Although the traditional media has forgotten, we certainly have not.
Limbaugh continued to refer to Obama as the "Magic Negro" throughout the broadcast -- 27 times, to be exact -- and at one point sang "Barack, the Magic Negro" to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."
From the March 19, 2007 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:
LIMBAUGH: Yeah, get this headline. Who wrote this? David Ehrenstein is his name. L.A. based, writes about Hollywood in politics. The headline of his column: "Obama the 'Magic Negro.' " Kid you not. "As every carbon-based life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama is running for president. Since making his announcement, there's been no end of commentary about him in all quarters -- musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first black president in the country. 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 a snarky 20th century sociologist 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" of the Magic Negro. Well, "he's there to assuage white guilt ... over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history while replacing stereotypes of a dangous [sic], dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sex[ual] congress holds no interest." The problem is that Ehrenright, Ehrenstein says -- 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's 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 becomes and seems, the more desirable he gets. 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's made. So your attempt to assuage all of your white guilt by supporting Obama is worthless because you're just -- you're just exhibiting racism because you know he's not a real black. As [Sen. Joeeph R.] Biden [D-DE] said, he's clean and articulate. What else did he say? Clean -- yeah, clean, good looking, articulate, one of the first. But he's not real. This is -- 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've got to be a [Rev. Al] Sharpton, you've got to be a Snoop Dogg, you've got to be a [rapper] 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 that he's black and he sounds good and it allows you white racists to assuage your guilt. Well, 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 in the mix for 2008. And the term "Magic Negro," as applied to Barack Obama, has been done by an L.A. Times columnist, David Ehrenstein. What 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 'cause he isn't a real black. And the L.A. Times, by the way, this is the not the first of these types of columns. The L.A. Times has been 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 L.A. Times that's obsessed with the race of Barack Obama and is with all leftists. While they are obsessed with race, accusing everybody else of being racist. We'll be right back.
[...]
LIMBAUGH: David Ehrenstein, the L.A. 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. Talk about Sharpton, Reverend [Jesse] Jackson, these people are all human beings. Now 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. You know what, I got a suggestion for those of you at the L.A. Times. Let's cut to the chase. Go get an old-fashioned auction book 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's not black enough, Obama doesn't have -- he's not down for the struggle, Obama doesn't have a legitimate civil rights -- civil right 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. The left's saying all these things. Now he's the "Magic Negro," which is a convenient trick for the L.A. Times to blame a bunch of white people for being racist. OK. Let's find out who the -- just get an auction block and grab as many blacks as you want to put them up there and let's start the sales, L.A. Times, and let's see who it is that fetches the highest prices. Isn't that essentially the way they're approaching this? These are commodities. These human beings are simply commodities, and they are there for some purpose other than their own human existence? You doubt the racism and the groupthink and the superiority of the leftists in this country, you'd be making a grave error.
[...].
Audio at link.
But Limbaugh's not a racist, y'all!
Steele agrees that Barack Obama is the Magic Negro (AUDIO):
While serving as guest host of Bill Bennett’s radio show, RNC Chairman Michael Steele agreed with a caller’s description of President Obama as Barack the Magic Negro...
Steele’s laughter at a racial slur used against Obama makes me wonder if Steele realizes that he is black too.
link
Chip Saltsman thought he made a funny, until he realized that the rest of America does not share his "sense of humor":
UPDATE: Chip Saltsman, a former chief aide to GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, has withdrawn from the race to be chairman of the Republican National Committee just a day before the vote takes place.
Saltsman's bid was dealt a major blow several weeks ago when he was found to have distributed copies of a CD with the racially-inflammatory song "Barack the Magic Negro."
Today, immigration groups hammered on Saltsman again, drawing attention to the fact that the CD also includes a song titled "The Star Spanglish Banner." (A full report on that is below.)
...
The race for the next chair of the Republican National Committee is being waged along lines that separate the party into factions: social conservatives vs. moderates; south vs. north, outside Washington vs. the insider crowd.
In this context, the Thursday report by Melissa Merz of NDN, that as part of his already controversial holiday CD, candidate Chip Saltsman included a song called "The Star Spanglish Banner," should be considered news. The song is a generally derisive take on Latino immigrants, composed by Paul Shanklin, the same musical-comedian who penned "Barack the Magic Negro.
But the GOP's not racist, y'all!