Wright On: The Outing Of Barack Obama

With an array of US Flags draping the background - the same flag, by the way, that Barack Obama previously found himself unable to display as a lapel pin because that would be too vacuously, insipidly, falsely patriotic – Uniter-To-Be Obama gave the US of KKKA what for in a speech for the ages, provided those ages are from 6-12 or so. According to the enraptured media - maybe even stimulating Chris Matthews to tinkle, puppy-like, this time - Barack Obama speechified [sic] gloriously, as is his wont, on White American Guilt and Black Anger racial issues in this here US of A.

As everyone should now be well aware, the speech was in defense of his continued participation in the Church shepherded by the newly infamous Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Reducing the Racial Instruction to content essence: it’s a generational Black Thing; which whites can’t understand, but should remain sensitive to, while Blacks should remember that Whites maintain a guilt that they, Blacks, can not and need not understand. The speechification as delivered by the Obamanator was way better than that, but my skills don’t include championship level sermonizing.

Too bad Obama apparently didn’t see, nor laugh, to the comedic beauty as presented by Chris Rock about six years ago. Without being able to recall the detail, Chris Rock offered that NOBODY was more prejudiced than an older Black man. Mannered when approached, murmuring vilely when the moment, and white guy, passes.
Further, and spot-on to the point attempted by Barack Obama, whose prose was too heavily draped to be clear, Chris Rock offered the following as example, (paraphrasing): “I’m a very rich, young Black Man. I’m a millionaire. Got things most people can only dream of. But, if you took a blind, white elevator operator and asked him if he would trade places with me, he’d say, ‘That’s alright. I’m good.’”

This, then, might be the ‘Black’ thing that Obama could not clearly articulate, either from lack of intimate familiarity, or fear of offending both Black and White, all of whom he would need to be elected. I’m convinced that Chris Rock did not offer this bit as any more than a way to get his particular humor across. What is striking, in retrospect, is how these similar story lines were differently presented in depth of conceptual punch. While Barack Obama struck with an air-filled paper bag, Chris Rock seems to have had the deep Black experience to draw on. American born, Hawaii raised, private institution schooled Barack could only have had stories of the culture of blackness read to him. This might explain his inability to articulate as pointedly as did the striking example that Chris Rock sharply laid out in a 30 second bit.

Reviewing the last 20 year history of Barack Obama, now in a different light, we can see that he chose to move to Chicago, chose to immerse in Chicago Black Politics and Religion, in the pursuit of influence and notoriety; in executing a well-conceived, ambitious plan. The possibility that the path may not be perfectly suited for his family merited no consideration. After all, if he was unaffected by the ‘musings’ of Rev. Wright, why shouldn’t his wife and children remain similarly unaffected by the exposure?

While Obama is not the clone incarnate of Jeremiah Wright, neither is he the Transcendent One, arriving just in time to save us from racial selves. It’s a much worse fall from American Grace than that for him: He is calculating, manipulating, self-serving. My God! He’s outed himself as a politician! That’s his racial transcendence. He is now at the root of the American Tree, truffle hogging with the rest.

Aye, Obama. We hardly knew ye!