RUSH: There’s a fascinating story in the LA Times today. Get this headline. Who wrote this? David Ehrenstein is his name. He’s LA-based, and ‘writes about Hollywood and politics.’ The headline of his column: ‘Obama, the ‘Magic Negro.”
I kid you not!
‘As every carbon-based life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House. But it’s clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the ‘Magic Negro.’ The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th-century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. ‘He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist,’ reads the description on Wikipedia. … He’s there to assuage white ‘guilt’ (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.’
The problem, Ehrenstein says, is he’s not real. Al Sharpton’s real, Snoop Dogg is real, but Barack Obama is not real. He’s just there to assuage white guilt. In other words, the only reason Obama is anywhere is because whites are willing to support him because they feel so guilty over slavery. Now, before you reject this, Shelby Steele has written a great book about the whole concept of ‘White Guilt’ and how it is allowing our society to become more and more passive about any number of transgressions that the country has made from its inception. Here’s the close: ‘Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn’t project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.’
So, those of you white people out there who are supporting Barack Obama, you are racists. That is the point that David Ehrenstein is making. You’re attempting to assuage all of your white guilt by supporting Obama, is worthless, because you’re just exhibiting racism because you know he’s not a ‘real black.’ As Biden said, he’s ‘clean,’ and ‘articulate.’ What else did he say? Good-looking, articulate, one of the first. But he’s not real. This is more of the drivel and the bilge that we get from the Drive-By Media. In order to be a real black, you gotta be a Sharpton or you’ve gotta be a Snoop Dogg. You gotta be a Ludacris or something like that. Obama can’t possibly fill this role because nobody knows anything about him and we don’t want to know anything about him. The only thing that matters is he’s black and he sounds good and it allows you white racists to assuage your guilt. There is white racism out there, much of it is on the left where the plantation mentality still resides.
‘Now, let me ask you a question. The term ‘magic negro’ has been thrown into the political presidential race and the mix for 2008, and the term magic negro, as applied to Barack Obama, has been done by an LA Times columnist David Ehrenstein. Do you think, if I keep referring to Obama as ‘the magic negro’ from this day on, I will eventually get the credit and/or heat for this? Magic negro. It is a term, and it’s exactly as described here. Its purpose is to allow whites the guilt-free support. But in Barack’s case, it’s only because he isn’t a ‘real black.’ The LA Times, by the way, is not first with these types of columns. The LA Times has two or three columns like this: ‘Is Barack Obama Black Enough?’ And so forth. So there’s a racist component out there on the editorial page of the LA Times that’s obsessed with the race of Barack Obama — and as with all leftists, while they are obsessed with race, they’re accusing everybody else of being racists.
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So, those of you white people out there who are supporting Barack Obama, you are racists. That is the point that David Ehrenstein is making. You’re attempting to assuage all of your white guilt by supporting Obama, is worthless, because you’re just exhibiting racism because you know he’s not a ‘real black.’ As Biden said, he’s ‘clean,’ and ‘articulate.’ What else did he say? Good-looking, articulate, one of the first. But he’s not real. This is more of the drivel and the bilge that we get from the Drive-By Media. In order to be a real black, you gotta be a Sharpton or you’ve gotta be a Snoop Dogg. You gotta be a Ludacris or something like that. Obama can’t possibly fill this role because nobody knows anything about him and we don’t want to know anything about him. The only thing that matters is he’s black and he sounds good and it allows you white racists to assuage your guilt. There is white racism out there, much of it is on the left where the plantation mentality still resides.
Now, let me ask you a question. The term ‘magic negro’ has been thrown into the political presidential race and the mix for 2008, and the term magic negro, as applied to Barack Obama, has been done by an LA Times columnist David Ehrenstein. Do you think, if I keep referring to Obama as ‘the magic negro’ from this day on, I will eventually get the credit and/or heat for this? Magic negro. It is a term, and it’s exactly as described here. Its purpose is to allow whites the guilt-free support. But in Barack’s case, it’s only because he isn’t a ‘real black.’ The LA Times, by the way, is not first with these types of columns. The LA Times has two or three columns like this: ‘Is Barack Obama Black Enough?’ And so forth. So there’s a racist component out there on the editorial page of the LA Times that’s obsessed with the race of Barack Obama — and as with all leftists, while they are obsessed with race, they’re accusing everybody else of being racists.
