When will folks like **BG **learn not to get their “news” from agenda driven, left-wing blogs? It’s no different from getting your “news” from Rush or Hannity or any of the characters on the right.
When they no longer turn out to be both right and incisive far more often than the righty blogs or even the lapdog MSM. Duh.
The uber-MN was in “The Green Mile”, though.
Rush can fling songs at Obama all he wants; Obama’s a public figure and a big boy.
Nobody likes to admit how class and privilege plays into this. Imus lost his job because he made the egregious error of flinging intraracial lower class black American invective at black college student-athletes. He incurred the wrath of the black middle class. Had these “nappy ho’s” been the strippers in the Duke Lacrosse case-- also college students but in a shameful career-- Imus would still have his job.
When you have black poor people complaining, this corporate nation won’t do squat unless they’re also highly organized and have access to the larger media. When you have highly organized well-paid professional blacks grinding axes and using their media access, too–? Well, that’s your ass.
I have to admit, ever since this character archetype has been pointed out to me, I find it shows up everywhere. And the defining characteristic of the mystic negro is not that they’re mystic, not that they’re negro…but that they exist to help clueless white people learn to laugh, love, and live.
Because you’d never see a black man with magical powers helping out other black people. That would be ridiculous.
The term is originally Spike Lee’s, I think.
whoa. I am offended by how NOT offensive that was. I (being exactly as black as Obama) was ready to get upset cuz…it is Rush after all. I just expect more from him, I guess.
You know, Rush is an asshole and all of that, but Ehrenstein has a point. Relying on Wikipedia in an op-ed is really weak, though.
And look how many of them have posted in this thread…
I counted three. How many did you get?
One of them was allegedly a college student, not both. And her matriculation has not been confirmed.
That song has been playing on Rush for at least a month. It’s just getting attention now?
Btw- Stephen King’s used “the Magic Negro” character in The Stand and The Green Mile, along with “the Magic Child” and “the Magic Mentally-Challenged Person” in his other works. If he ever writes a book in which a character is a mentally-challenged black child, chances are that character will
turn out to be God.
Wow!
I have to admit that I’m impressed. Doesn’t look anybody here is going for cheap shots or simple ad hominem.
The actual contexts and issues are being discussed and for the most part are being fairly represented.
I wouln’t have thought Rush Limbaugh would get a fair shake here.\
Glad to be wrong. I’m impressed.
No shit. who gives a fuck whether one was in school?
Somewhere in a manger the baby Peter Yarrow is crying.
However, Rush has been doing everything in his power to propagate the meme that Barack Obama is not a real negro. The point is to build up resentment within the black community that an inauthentic negro is one of the top Democratic candidates.
Speaking of which, the N*GGER episode of South Park is on right now.
I found the song faintly funny, actually. Nothing about it seemed offensive, either - if anything, I think its mockery of the irritating commentary about Barack’s “authenticity” (and the long history of similar such nonsense) is actually pretty on target.
Are most people really not familiar with the term “magic negro” and what it refers to?
Shoot, some people don’t even know the difference between its and it’s. The concept of sorcerous African-Americans isn’t nearly as widely taught as that. 
Actually, while I have run across the concept before, I hadn’t linked it to the term “Magic Negro” before I read this thread. It definitely wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title.
I’ve heard jokes about all the mystical, wise black men helping out clueless white folk in movies, but I’ve never heard the specific term “magic negro” before. Although I got it immediately.
I think the whole thing is pretty funny, actually, although I don’t think that Obama resembles the archetype very much, aside from, you know, being black.
Fuck you.
Just kidding.
Same here. I’m familar with the concept, I just didn’t realize that its (it’s? :D) title was “the Magic Negro”.
Shoot, didn’t Mammy in GWTW fill that role? And the black man that rescues and befriends whatsisface, Huckleberry Finn, in Tom Sawyer? This is a pretty old concept, goes back before that idiot Chris Rock or Spike Lee (not an idiot).
The Magical Negro has been raised a couple of times in Cafe Society. There’s also a Wiki page on it.
I would imagine that Rush just thought that the idea was humorous. It isn’t new though.