Michelle Obama "Whitey" Time Bomb: Or, the blogosphere is dumb.

[RTFirefly]

Like this, maybe:

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you!

My work here is done.

[Revtim]

A hit, a very palpable hit!

[Sampiro]

The video still hasn’t surfaced, but the audio has.

[Frostillicus]

@Sampiro

The video still hasn’t surfaced, but the audio has.

Oh man, Obama’s screwed now!

[Boyo_Jim]

There goes my future vote for Eddy!

[brujaja]

@BrainGlutton

I’d be rather surprised and even disappointed if an average African-American (which Michelle is and Barack is not) hadn’t used the word “whitey” now and again in public discourse. There’s no equivalence here with using the n-word, after all.

Maybe not; but we have to look at why. Is there any epithet for a white person that would be equivalent to the n-word?

Probably not; and why is that? Surely there are black folks whose dislike for and aversion to white folks is at least as powerful as that of a white person using the n-word. What word do they use?

I have the impression that it’s not so much that “whitey” & “cracker” & etc. aren’t roughly expressing the same thing when used as a racial epithet (as opposed to a nickname), (and the thing expressed is basically “dislike, aversion & derogation”), as an underlying sense that white folks deserve some name-calling.

@Linear Crack

“Whitie cut folks off medicaid?” - check

“Whitie let New Orleans drown?” - check

“Whitie do nothing about Jena?” - check

“Whitie put us in Iraq for no reason?” - check

I don’t see the issue here. :rolleyes:

Now if only Blackie can get elected, we could move past all this racist shite.

-LC

All valid points; but what Linear Crack forgets here is that there are lots of white folks on Medicaid (or, not anymore), in New Orleans, and in Iraq who are just as fucked (or dead) as their black brethren. And there are at least as many white folks who strenuously object to America’s foreign policy, economic policy, etc. as there are black folks who feel this way.

These are not as much race issues as they are class issues. Make no mistake, the suits in Congress and in boardrooms who make these kind of decisions don’t really care what color the victims of their actions will be. As long as it’s not them.

And they love it when people insist that it’s racial discrimination, because then we waste a lot of time squabbling over stupid racial stuff like this, instead of uniting as a class of people against things that the entrenched monied people are doing in our name, usually for personal gain.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@brujaja

Maybe not; but we have to look at why. Is there any epithet for a white person that would be equivalent to the n-word?

Probably not; and why is that? Surely there are black folks whose dislike for and aversion to white folks is at least as powerful as that of a white person using the n-word. What word do they use?

I have the impression that it’s not so much that “whitey” & “cracker” & etc. aren’t roughly expressing the same thing when used as a racial epithet (as opposed to a nickname), (and the thing expressed is basically “dislike, aversion & derogation”), as an underlying sense that white folks deserve some name-calling.
All valid points; but what Linear Crack forgets here is that there are lots of white folks on Medicaid (or, not anymore), in New Orleans, and in Iraq who are just as fucked (or dead) as their black brethren. And there are at least as many white folks who strenuously object to America’s foreign policy, economic policy, etc. as there are black folks who feel this way.

These are not as much race issues as they are class issues. Make no mistake, the suits in Congress and in boardrooms who make these kind of decisions don’t really care what color the victims of their actions will be. As long as it’s not them.

And they love it when people insist that it’s racial discrimination, because then we waste a lot of time squabbling over stupid racial stuff like this, instead of uniting as a class of people against things that the entrenched monied people are doing in our name, usually for personal gain.

Isn’t this all kind of academic since Michelle Obama never made those statements?

[foolsguinea]

If it wasn’t “cracker,” “ofay,” some variation of “trash,” or at least something more evocative than “whitey,” :rolleyes: it doesn’t count as an especially vile slur.

[brujaja]

@Diogenes the Cynic

Isn’t this all kind of academic since Michelle Obama never made those statements?

Absolutely!
I just like to point out once in awhile that racism isn’t going to go away until everybody plays nice.