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RUSH: This piece by David Ehrenstein in the LA Times today, ‘Obama the ‘Magic Negro,” it’s just infuriating. It is the left that continues to besmirch these people. It’s the left that continues to question their so-called authenticity. These people are all human beings. I don’t care if it’s Sharpton or if it’s Reverend Jackson, these people are all human beings. Some of them are in the race business, I understand that. But look at who it is that keeps focusing on whether they’re authentic enough, authenticity based on skin color. Who is it doing this? It’s the left. I got a suggestion for of those at the LA Times. Let’s cut to the chase. Go get an old-fashioned auction block and put it in the town square, put it somewhere where it looks like it’s real, and just bring all these black people up there and auction them off and find out who it is that sells for the highest price.
That’s essentially what you’re doing with all of these nonsensical categorizations: Obama is not black enough. Obama is not down for the struggle. Obama doesn’t have a legitimate civil rights background. Obama’s ears don’t look like a black person’s ears. They’re too big. Obama doesn’t sound like a black person. He’s clean and articulate. It’s the left saying all these things. Now he’s the ‘magic negro,’ which is just a convenient trick for the LA Times to blame a bunch of white people for being racists. Okay, just get an auction block and grab as many blacks as you want to put ’em up there and let’s start the sales, LA Times, and let’s see who it is that fetches the highest price. Isn’t that essentially the way they’re approaching this? These human beings are simply commodities, and they are there for some purpose other than their own human existence. If you doubt the racism and the groupthink and the superiority of the leftists in this country, you’d be making a grave error.
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RUSH: Guess what just happened? I just got a note from H.R., trusty chief of staff up in New York. The BBC called, and I’ll just read the note to you rather than paraphrase this thing. ‘We just got a call from the presenter on one of the BBC shows, would like to use a ten-second sound bite of something you said about Obama from a while back in concert with clips from all sorts of other radio shows in the US.’ Now, we declined because we know what they’re doing. Ten seconds of all the things I’ve said about Obama? For example, today, you could take ten seconds of me saying, ‘Obama is the magic negro,’ and make it look like I said it, rather than the fact I’m repeating it from an LA Times column today. So the BBC is getting ready — and we declined their permission to use us in that regard. We said, ‘If you want to do just on Rush and we’ll send you a compendium what’s been said.’ ‘No, no, we’re not interested in that.’ So they’re doing a hit piece on talk show hosts in America the way they’re talking about Obama, which is precisely my point.
It’s the LA Times and it’s Joe Biden and it’s all these other people who are raising questions about his authenticity. In fact, there was an honest story, but even it — and I forget where. It was last week. Might have been a blog. I forget. The person writing this story begrudgingly admitted that even Rush Limbaugh is saying there’s something to this Obama guy, and so he’s not being overly critical of Obama. But then the snide follow-up was, that’s because so many people on the left are being critical of Obama for one reason or another that Limbaugh is not being genuine in his respect that he’s showing for Obama, of course it can’t be, obviously. Things are 180 degrees out of phase here. LA Times today referring to Obama as the magic negro.
I’m going to keep referring to him as that because I want to make a bet by the end of this week I will own that term. By the end of the day. The broadcast engineer is shouting at me over the IFB. (People ask, ‘What is an IFB?’ It’s an intercom. It’s a private earpiece. You can’t hear it. I have people chattering at me all the time. It’s a television term, but we use one here. It’s just closed-circuit loop.) He’s shouting, ‘You’ll own it by the end of the day if you keep referring to Barack Obama as the ‘magic negro.” We’ll give it a shot. We’ll see what happens with this.
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RUSH: Ted, Pocatello, Idaho, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Yes. I wanted to make a comment about your comment that you made about Senator Barack Obama, who is a black man. I don’t think they should refer to him as a ‘negro,’ even though we are negroes. I am a black man myself, and I don’t think they refer to us as negroes, but if they do, then I guess that’s okay. But I don’t think they should say that to Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic presidential candidate who —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. What did I say?
CALLER: You said that they quoted in the Los Angeles Times that they said something to Barack Obama, said he was like the miracle negro.
RUSH: Magic. No, no, no. They said, ‘magic negro.’
CALLER: Well, magic negro, us blacks aren’t ashamed to be negroes but okay just like when they threw that al-Jazeera —
RUSH: Why are you calling me? I didn’t say it. You need to be calling a guy named Ehrenstein at the LA Times who came up with the colorful description of Barack Obama as a ‘magic negro.’
CALLER: Okay. The only reason I should do that is because I’m listening to your program and I’m an avid listener of your program, and I know that Senator Biden made some kind of comment like he’s the cleanest out of all and them and everything else. Those aren’t really potshots, you know? If it goes national, you gotta say something.
RUSH: Are you Democrat or Republican?
CALLER: I’m Democrat.
RUSH: Well, it’s Democrats saying all these things. Do you know that?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Are you saying I shouldn’t repeat them?
