Digging deeper.
Michael Moore posted a blurb on his blog which I can only assume is meant to explain his/Bill Maher’s comment that he voted for the black guy and got the white guy, but which fails miserably on that count:
I was asked about Obama and how I felt about the job he’s doing. Here’s the transcript:
ME: I think I’m like a lot of people who voted for him. First of all, I’m disappointed that the other party — he came in holding an olive branch, and they just whacked it out of his hand, and he keeps holding the olive branch, and they keep whacking it out of his hand. And I think that’s great that he came in that way. But after the 5th or 10th or 20th time of whacking it out of his hand, he should have just said, Look, I’m so sorry you don’t want government to function. But I was elected with 10 million more votes than the other guy, by an overwhelming margin, and therefore this is the way we’re going to do it, I’m so sorry.
CO-HOST JOY BEHAR: So why do you think he doesn’t behave that way? Is it that angry black man thing that he’s afraid of projecting?
ME: Wow, well, I’m not a shrink, so I don’t know.
BEHAR: That was an issue during the campaign … that if you get angry and you’re a black guy in this country, people turn on you for that.
CO-HOST BARBARA WALTERS: When you read his book and you read his mother’s book, she talks about how she trained him not to react and to stay calm.
To lighten things up I decided to repeat a Bill Maher joke (something Bill said recently about how he voted for the “black half” of Obama, and got the “white half.”) Note to self: Tell your own jokes. Don’t try to quote the material of trained professionals. I’ll let Bill continue on in his own words when he made his point on his show:
BILL MAHER: Isn’t Obama’s big problem that he does everything half-assed? Maybe it’s because he’s only half black … If he was fully black, I’m telling you, he would be a better president. There’s a white man inside him holding him back because everything is half-assed. The stimulus was half-assed, healthcare is half-assed …
I tried to explain on The View that Bill was a comedian — but then I remembered you can’t really explain comedy. Satire has been around for a long time. Jonathan Swift, in the 18th century, wrote a famous essay about how the Irish should solve their famine problem: Eat their babies. Of course, he didn’t actually mean that. Quite the contrary — he was attacking the policies of the British government that were allowing the Irish to starve to death. There were many that didn’t understand he was employing humor to make a political point. It’s the sort of thing you either get or you don’t. If you take Maher literally, it sounds crass. But he’s being crass to make the larger point: There are a lot of white people who hate Obama because he’s black, and he has endured their hatred to the point of even having to prove he was born. Here. The history of black America — and this is at the core of Maher’s joke — is this: Oppressor=white. Why Obama has chosen to continue Bush’s wars and take positions as bad or worse than his predecessor’s (delaying new EPA pollution standards that could save up to 12,000 lives per year is the most recent example) has baffled many, including Bill Maher and me. Why appease the white Republicans who hate you? Let’s not forget, McCain won the white vote (57% of all white men, 53% of white women) and the ONLY white demographic that Obama won was among 18-29 year olds. (Allow me to point out again that, because the Democrats have been the party of Civil Rights for the past half-century, this has cost them the white male vote in nearly every election. The Dems who’ve made it to the White House have done it while LOSING the white male vote in their elections, with the exception of John F. Kennedy in ’60 and Lyndon Johnson in ’64).
Jokes, and certainly satire, exist to point out society’s foibles and to give people a chance to laugh at the things they’re uncomfortable about and to laugh at those who are abusing their position of power. I don’t think that Bill Maher thinks that just because Obama is black (or “half-black”) that means Obama’s going to “kick ass” or be more sensitive to the plight of the oppressed. You need go no further than Clarence Thomas’s seat on the Supreme Court to see just how naïve a thought like that would be.
Moore’s attempted explanation is utterly nonsensical. His attempt to deem it “satire” is silly. The explanation that “you either get it or you don’t” is obnoxious.
Moore’s explanation does underscore that his comments were not malicious (and I never said they were, nor did I say Mr. Moore is A Racist, but rather that he said Racist Shit), but it does not address the underlying problem with the comment, and that is that “being fully black” has some meaning separate and apart from being “fully white” or “half-black.”
And, given that he was referencing Bill Maher’s repeated comments that Maher wanted a gangster president, one who is more Suge Knight than Wayne Brady, Mr. Moore’s response ultimately falls flat on its face.
Here’s what Moore should have said:
I was asked about Obama and how I felt about the job he’s doing. Here’s the transcript:
~snip~
I tried to explain on The View that Bill was a comedian — but then I remembered you can’t really explain comedy. Satire has been around for a long time. Jonathan Swift, in the 18th century, wrote a famous essay about how the Irish should solve their famine problem: Eat their babies. Of course, he didn’t actually mean that. Quite the contrary — he was attacking the policies of the British government that were allowing the Irish to starve to death. There were many that didn’t understand he was employing humor to make a political point. It’s the sort of thing you either get or you don’t. If you take Maher literally, it sounds crass. But he’s being crass to make the larger point: There are a lot of white people who hate Obama because he’s black, and he has endured their hatred to the point of even having to prove he was born. Here. The history of black America — and this is at the core of Maher’s joke — is this: Oppressor=white. Why Obama has chosen to continue Bush’s wars and take positions as bad or worse than his predecessor’s (delaying new EPA pollution standards that could save up to 12,000 lives per year is the most recent example) has baffled many, including Bill Maher and me. Why appease the white Republicans who hate you? Let’s not forget, McCain won the white vote (57% of all white men, 53% of white women) and the ONLY white demographic that Obama won was among 18-29 year olds. (Allow me to point out again that, because the Democrats have been the party of Civil Rights for the past half-century, this has cost them the white male vote in nearly every election. The Dems who’ve made it to the White House have done it while LOSING the white male vote in their elections, with the exception of John F. Kennedy in ’60 and Lyndon Johnson in ’64).
Jokes, and certainly satire, exist to point out society’s foibles and to give people a chance to laugh at the things they’re uncomfortable about and to laugh at those who are abusing their position of power. I don’t think that Bill Maher thinks that just because Obama is black (or “half-black”) that means Obama’s going to “kick ass” or be more sensitive to the plight of the oppressed. You need go no further than Clarence Thomas’s seat on the Supreme Court to see just how naïve a thought like that would be.What I said was offensive to President Obama, black people, and mixed-race people. I shouldn’t have said it and I apologize.
See how much easier that is?
There’s still time to apologize, Mr. Moore.
[cross-posted at Balloon Juice]
Unfortunately, white folks are white folks, whether we align ourselves with “progressives”, or with teabaggers – our response is pretty much ALWAYS the same: “it was just a joke, and you, black person, are an oversensitive reverse-racist if you say otherwise”.
Sweartagawd it sometimes feels like I’m the only white guy in the world who sees this dynamic.
It’s them right? It’s not me!
lolol!
^^^ that’s pro punctuation!
“…our response is pretty much ALWAYS the same: “it was just a joke, and you, black person, are an oversensitive reverse-racist if you say otherwise”.”
Except that not always. I am a mid-west, white, white-bread mild-mannered as can be middle aged white lady. And one of the most aggravating things in the world to me is the whole “you’re being over-sensitive” or “you just don’t have a sense of humor” thing.
Mind you, I am coming from a whole different perspective, apart from race, that of being verbally, emotionally, and psychologically screwed with for 20 years by someone who assured me relentlessly day in and day out that I was the problem, me with my lack of a sense of humor and my over-sensitivity, and most of all, my inability to see someone else’s point of view because I was such a selfish person.
I was such a bad person for “trying” to make my ex feel bad for just making a joke, or for trying to lay a guilt trip on him when he was just having a little fun, or worst of all, trying to make him look bad in front of others by “acting” upset (crying) at being publicly insulted or humiliated.
So for me, if someone were to tell me that my perspective was from a racist point of view, I would want to know more and be educated, because the last thing in the world I would want is for someone to think that I thought I knew better than they how they “should” feel.
Or worse yet, I would never want to hurt someone through my attitude or words, through my own ignorance.
Shoot, I was many years an adult before I knew that the phrase “to “gyp” someone” had to do with the assumption that gypsies (Rom) were thieves, period. I would never use that phrase now.
Also, the reason I am here is that from way back during the health care debates, I was getting frustrated with the implication that the obviously intelligent President Obama was “weak”, when it was obvious that the opposition was coming from the perspective of rabid foaming animals.
And I can’t possibly know the experience of African-Americans, but that supposedly intelligent people who are supposedly also progressive could seriously imagine that President Obama is “naive” or “just doesn’t get it” that Republicans are really out to get him just strikes me as soooo patronizing!
I wish the new site about fighting back against attacks included how to refute attacks from the left.
Thank you. He’s known it from day one. He just disagrees with the approach that some our proposing. Now, it doesn’t discern whether he’s right or wrong exactly, but it says what his intentions have been from day one.
You know, he expended a lot of energy to say “I reserve the right to be an asshole, fuck you.”
And considering how borderline racist Bill Maher has been toward this President of late (and his offensive comments about Muslim-Americans), does Mike Moore really think it’s a good idea to be quoting him? A severe lapse of judgement at the very best
Well, and Moore is still apparently dumber than a box of rocks about how our government functions if he thinks all Obama had to do was come in and dick-slap Congress with his vote totals. Maybe a few re-runs of “Schoolhouse Rock” would help?
Or maybe the next time Moore wants to do a film, he has to get funding and approval from two separate legislative bodies filled with a grand total of 535 people who all have their own constituencies, funding sources, ideologies, pet projects, egos, etc. — and who also get to make the arcane rules for running the debate and voting on issues that come before them. Oh, and who have access to a media hell-bent on keeping the flames of controversies/nontroversies burning as bright and hot as possible. Maybe that would provide him with a clue as to how being president is not just about bellowing “I’m the director around here and what I say goes!”
That’s because hand in hand with the assumption of black equals gangsta is the “good black people = magic Negro”. It’s still as racist. Obama ain’t the African American Harry Potter, but that’s the assumption Moore and so many white progressives on the left make. They’re saying “Look, man, I VOTED for you (EVEN THOUGH you’re black). That shows I’m NOT a racist. Therefore, I want you to go all Will Smith – because he’s cool and unthreatening – and magically change the rules, and if you can’t do that then I want you to go all gangsta like, you know, YOU people do.”
They can’t hide their racism but because they can’t see it they can’t see that that’s what it really is.
Oh, and Mike? Thanks for pushing Nader in 2000. Dumb motherfucker.
But if we’d had President Al Gore, Moore wouldn’t have been able to make a few cool mil on Fahrenheit 9/11…
1. Moore doesn’t understand Maher’s joke. The explanation of Maher’s joke is simple: “Black people are gangbangers, but Obama isn’t a gangbanger, so he must be white! Amirite?”
2. We white folks will occasionally say something racist, not because we’re terrible racists, but because we’re Americans who have grown up being bombarded with racism. (Racial hatred? You’re soaking in it!) When non-white people tell us that hey, our white privilege is showing, the only acceptable answer is, “Damn, I’m sorry about that.” Period.
I’m sorry, but I’m also gobsmacked that in the very same freaking interview he whines about Bin Laden being taken out as he was. Do you want a tough, my-way-or-the-highway gangsta or not, Mike? Make up your fucking mind!
He can’t and won’t. He’ll say anything to ingratiate himself with the dumbfuck neo-Naderite hipsters. What a disappointment….again.
So I shared the posts about Michael Moore with my children and thought I would turn around and share their responses with you.
16 year old. “The people who say this kind of shit are only in it for the money. That is all they care about.”
20 year old. “Progressives” like losing. They like feeling like they are the elite, superior, minority.
7 year old. “That is stupid. What does it even mean? I just like President Obama. He is the smartest and cool.”
Has Moore ever acknowledged that the Prez saved the auto industry? And kept thousands of Moore’s fellow ingrates emmployed?