Getting Whitey: Michelle Obama's Secret Negro Agenda
There is a rumor circulating among the right wing tin hat set that a videotape exists of Michelle Obama saying derogatory things about white people. Newsflash: Train a camera on just about any black person long enough and you'll get footage of him/her saying something derogatory about white people. You are, after all, friggin' everywhere! You are frackin' inescapable. (One of you has even crept into my bed and has been there for nearly 17 goddamn years!)
Of course we say nasty things about you. But just like Christians and gays, just because we say nasty things about you doesn't mean we hate you. Good Christians hate the sin and love the sinner. We love white. We just hate whitey.
Michelle and I actually had a conversation about getting whitey at the first annual International Black Get Whitey Conference. It was a wonderful event. All the help was white and everyone treated them really, really badly. There were cupcakes with an image of Farrakhan dribbled on the icing. Delicious! There were twin crackers with mayonnaise sandwiched in-between. Get it?--"mayonnaise sandwich-eatin' crackers." And they were served by... well... right! It was catering gone downright meta. What a hoot!
After Jeremiah Wright's invocation damning white people to hell and a complimentary screening of "Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss Song," we got down to business. The first (atually, the only) item on the agenda was revenge--how to pay whitey back. Some of you have obviously been dreading this since the end of Reconstruction. Obama practically has to tattoo the flag on his ass to convince you he's not out to get you. Judging from your behavior, I suppose you've just put yourselves in our shoes and realized that if the roles were reversed, revenge is all you'd think about.
Of course, there were embarrassing choruses of "Kill Whitey" from the gallery, but in the spirit of Martin Luther King, they were quickly silenced. "After all," an afro-sporting Condoleeza Rice admonished, "we are not Republicans, for God's sake." (Oh yes; she's been pretending all along. It IS a wig.)
Of course, we considered reparations, but decided that after eight years of the Bush administration, the US treasury had neither the funds, nor the borrowing power. We considered bringing back affirmative action. White folks just haaaated that. But we didn't want to repeat ourselves. Barack is all about "change." Then Michelle herself devised a most ingenious solution.
We're moving in. In an Obama administration, any black person will have the right to walk into the home of any white person and eat, sleep, drink, and spend the household income to his or her heart's content. You'll wake up, and my tighty whitie-clad ass will be hanging out your fridge 'cause my head'll be in it. You'll shudder and tsk at the injustice, but you will not protest, for denying my right to "get whitey" will be a criminal offense, punishable by the deposition of additional black people into your home. Bitch loud and long enough, and we'll be hangin' out the windows. You won't be able to walk from the bathtub to the sink for Negroes.
That Michelle is a genius. We all celebrated by bumping our knuckles together. It's not a "terrorist fist jab" as Fox News suggested. It's the International Get Whitey Bump. Just make a fist and bump, bump, bump your knuckles against your neighbor's.
You should practice, practice, practice. There will be a test.
The problem with satire is that some moron will take one of these posts and send it as a serious e-mail to one of their moronic friends, who will just forward it to twenty more moronic friends and the next thing you know, Charlie Gibson will ask Obama about it in an interview.
June 12, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
So we should eschew satire because we fear it being taken seriously by right wing pinheads? Screw that! Like Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, I poop on this line of thinking!
Thanks a bunch, Leonce, for the best laugh I've had lately!
June 12, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post. Recommended!
I agreed with diogeron. I wish all sides of the argument could get away with satire like this. Unfortunately if a white person were to take this post and change the "whitey" references to any derogatory word for a minority, even if they were joking, they'd be crucified.
Like Tommy Lee Jones said in MIB "We at the FBI do not have a sense of humor that we're aware of." Just modify that to say "We in Society do not have a sense of humor that we're aware of."
Sad.
June 12, 2008 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Enuff with the intellectual laments, you guys! It's all right to laugh! We are a multiracial online gathering of progressives here. If we can't make fun of racism amongst ourselves, who's gonna do it? Mockery is often the best policy! People tend to notice that the emperor is naked when everyone in the crowd is laughing at him!
June 12, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
June 13, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Unfortunately if a white person were to take this post and change the "whitey" references to any derogatory word for a minority, even if they were joking, they'd be crucified."
That's because their "joke" would be historically and factually unfunny. White Americans don't have anything to avenge African Americans about. Not even affirmative action.
