Jonathan Capehart: Obama & the Angry Black Man

Capehart pens a great post at WaPo that mines the same territory Betty covered back in late May:

Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you saw your black male colleague, especially if you’re in a white-collar profession, show anger or rage in public? My hunch is never. There’s a reason for that. African American men are taught at very young ages (or learn the hard way) to keep our emotions in check, to not lose our cool, lest we be perceived as dangerous or menacing or give someone a reason to doubt our ability to handle our jobs. Think of the emotional corset women in leadership positions are expected to maintain to ensure they never cry in public or show TOO much compassion for fear of raising the same doubt and seeming weak.

p.s. Proving Capehart’s point, Chuck Todd was just on with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC saying that George Bush and Bill Clinton never “showed as much antipathy toward the press” as Obama has. For reals. Bush and Clinton. When Mitchell questioned that notion because she was “on the receiving end with Bill Clinton,” Todd chimed in, “Right, but he did it in a different way.”

[h/t gimmeabreak]

Posted by Kevin K. on 06/08/10 at 01:23 PM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Barack Obama • Editorials • Our Stupid Media • Television •

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Chuck Todd is too wet behind the ears to have any basis for comparison, unlike, say, Andrea Mitchell. I’m sure she’s had Bill’s finger wagged in her face more than once, just for one example.

The devastating dressing-downs Chuck Todd has received in his role as WH correspondent have come from everywhere on the planet where sentient beings perceive his suckitude EXCEPT from the White House.

Comment by Allan on 06/08/10 at 12:41 PM

And Bush wasn’t testy and aggrieved and curt.

Re Capeheart: I thought that’s what cool (whether for blacks, hipsters, or whoever) means: the deliberate concealment of emotion. When you’re a white, middle-class “beatnik,” it’s a pose and a strategy to defy the square establishment. When you’re a black person in a white society that defaults to racism, it’s a necessary survival tactic.

Comment by Mr. Wonderful on 06/08/10 at 12:46 PM

Comment by Mr. Wonderful

Completely agree and would add when you’re dealing with a number of mind boggling problems at the same time it allows you to maintain focus. Focus being a concept never mastered by GWB.

Comment by marindenver on 06/08/10 at 01:12 PM

Capeheart’s correspondent, Doug Graham, makes a good point about the sports angle. I have of course been glued to the NBA playoffs, and it frequently occurs to me to marvel that with all the banging under the boards—cf. Rule 1: “No layups in the playoffs”—not to mention the pressure and the stakes, how rarely one sees a fight.

And then I think about hockey.

Comment by Brendan on 06/08/10 at 01:15 PM

Of course, now he’s getting flack for the “ass to kick” remark, which is too thug-like.

He might as well go on TV in wraparounds and a beret, address the Pope as “Cool Breeze” and announce to Netanyahu that he’s going to “fuck all y’all up.” Thoughtful soft-spoken Black men are seen as weak, and the ones who aren’t are all General Cinque feeding Patty Hearst sandwiches in a closet. That’s as much nuance as my cowardly, stupid, once-top-dog race of Pale Pansies is capable of, and it comes from exactly the same burning kernel of fear and insecurity as the Bad Indian/Dead Indian paradigm.

Harry Truman said “Hell,” a lot.

Lyndon Johnson said stuff that would make Hannibal Lecter cry.

George Bush and Dick Cheney said “Fuck” and “Asshole” more often than Seka.

Terrified White America needs to shut the fuck up and let this man do his job. He’s got enough crap to deal with, and it would be hard enough to do without having to lead a nation of trembling pussies.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 06/08/10 at 02:01 PM

Of course, now he’s getting flack for the “ass to kick” remark, which is too thug-like.

And before we’re besieged with a thousand copy-and-paste freeperdroids spouting the same fatuous line, it’s as well to note, as Steve Benen does, that context is everything (my bold):

LAUER: Critics are now talking about your style, which is the first time I’ve heard that in a long time. They’re saying here is a guy who likes to be known as cool and calm and collected, and this isn’t the time for cool, calm and collected. This is not the time to meet with experts and advisers; this is a time to spend more time in the Gulf and—I never thought I’d say this to a president—but kick some butt. And I don’t mean it to be funny.

OBAMA: No, and I understand. And here’s what—I’m going to push back hard on this. Because I think that this is a—just an idea that got in folks heads, and the media’s run with it. I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf. A month ago I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain talking about what a potential crisis this could be. And I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers so I know whose ass to kick.

Would the outrage be less if Obama had said, “so I know whose butt to kick”?—An ass by any other name, etc. etc.

Or if he’d had the vapors at Lauer’s use of the word “butt” in the presidential presence and used it as an excuse to duck the question altogether?

Comment by YAFB on 06/08/10 at 02:31 PM

George Bush and Dick Cheney said “Fuck” and “Asshole” more often than Seka.

LOL! Kudos to you on the porn Seka reference.

