Blago is blacker than Obama.

[MeanOldLady]

@ElvisL1ves

But Blago used that as evidence of his “blackness”.

Right, “blackness” meaning growing up poor and working shitty jobs to get by.

[dangermom]

@MeanOldLady

Yes. I actually hear this fairly often out of people of all races when juxtaposing a poor white person to a black person who is well off. “X non-black person is blacker than X black person; He grew up in a poor neighborhood, and his mother worked two jobs,” and the like. I frequently hear the terms “black” and “poor/working class” used interchangeably.

It just means hard, blue-collar work. It’s not a “Yes, massah, shine yo shoes” thing.

I’m afraid that my reaction is to think that if poverty = black, and all poor people are black, then no one is black. All it does, to my POV, is deny the particular circumstances that have made being poor and black into a particular kind of poor that has been shaped by oppression, segregation, and denial of opportunity. National Guardsmen didn’t show up in Little Rock to keep poor white kids out of school.

And just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re not black; that’s silly too. There’s no required “black experience” that you have to go through before being certified as a genuine black person.

So wait, if you’re a Latino migrant worker, does that make you black? What if you’re a Vietnamese refugee working in a sweatshop?

[dangermom]

@MeanOldLady

Right, “blackness” meaning growing up poor and working shitty jobs to get by.

My FIL is the blackest guy I know, then. I mean, sure, he looks like Mr. Clean, but what does that matter?

[ratatoskK]

I agree with dangermom. Saying that “black” = poor, broken home, eating junk food, etc. is insulting to black people. It’s a racial stereotype.

[MeanOldLady]

@dangermom

I’m afraid that my reaction is to think that if poverty = black, and all poor people are black, then no one is black. All it does, to my POV, is deny the particular circumstances that have made being poor and black into a particular kind of poor that has been shaped by oppression, segregation, and denial of opportunity. National Guardsmen didn’t show up in Little Rock to keep poor white kids out of school.

And just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re not black; that’s silly too. There’s no required “black experience” that you have to go through before being certified as a genuine black person.

So wait, if you’re a Latino migrant worker, does that make you black? What if you’re a Vietnamese refugee working in a sweatshop?

Of course it’s silly. This is not a point of view that I’m advocating here. It is one that people seem to have which, as you’ve pointed out, ignores race relations entirely, among its many other reasons for being ridiculous. Surely you’ve heard educated and/or well-to-do black referred to as “not black enough.” Silly, but a reality of how many people think.

[Boyo_Jim]

@NurseCarmen

It’s the hair.

Damn damn damn, you beat me!

[dangermom]

@MeanOldLady

Of course it’s silly. This is not a point of view that I’m advocating here.

Yeah, I do realize that; sorry if I failed to make that clear.

[Hippy_Hollow]

@Argent_Towers

Blagojevich was obviously using a metaphor, the same metaphor Morrison was using. This is a valid thing to talk about and it’s just another manifestation of how the real class divide in this country is not race based but class based. Race is used as a smokescreen to distract people from that. When Morrison called Clinton black, and when Blago called himself black, they were both saying the same thing, and ultimately it was more about their social class than the color of their skin.

Of course, you can never expect anyone to have any reasoned discourse on this stuff when a white man does something as unbelievably stupid as this. The ZOMGRACISMZOMGRACISMZOMGRACISM sirens and flashing lights start spinning, heads start exploding, pitchforks come out, people resign, etc.

Did anybody ascribe racism to his comment? I think it’s more “stupidity.”

What he was trying to awkwardly say was that he’s experienced socioeconomic segregation and grew up in a Black community. Which of course he could have said.

The other stupid thing about the comment is that he seems to think that his experiences are equal to being Black. When Blago left the Black community and got some cash in his pockets he could move away, fit easily into middle class situations, etc. That’s less true for his fellow residents.

While Obama is biracial, I don’t doubt for a minute that he has experienced the frustration of being racially profiled, slighted in social interactions, and assumed to be violent or dangerous. I doubt that Blago had analogous experiences to this. He has the ability to make his point in clearer language but he chose to go to a tired, hackneyed sound bite. Which is why he’s a moron. He might be a racist. He might be the coolest guy who ever lived if you get to know him. But I would subscribe this to famewhorism and stupidity first and foremost.

[GameHat]

Speaking as a proper Illinoisan;

The sooner that fool is tried and sent to prison, the better.

Blago needs to learn the “street life” from the inside. And he needs to not have the option to leave.

/He’s a criminal

//Narcissistic personalty as well

///throw away the key

[Maggie_the_Ocelot]

Blagojevich is the new Bob Dornan.

[Little_Nemo]

“It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child.”

[Guinastasia]

Can someone kick this guy right in the testicles?

[Ferret_Herder]

As of this morning, he says his statement was, “stupid, stupid, stupid,”, and says he was speaking metaphorically and that he was frustrated with Democratic policies in DC.

I’ll point to my comment upthread about his apparent envy of Obama’s success and election to the presidency, and then quote this from the linked article:

Here’s what Blagojevich actually told author Scott Raab near the end of a diatribe in which he’d already slammed White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for getting rich off his political connections and Obama political adviser David Axelrod for originally courting Blago for the 2008 presidential run:

“It’s such a cynical business, and most of the people in the business are full of [bleep] and phonies, but I was real, man – and am real. This guy, he was catapulted in on hope and change, what we hope the guy is. What the [bleep]? Everything he’s saying’s on the TelePrompTer. I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.”

You tell me whether Blagojevich sounded more like somebody frustrated with national policy issues or with Obama being president instead of him.

[enomaj]

@Little_Nemo

“It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child.”

@Guinastasia

Can someone kick this guy right in the testicles?

You mean in his “special purpose”, right?

[Humble_Servant]

A metaphor. A bleepin’ golden metaphor.

[BigT]

So am I blacker than Obama? I’m definitely poorer…

[anya_marie]

That “blacker than Obama” remark may be in the top 10 of the stupidest things that will be heard this year

[Nobody]

Reminds me of when Dog the Bounty Hunter was trying to apologize and said, “I thought I was black, but now I know I’m not black.” after those tapes of him calling his son’s girlfriend the n word were given to the media.

[Magiver]

@NurseCarmen

It’s the hair.

He does have kind of a James Brown thing going on on top of his head and the first 3 letters of his name are Bla… so maybe his Mother is keeping some secrets from him.