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President Barack Obama may not care to discuss race publicly, for reasons either political or personal, but his very existence as the first black president of the United States has been cause for many an uncomfortable conversation on the topic. It started even before he became president, as he sought a congressional seat on the south side of Chicago in the early days of his political career, and faced criticism about not being "black enough" to represent that constituency.

What has been certain is that Obama is black enough to be the target of racialized attacks from, among others, Tea Party enthusiasts and rightwing radio hosts who find no qualms with referring to him as a "magical negro". Obama may writhe and go to great lengths to say as little as is politically sound for him to say about race, but for the rest of us, it's inescapable.

Chris Rock, for one, has never shied away from discussions of race. The award-winning comedian has made a career of tackling taboo and controversial subjects, the constructions of race and racism chief among them. Throughout his career, his humor has often been provocative and stoked flames in the ever-unresolved and little-understood "conversation on race". Sometimes, even his off-stage material has made us think.

In an interview on NBC's "Today" show where he was promoting his new animated film, Madagascar 3, in which Rock reprises his voice role from the previous movies, the actor was asked which of the animals he would choose to be. After playing with the idea of being a lion, because of the king of the jungle status, or a snake that could scare people, Rock settled that his character Marty the Zebra was his final choice – "in honor of our zebra president, black and white, white and black".

It was a mostly harmless joke, drawing from the president's mixed heritage, having been born to a Kenyan father and a white American mother. Rock then added, "I love our president, you know, but he's black and white, he appeals to all … we ignore the president's whiteness, but it's there, it's there."

Where, at first, it was a simple joke about the president's black father and white mother, Rock's later comments reflect on the idea of race not as a color of skin, but as a set of cultural markers. It's not much different than when Obama faced the "is he black enough?" critiques (which still arise from time to time). When Rock speaks of Obama's "whiteness", it's not a biological observation, but a perception that Obama is at home in white spaces. He speaks the language. He finds acceptance because white people can identify in him familiar tropes and values associated with their own upbringing and cultural mores.

Here, Obama's "whiteness" is much like former President Bill Clinton's "blackness". When Nobel-prize winning author Toni Morrison described Clinton as the nation's "first black president", she was speaking specifically to the treatment he received during the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and subsequent impeachment. Clinton was experiencing a public lashing that, as Morrison attempted to articulate, would normally be reserved for a black man.

When Rock says that Obama appeals to both black and white, it's in part because Obama simultaneously experiences the denigration of blackness and the great privileges of whiteness. This is an uncomfortable conversation for some people to have because it traffics in stereotyping that can reduce individuals to their group identification, rather than assessing each person for who he or she is.

The same thing happens with the "black enough" meme, as we all attempt to ferret out what exactly constitutes being black and at what point one is made up of enough of that to claim blackness. What, then, enables whiteness? And who gets to determine such?

Whether it all gets worked out before he leaves office (which it surely won't), Obama's presence has charged us with pushing forward to better understand the role race continues to play in our society and the construction of racial identities. Every once in a while, there'll be an offhand joke that causes us deeper reflection than we previously imagined. Often as not, it'll be Chris Rock who supplies it.

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

Talk about a sick and evil religion! I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more press!

Charles Bukaki wrote:

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

Talk about a sick and evil religion! I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more press!

I am too, but I doubt Obama's camp is going to want to bring it up because of his history with Wright. And to be fair, mormons didn't think black people were the devil, they just didn't think black men were worthy of being ordained into their priesthood, which pretty much every white male was worthy of starting at age 12. They still welcomed them into their congregation, but still, it's something I think Romney should have to answer for since he's a proud lifelong mormon, but with the specter of reverend Wright hanging over his head, Obama's not going to be the one to bring it up

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

Talk about a sick and evil religion! I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more press!

brotherplanet wrote:

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

Talk about a sick and evil religion! I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more press!

I hear a lot of them freaked out when black people were finally allowed to be ordained in their church. Fucking nuts!

RATTrules wrote:

brotherplanet wrote:

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

Talk about a sick and evil religion! I'm surprised that hasn't gotten more press!

I hear a lot of them freaked out when black people were finally allowed to be ordained in their church. Fucking nuts!

INSANE!!

I can't believe we could actually have a MORON president who believes this garbage!

brotherplanet wrote:

brotherplanet wrote:

RATTrules wrote:What's shocking is Mormoms really did view blacks as the devil till 1978!!

I hear a lot of them freaked out when black people were finally allowed to be ordained in their church. Fucking nuts!

INSANE!!

I can't believe we could actually have a MORON president who believes this garbage!

Now... I don't if know this is true... Back during the last primary four years ago I read that Romney cried when his church made this decision.

brotherplanet wrote:
Now... I don't if know this is true... Back during the last primary four years ago I read that Romney cried when his church made this decision.

brotherplanet wrote:Thanks for that link!

That article I read twisted it to make it seem as if he cried because he was against black people being a part of his church.

Our press kinda sucks sometimes.


He's still a putz for saying he would have signed the NDAA, but at least I don't look at him as negatively as I did a few minutes ago.

RATTrules wrote:

brotherplanet wrote:Thanks for that link!

That article I read twisted it to make it seem as if he cried because he was against black people being a part of his church.

Our press kinda sucks sometimes.


He's still a putz for saying he would have signed the NDAA, but at least I don't look at him as negatively as I did a few minutes ago.

The NDAA?

Elaborate please.

brotherplanet wrote:

RATTrules wrote:

brotherplanet wrote:Thanks for that link!

That article I read twisted it to make it seem as if he cried because he was against black people being a part of his church.

Our press kinda sucks sometimes.


He's still a putz for saying he would have signed the NDAA, but at least I don't look at him as negatively as I did a few minutes ago.

The NDAA?

Elaborate please.

The headlines said it all. The Huffington Post teaser shouted: HAPPY NEW YEAR: YOU CAN NOW BE DETAINED INDEFINITELY while Infowars proclaimed a more sedate: Happy New Year: Obama Signs NDAA, Indefinite Detention Now Law of the Land

The NDAA is the $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act that President Obama signed into law on New Year’s Eve. In addition to funding the United States’ ongoing wars and the 900 military bases it maintains in 130 countries, the bill provides for the U.S. president to have draconian worldwide authority to have the military seize anyone suspected of “terrorism” or providing aid to terrorists or “associated forces” anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens on American soil, and detain them without charge or trial indefinitely. “It’s a little New Year’s present to our constitutional republic,” Alex Jones says angrily in a YouTube video.


The rest is here...

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.c ... ined-70342

RATTrules wrote:Bro Planet, you know with a fairly liberal president in charge you won't have innocent people detained! Just muzzie dirtbags not people like us!

But if Romney became president who knows what the voices in his head from the MORON religion would tell him!