Jack & Jill Politics

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, 1994-1996, “The Assassination of The Black Male Image”.

To maintain power and control, the plantation masters said that black men were savage and hyper sexual. To strengthen racial control, late nineteenth and early twentieth century scientists and academics concocted pseudo-theories that said black men were criminal and mentally defective. To justify lynching and political domination, the politicians and business leaders of the era said that black men were rapists and brutes. To roll back civil rights and slash social programs, Reagan-Rush Limbaugh-Pat Buchanan-type conservatives say black men are derelict and lazy.

Various incidents, 2007-2008:

• Clinton supporter Andrew Young says Bill Clinton is “blacker than Barack” because “he’s probably gone with more black women then Barack”.
• Clinton campaign official Bill Shaheen suggests Obama may have been a drug dealer.
• BET Founder Bob Johnson talks about “what Obama was doing in the neighborhood”
  
• The Clinton campaign claims Obama was a “part-time Senator”.
• Clinton supporter Andrew Cuomo uses “Shuck and Jive” in reference to Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, 2008:

But here’s the rub. Johnson was forced to apologize to Obama for his real, imagined, or likely manufactured slight. Yet as of this writing there’s no sign of any like apology from the Obama camp for distorting and then blowing up Clinton’s King compliment. His much touted agreement with Hillary to tone down the race attacks is not the same as an apology. Don’t bet that that “truce” will last.

Nope, not a critical word.