CALLER: No because that’s radio talk show, but I was saying that makes the black community —
RUSH: Wait a second. Radio talk shows somehow get denigrated because we repeat what liberals say, in this case the ‘magic negro’ about Barack Obama. So somehow we’ve descended to a new low by quoting what’s in the LA Times, but LA Times is excused for this?
CALLER: No, what I’m saying is that maybe you should take the position to maybe defend that and maybe say, quote, unquote, they are not negroes. These are black people.
RUSH: Well, I didn’t say it in so many terms, but I pretty much excoriated them. I hope you heard that. These people are racists. You know, the racists in our society, Ted, are these white liberals. They’re the ones that notice your skin color before anything else, and they’re the ones deciding whose skin color is dark enough and therefore who’s authentic enough and who’s been down for the struggle. It’s those people doing this. It’s not me. It’s not ‘talk radio.’
CALLER: True. True.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: They only do that to the blacks that are moving up.
RUSH: That’s right, because they represent a threat. The civil rights coalition’s prescription is that you can’t move ahead in this country are because of racism.
CALLER: But I think us blacks have moved on and we can move on, and I think Barack Obama may very well be the 2000 [sic] Democrat nominee for president of the United States and I don’t think they should refer to him as that. I mean, if I lived in Los Angeles —
RUSH: Wait. Don’t forget the purpose the LA Times wrote this piece. They say that he is the ‘magic negro’ because a bunch of people — who are white, who are supporting him — are only doing it because they have a bunch of white guilt and they think by supporting a ‘magic negro’ that they can assuage their guilt. In essence he’s saying that the white people that support Obama mostly are racists, that they don’t know anything about him because there is nothing to know. That’s what this guy wrote in his column. There’s nothing to know. He’s not been around long enough. People that support this guy, obviously have to support him because he’s black. It makes them feel better. So they are racists. The guy who is racist here is the author of the column. It’s as though there’s a death wish for black candidates. No matter who the black candidate is, if there’s any white support, it’s not genuine. It can’t be, because whites are racist. In this case, Obama has gotta be the ‘magic negro’ because nobody knows anything about him so there’s no reason to support him unless you have white guilt and you want a black guy to make you feel better.
CALLER: But there’s other points to support him, and even though they may take him for reparations and all this stuff that you said before, they have to look beyond that. I mean but we can’t control the United States, and I did not read the article. I was just going by what you said on your talk show, and I’m not really saying anything bad about you. I just said, ‘Why repeat that phrase?’ I heard you say, ‘I’m going to own that phrase by the end of this day,’ or something like that.
RUSH: No, I’m glad you asked that, because my point is that the LA Times raised it — he LA Times columnist, Ehrenstein writes about it — and I simply said, ‘If I refer to Obama the rest of the day as ‘the magic negro,’ there will be a number of people in the Drive-By Media and on left-wing blogs who will credit me for coming up with it, and ignore the LA Times did it simply because they can’t be critical of the LA Times,’ but they can obviously be critical of talk radio. It’s such something beneath us all. I’m just making the point out there, Ted that. I don’t ‘own’ the comment. I don’t own the phrase. The LA Times does, but by the end of the did I if I keep using it they’ll say I do own it.
CALLER: Okay. I was just going to say that that columnist probably is a Jew.
RUSH: Now, wait a minute! On what basis are you making that supposition?
CALLER: I’m making the assumption just on his name. I would say he’s a Jew, and there is a lot of racism in Los Angeles out there that probably goes on, but we have a strong NAACP chapter out there that will probably handle that.
RUSH: We’ll see.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Look, the LA Times has run two other pieces on Obama, the most recent in the past month or so, on Is he black enough? — and the answer is no.
CALLER: Yes, but they always ask questions like that. I mean, why would that question arise? Why would that even arise when they aren’t black people? They don’t know what black is. We can always say stuff like that. They want to say, ‘Is he black enough?’
RUSH: You know, this is what’s crazy, that only certain people are allowed to know what black is. That’s absurd, and it’s the LA Times and the left that’s raising questions about the authenticity of who’s black enough. It is dehumanizing, it is demeaning, and it is racist — and your buds at the NAACP did not go to the LA Times and say, ‘What is this Is Obama black enough business?’ They didn’t. They stand mute out there. They’re liberals and they’re not going to criticize each other. They are liberals first. I don’t care whether they’re feminists or they’re actors or actresses, or whether they are liberal Jewish people, or liberal black people. The NAACP, are liberals first and everything else second. Ted, that was a great call and a great conversation. I’m glad you got through, but I have to run because of the constraints of time.
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