June 12, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
So using your logic, whites can never tell a racial joke but minorities have carte-blanche to be as racist as they want to be ad-infinitum, as long as it's satire?
Sorry, doesn't hold water.
June 12, 2008 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
It could be that is doesn't hold water cause that's not what I said.
She's making fun of white people's paranoia of Obama's "blackness" because their paranoia is unfounded. That makes it funny.
If the cases were reversed, studies have proven that African Americans should be paranoid. So to make fun of black people's paranoia isn't funny and it amounts to enjoying/celebrating the status-quo which would be racist.
What you're referring to is an issue of the institutional power differential, and it's a case I could make. But it's not the case I was making.
June 12, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I laughed my ass off..This was hilarious! I will share this post with my friends...even my white friends..This was good!!
June 12, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Pox on both your houses. It is not all about being either black or white.
My people, the FPLF(Freckled People's Liberation Front) demand our day in the shade.
Where is our representation. We are not going to allowed ourselves to be ignored anymore.
Suncreened up! Ready to go!. Sunscreened up! Ready to go! Suncreened up! Ready to go!
No; we can't tan! No; we can't tan! No; we can't tan!
June 12, 2008 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha! Me and my cheap Irish skin got a laugh out of that one!
June 12, 2008 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
This terminally white strawberry blonde will sunscreen bump that.
June 13, 2008 3:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome/
June 12, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
We can make jokes all we want. However, we do have some people who will use this satire as an excuse to justify some notion that there is a "Black conspiracy" aimed at finally getting even for past atrocities perpetrated by "White society". Our nations HIStory suggest that it is very capable of extreme racism(tuskegee experiment for example), and this is what fuels the Rev. Wrights of the world. Maybe we should be completely honest and admit that racism is so deeply woven into American fabric that we have to tear it to shreads and reweave a new social fabric of tolerance and acceptance. After all, we are all immigrants(Except native Americans)whether we came on the Mayflower or a slave ship. All have contributed to the good and bad that is America.
June 12, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Native Americans are immigrants too, they just got here first and they walked.
June 12, 2008 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
And when the wooly mammoths saw them coming, they said, "Humans. Hmph. There goes the neighborhood."
June 13, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The stealth negro agenda finally revealed. Now I don't feel so bad about my 12% sub saharan african DNA calling my 74% north european DNA "Whitey".
Please don't mention the missing percentage, we don't.
June 12, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dang. Now I'm dying to know what your 86% really thinks about the other 14%.
June 13, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is hilarious. Hope John Stewart sees it. I've been thinking lately that he needs some fresh talent.
June 12, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Native Americans came here from Asia over a now-submerged land bridge that connects Alaska and Siberia. Arguably, all people everywhere in the world, except perhaps the Olduvai gorge in Africa (where the earliest hominid remains have been found), are technically descendants of immigrants in that their ancestors originally wandered there from somewhere else.
June 12, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention the new "national anthem" will be that famous classic from Saturday Night Live, as sung by Garrett Morris...
Ah'mon get me a gun and kill every whitey I see...
Job interviews will be more like the Chevy Chase/Richard Pryor "free association" test...
Chase: Coon
Pryor: Honky
Chase: N*****
Pryor: Dead Honky...
Should we tell them now about the white bread tax and mayonnaise ban? No more of that baseball, hotdogs, apple pie stuff... It's hoops, greens and cornbread.
Pay attention... now that y'all picked up on this fist pound, bump, dap, slap, gimme some skin, that was good, gimme some again, see you later alligator, afterwhile crocodile stuff with optional Sammy Davis, Jr. shuffle... we gonna change it up...
June 12, 2008 5:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Will someone please tell White people we don't call White people, 'whitey'. That's what caricatured 60's Black Panthers called White people. NO Black person under 60 would use the term Whitey or Cracker or Ofay. It is a term that some White people ( over 50) think we use in private. The very fact that it is used shows just how false it is.
June 12, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right--this just helps clue us in to who the target audience is: aging, clueless, prejudiced whites whose views on race were frozen in place decades ago.
As the rest of America evolves and moves on, the silliness and ugliness of the prejudices these people promote and defend become more stark. And they look increasingly cartoonish.
June 12, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dayamm that was funny!
Thanks for the giggle Leonce!
June 12, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The soda I was drinking while reading this post turned out to be a mistake. Some of it came out of my nose and onto the keyboard!
Oh well!