True story - My wife & I once got stuck in a hotel room next to Seka’s. We couldn’t get any sleep that night and not for the reason you are thinking of.

Seka and her dude got into a very drunk & loud fight and she started beating the shit out of him. It eventually spilled out of their room and into the hallway in the middle of the night, and as we couldn’t sleep, we went out & joined others who watched her pummel the snot out of him until security came up to put an end to the noise disturbance.

She is one mean drunk. I have more crazy Seka stories from that weekend, but that one’s the one that sticks in my mind the most.

Comment by G on 06/08/10 at 02:51 PM

@G—I’m not proud of my porno reference inventory, but there are very few discussions that can’t be enlarged by citing a line or plot-point from New Wave Hookers. Seka wasn’t in that one, but it was the role of a lifetime for Jamie Gillis.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 06/08/10 at 03:17 PM

Wow, drunken Seka stories. THIS is what keeps me coming to this site!

By the way, I hear Lynne Cheney did the same thing to Dick one night when he made fun of her frontier lesbian potboiler.

Comment by Oblomova on 06/08/10 at 03:56 PM

Watching Hardball. After two straight weeks of chastising the POTUS for not getting mad enough, today Tweety chastises Obama for saying “ass kicked”. This guy is really amazing.

Comment by jeffinfremont on 06/08/10 at 04:07 PM

@jeffinfremont He can’t fucking win..,which is why I just want him to chase John Boehner and Sarah Palin around yelling “Yum-yum, eat ‘em up.”

Might as well go for the brass ring.

Comment by StrangeAppar8us on 06/08/10 at 04:22 PM

Like we need another reminder that the media in this country is hell-bent on taking this administration down at any cost.

Comment by jeffinfremont on 06/08/10 at 04:29 PM

This drummed-up debate about the president’s emotional temperament is all vaguely reminiscent of the “If only Obama had threatened to cut military funding to Israel, then Lieberman would have come on board with the public option,” yadda yadda yadda line of armchair quarterback bullcrap.

It’s not as if there are a lot of ways to win with venal people and morons, especially those in the media who have a vested interest in ginning up controversy wherever they can find it, because it’s a lot easier than reporting on depressing and technically difficult subjects such as “How do you stop a pig-fuck of epic proportions in the Gulf before we’re all fucked?”

Frankly, I prefer a president who spends as little time as possible catering to idiots and as much time as possible trying to get things done as well as possible.

And truly, how many people do you run into on a daily basis who say “I need the president to be angry for me,” vs. the number of MEDIA people or bloggers who PRESUME that is what the Unwashed Masses want? (Well, maybe they want a salad bar at Applebee’s even more.)

But I wish some of these pundits—mainstream and blogosphere—would just once stop projecting onto the rest of the electorate (you know, those slobbering idiots out there who just aren’t equipped to understand themselves and need liberal bloggers and tee-vee talking heads to do it for them) and say “Well, I don’t know what everybody else wants—but I know I want a Big Strong Angry Daddy Man Who Pounds the Podium and Lets Me Think Everything Will Be Okay and Then Tucks Me In With Reassuring Fairytales and Promises to Slay the Big Bad Corporate Boogeyman.”

Seriously. If that’s what Americans want, then we need to be exterminated because THE STOOPID is coming out in flumes far more noxious than what’s shitting forth from Deepwater.

Comment by Oblomova on 06/08/10 at 08:58 PM

Obla, I think you just described the underlying psychology of every Fox Spews viewer in the US. Except of course the boogieman they want slayed is us, the mass of DFH’s sullying their pure world with our presence.

Comment by StringonaStick on 06/09/10 at 10:15 AM

Except of course the boogieman they want slayed is us, the mass of DFH’s sullying their pure world with our presence.

Or some faceless indistinguishable “raghead” who is out to destroy them and their children. “We’ll get ‘em, dead or alive!”

Comment by Oblomova on 06/09/10 at 11:00 AM

Every new day is another chance for Chuck Todd to prove that he doesn’t have a clue. And I know NBC is going to give him a bonus and his own show for being so clueless.

Comment by 25thcenturygirl on 06/09/10 at 06:48 PM

@G—I’m not proud of my porno reference inventory, but there are very few discussions that can’t be enlarged by citing a line or plot-point from New Wave Hookers. Seka wasn’t in that one, but it was the role of a lifetime for Jamie Gillis.

Wow, drunken Seka stories. THIS is what keeps me coming to this site!

By the way, I hear Lynne Cheney did the same thing to Dick one night when he made fun of her frontier lesbian potboiler.

Strange & Oblomova - (un)fortunately, I’ve got a lot more drunken Seka stories both from that weekend and a few other occasions…including some that are on video (no…get your minds out of the gutter -its not a porno) ;) The situation on tape is…bizarre…to say the least. Let’s just say it involves drunken Seka interrupting a film scene between myself and Robert Z’Dar and Z’Dar was super drunk too…and he ended up getting distracted by her and burying his head in her boobs…all caught on film (again, no this was not a porno). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…