007
Toni Morrison's actual New Yorker article. Money quote:
African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."
For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty "perp" is being hunted down not by a prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.
I don't think there's any question that Morrison intended it literally. Keep in mind this was written at the height of the impeachment juggernaut, as well. In fact, her argument is pretty clearly that it was the Washington elite, not black voters, who perceived Clinton as embodying these elements of blackness that they sought to purge from the body public.
posted by dhartung at 6:36 PM on December 14, 2007
African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."
For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty "perp" is being hunted down not by a prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.
I don't think there's any question that Morrison intended it literally. Keep in mind this was written at the height of the impeachment juggernaut, as well. In fact, her argument is pretty clearly that it was the Washington elite, not black voters, who perceived Clinton as embodying these elements of blackness that they sought to purge from the body public.
posted by dhartung at 6:36 PM on December 14, 2007
He became known as the first "Black" president because of the inherent racism of the Democrats, who are prone to see many major issues solely in terms of race. His pandering to black people - and other ethnic and cultural communities - was jumped on by many major media outlets as evidence that he is "black."
posted by davidmsc at 1:36 AM on December 16, 2007
posted by davidmsc at 1:36 AM on December 16, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by hermitosis at 11:13 AM on December 14, 2007