Thanks for the laugh!
June 12, 2008 8:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is seriously, professionally funny. Eddy Murphy would have been proud of this had he created it and had he lived.
June 12, 2008 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops! Didn't mean to be sexist! Whoopie Goldberg, either!
June 12, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn! Now I'm being racist. Shecky Green! Jerry Seinfeld! Oh shit, they're both Jewish. Jeff Foxworthy!
June 12, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not that I'm equating Eddie Murphy with Jeff Foxworthy!
June 12, 2008 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dang.
You know, while this hilarious post was in the recommended list, I was foolishly paying attention to TPM's own David Seaton's insane, paranoid "concern" post that actually takes this rumor seriously. Apparently, he feels Obama is in trouble because he can't prove that this video doesn't exist.
Further, Seaton is suspicious of Obama because the campaign has developed a strategy to fight back against unsubstantiated claims like the Michelle "whitey" rant.
Got that? He's more suspicious of Obama's strategy for dealing with unsubstantiated or false claims than he is of the unsubstantiated claim itself.
Right.
It's pretty pathetic, but you might be interested in reading his breathless little pretense at fretting: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/06/the-sword-of-damocles.php
June 12, 2008 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Leonce, you rock!
Your post made me think of a segment on The Daily Show done by Larry Wilmore, their "Senior Black Correspondent," making fun of the fear some idiots have that black folks are secretly in league to get revenge against "whitey". It's hilarious!
In case you haven't already seen it, here's a link:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=166514&title=blanguage
June 12, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love it!
Hey - I'm over 60 and was in the Black Panther Party and we didn't call white folks "whitey".
Musta been some other group. Now we did call several President's "Pigs", and pigs are pink - not white...
During my beatnik days in the West Village I believe the term we used was "gray's".
Thanks Invictus for reminding me of "Ofay's" - haven't heard that one in the last 40 years.
June 12, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow! You're over 60?? You're gorgeous!
Not that age makes women less attractive.
Or that appearance should be a measure of a woman's worth.
Anyway, this was meant to be a compliment, but I may be an insensitive idiot. I seriously don't know sometimes.
:-D
June 12, 2008 10:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hilarious! Recommend!
June 12, 2008 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I for one welcome our proud African-American overlords.
June 13, 2008 12:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
This Peckerwood's been warning my fellow Crackers about the AAA for years. Thank the Lord (the pale one)people are finally starting to listen. Hopefully, it's not too late to save the "Whitehouse".
June 13, 2008 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
What has the American Automobile Association ever done to you?
June 13, 2008 4:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've never heard about triple A's secret negro agenda???
June 13, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, give them a break. At least they're TRYING to stop drinking.
June 13, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You won't be able to walk from the bathtub to the sink for large Negroes.
June 13, 2008 2:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well I am still waiting for my damn toaster oven for the other secret agenda group I have worked for.
June 13, 2008 3:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Leonce, when does the
Back to Africa Movement start?
June 13, 2008 5:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Want to know how worried the Republicans are about Obama trashing them? They came up with a video of Michelle Obama talking trash about whitie! Yep, that's right, she was being blatantly racist!
This is what she said:
Whitie cut folks off medicaid!
Whitie let New Orleans drown!
Whitie do nothing about Jena!
Whitie put us in Iraq for no reason!
Shocking stuff to be sure, until you find out that she was talking about Bush. Oh, and that this was what she actually said:
Why'd he cut folks off medicaid?
Why'd he let New Orleans drown?
Why'd he do nothing about Jena?
Why'd he put us in Iraq for no reason?
It goes nowhere with thinkers, but you can bet your ass that the 'working, hard-working, white Americans' will be sure to tell all their friends down at the tracker pull.
Buy Rush a snow cone while you're there.
June 13, 2008 7:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Heh. Tractor pull.
Your comment tickled me and made me wonder if people in the UK are fans of tractor pulls too, or if pullin' is strictly an American "sport."
Sure enough: http://www.tractorpulling.co.uk/
June 13, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post Leonce. You should read Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada (hell, read anything by Ishmael Reed.) Your voice reminds me so much of him that I first thought, "Hey, that's not Leonce Gaither, that's Ishmael Fuckin' Reed."
June 13, 2008 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
and along these lines.....
http://witlist.blogspot.com/2008/06/setting-record-straight-on-michelle.html
cheers.
June 13, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink