RUSH: There’s some guy on CNN right now, his name is Carl Jones. He’s an executive producer Adult Swim’s Black Dynamite, whatever that is. And he said something — Mr. Speaker, I need to ask you, he was talking about blacks and television and how discriminatory it is. He said Obama would have never gotten elected if he looked like Samuel L. Jackson. What the hell does that mean? What in the world does that mean? That Obama would have never gotten elected if he looked like — called him Sam Jackson, but I know who he means, Samuel L., the actor.
What in the world… (interruption) Well, it certainly doesn’t to me. Given that I don’t look at people like this I have no idea what that means. (interruption) Yeah? It means that Samuel L. Jackson looks like an authentic black man and Obama doesn’t? That’s what this guy meant? Come on. You mean to tell me Obama doesn’t look authentic? Are you telling me that… (interruption) Look it. You know what we gotta do? We gotta go back and get “Magic Negro” because, you know, for all this talk — you want to know why Sharpton’s at the White House every day?
You people have forgotten. During the campaign, as far back as 2007, if you’ll recall, Joe Biden got all of this started by praising Obama to the hilt, by saying, essentially, what Biden said, I’m gonna paraphrase, but it’s pretty close, he said, “Finally we’ve got a clean, articulate black guy in our party running for president.” And I remember hearing that, and I said, “Ho! Can you imagine if anybody else had said this?”
Maybe Charles Barkley could get away with it, but nobody else. Mitt Romney clearly couldn’t have gotten away with it. But Sharpton heard it. And remember Sharpton was originally in the Hillary camp. Sharpton was not on board Obama at first, and Sharpton got mad because, hey, I’m clean. I take showers. I can speak. People know what I’m saying. I need a bull horn, but people know what I’m saying.
And then, you’re right, this whole notion of authenticity surfaced and we had that column in the LA Times saying that Obama was the quintessential “Magic Negro,” a term I’d never heard. (interurption) You got the song? Okay. Reverend Jackson said he wanted to neuter Obama, ’cause he wasn’t happy. They raised this notion of authenticity, that Obama wasn’t down for the struggle. So we created a tune based on that LA Times column on Obama, written by a black guy, by the way, a black guy wrote this column calling Obama the “Magic Negro,” so we did this.
(playing of song)
RUSH: Now, stop the tape a minute. Stop it. Those of you hearing this for the first time, I can’t imagine what you think. You gotta understand, the LA Times wrote the column calling Obama the “Magic Negro.” Back in 2007-2008, Sharpton was not happy, and a lot of the civil rights groups were not happy. They’d thrown in with Hillary, because Obama was a late arrival. He hadn’t been “down for the struggle.” He wasn’t at Selma. He didn’t have any roots there. Everybody was praising Obama as bright, articulate, smart, clean, and all that — and these guys were offended, and they were running around saying it. This is what inspired the song. Okay. Resume.
(continued playing of song)
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
(continued playing of song)
RUSH: So what happened there, Sharpton went off the lyrics. He got so fed up, and the background singers kept singing, trying to get Sharpton back into the song. I’m telling you, the whole thing was brought on by the Los Angeles Times. They ran a column entitled “Obama the ‘Magic Negro.'” And I’d never heard of the term, so we created the parody. It was white comedian Paul Shanklin there on the vocal portrayal. But I had forgotten that ’til we were talking about this. Sharpton was originally — not just Sharpton. There were a lot of them not on board. There was deep resentment for Obama.
It all started with what Joe Biden said about him. Don’t doubt me on that. And Harry Reid said he had a gift ’cause he… (interruption) Yeah. Well, what Harry Reid meant by he had a gift, he’d go from the Negro dialect to the not Negro dialect on a dime. Harry Reid said that, not us, yeah, Harry Reid said it. And Obama, when he was told that Harry Reid said that, said, “Well, I have a gift, Harry.” He’s talking about his oratory.
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