A ZEBRA BY ANY OTHER NAME

Chris Matthews sticks his tingle-launching foot in his mouth and says that during the State of the Union address, he pretty much forgot that Obama was black. That is not news. Neither Matthews’s verbal unctuousness toward the Obi One (that would embarrass an eleven year old girl with a crush on a Hanson), nor his failure to note something obvious—like Obama’s rank amateur sophistry— is unusual, but rather par for his course. But Miss Matthews’s reasons for overlooking this particular part of the president’s [sic] short but colorful resume are interesting and, probably, say a lot about the Liberal Left that has rented the White House to this oddball.

First, it is easy to forget he is black because he is not. He is half black and half white. He is, properly speaking, a mulatto. To say he is black is like saying a mule is a donkey. It’s not. Or, a better analogy would be that painting a zebra all black doesn't make it a pony. It's still a zebra-- with black paint. Even better yet, a zebra can simply SAY it's black; nonetheless it is, in fact, striped. The person who is robbed by this claim is the yet-to-come actual first black president. If I were him or her, I’d be danged mad. Second, what is, “I forgot he was black” supposed to mean, exactly? Was he speaking so “whitely” Chris altered his mental picture? Kind of like listening to Charlie Pride from the Grand Ole Opry? Was it the fact that he spoke about something— anything— other than race, which is what we have been conditioned by experience to expect to be the only thing any black politician really speaks about? One certainly got the impression that Matthews, who falls all over his floored tongue to be counter-racist, intended this remark to be complimentary. Is he still as surprised as Harry Reid that a black man can be so “articulate”, so in-command of elocution (corpse-men aside)? But if Chris really forgot BO was black, then that couldn’t be the case. Only black speakers get noted and applauded for their ability to speak standard English. If Chris really forgot, he wouldn’t have thought anything of rhotic r’s. At the end of the day, it is such a strange comment that one is left to conclude, simply, that Chris Matthews is the Michael Scott of political show-guys: An idiot.

But there remains this “he was black” issue that is unwittingly (really unwitting) raised by the remark. Barack “Barry” Obama was born of a white mother, raised by white grandparents in Kansas, went to an Ivy League school, yet considers himself black. Why? Because he self-identifies with black culture? How? He didn’t know his father. How old was he when he met his first black person? White people should find this disavowal rather offensive. Black people should find this dishonest bandwagoning offensive. And mulattoes should find this disrespect to be downright insulting. And right when they are demanding redress of their long sense of census insensitivity, too. Then again, given the performance of the product, I’d be willing to forgo credit by any association. Maybe it is understandable that the mulatto community is silent. When the black community starts pointing out that the Obi One isn’t really as African American as, say, Condi Rice, he will know he is really finished. And when people like Chris Matthews start claiming him, it proves the final point: Chris Matthews is an idiot.