Wish You Weren't Here...

The folks over at The Root posed an interesting question recently:

"Who would you erase from Black History?"

...but then they followed it up with a fairly obvious list:

Marion Barry

Michael Steele

O.J. Simpson

Sheila Dixon

Dennis Rodman

Alan Keyes

D.C. Sniper, John Muhammad

R. Kelly

Dr. Conrad Murray

Flavor Flav

Clarence Thomas

Bishop Don Magic Juan

Amarosa Manigault-Stallworth

Soulja Boy

Wesley Snipes

Karrine Stephans

Idi Amin/Papa Doc/Baby Doc/Robert Mugabe/Rafael Trujillo

Conservative commentator, John McWhorter, picked up on the lameness of The Root's list and posted his own, typically provocative, but I think ultimately much more interesting, list:

Malcolm X

Price Cobbs

Al Jolsen

Paolo Freire

William Ryan

Ron Karenga

Jonathan Kozol

O.J. Simpson

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward

(Go to the articles to see the justifications for these choices.)

What do you think about these lists? Who would you "remove from Black History," if you had the chance?

Continuing Adventures in Racial Politics

Some good articles have appeared recently dealing with racial politics in the U.S. Check 'em out...

• The Defender has a nice piece on the Black Power Conference that took place in March.

• An excellent analysis of youth and the "post-racial society." Be sure to read the (scary) comments, too!

• A new study shows that college-educated African Americans lose more jobs than their peers across the racial line.

• Here is an AWESOME 1972 interview with Miraim Makeba by Nikki Giovanni.

• This is an important critical piece on Obama's back-peddling on justice for thousands of black farmers who were systematically screwed over by the feds for several decades.

• Colorlines has a nice article focusing on the business class and conservative pundits' attempts to scapegoat policies that are aimed at helping minority communities get access to credit as the supposed cause of the banking crisis.

The "Magical Negro in Chief"?

Bijan Bayne, over at The Root, asks whether Barack Obama is the "magical Negro in Chief." A "magical Negro" is a character in a novel or film, who is possessed of an inner wisdom and who ultimately helps the white lead character get out of trouble. Back in 2003, Rita Kempley wrote an article for Black Commentator on this subject. Here are a few oft-cited examples of "Magical Negroes":

• Noah Cullen (Sidney Poitier) in the film The Defiant Ones (1958)
• Dick Haloran (Scatman Crothers) in the Stephen King novel The Shining (1977), later a 1980 film
• Willie Brown (Joe Seneca) in the film Crossroads (1986)
• John Coffey (Michael Clarke Duncan) in the serialized Stephen King novel The Green Mile (1996), later a 1999 film
• Albert Lewis (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) in the film What Dreams May Come (1998)
• Cash (Don Cheadle) in the film The Family Man (2000)
• Bagger Vance (Will Smith) in the film The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
• An angel (Gabriel Casseus) in Bedazzled (2000)
• God (Morgan Freeman) in the film Bruce Almighty (2003)
• The blind handcar-pumper (Lee Weaver) in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
• The old woman seer in the Stephen King novel The Stand
• The barkeeper Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation
• The Oracle in The Matrix Reloaded
• Gabriel (voice of Delroy Lindo) in The Simpsons episode "Brawl in the Family" (DABF01, 2002) (a deliberate parody of the archetype)

Almost as soon as Obama began to have success in the presidential primary, debate about his status as a "magical Negro" took off. Steven Rosenfeld, over at Alternet, explored the "Magic" behind Obama's success as did Anne Applebaum, at The Washington Post, who posted a column suggesting Obama's blackness provided some advantagous "magic" in the election. Even conservative blow-hard Rush Limbaugh got into the act with a racially derisive song he played on his show. On the flip side, Gary Kamiya, over at Salon, saw Obama's magical status in a more positive light, raving that "the fact that it is a black man who is serving as America's philosopher's stone, turning the base metal of bitterness into the gold of forgiveness, is extraordinarily moving." But, as recently as March, a writer for the L.A. Times argued that Obama was, in fact, a "magical Negro."

The underlying question is: What does the Obama victory win mean for white liberal/progressive voters? Is the meaning confined to this "magical" paternalistic realm? Does Obama's win liberate white liberals from their racial guilt? If so, is that a bad thing? Or, is there something more substantive and concrete there? Does this view of Obama as "magical Negro" diminish his accomplishment and dismiss the very real and positive inter-racial work being done in this campaign?

Check it out. What do you think?