Juan Williams Insults First Lady Michelle Obama

Fox's Juan Williams attacked First Lady Michelle Obama on Bill O'Reilley.

Hat tip: JJP

Juan Williams on Michelle Obama:

"[S]he's got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going. If she starts talking . . . her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim. If that stuff starts to coming out, people will go bananas and she'll go from being the new Jackie O. to being something of an albatross."

I mean Juan, you know that New Yorker cover was meant to be a joke right?

Here's the video:




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dnA from JJP breaks it down further:

And, after thinking about it some more, dnA explains why Williams truly is foul.

MICHELLE OBAMA.

I've been rolling Juan Williams' statement about Michelle Obama around like a wad of gum, trying to figure out why it bothers me so much. The first thing is that Juan is a genuinely nice guy, with whom I've had the pleasure of talking a few times. But the second, and the much bigger thing, is that I realized that I've never heard --and I don't think I ever will hear -- a rapper call Michelle Obama a bitch. But you don't have to call a woman a bitch to treat her like one.


I've tried for a long time to reconcile my love of Hip-hop music with its unapologetic misogyny, or even the fact that so many friends I've known since knee-high flick around the word like spent cigarettes no matter how many times we argue about it. The bitches/sisters explanation is patently unsatisfying, it's basically a reinvention of the old madonna/whore dichotomy. I can't really come up with an explanation, other than that there are ugly sides to most of the things we love. But Williams is one of the most vocal critics of Hip-hop; of what right-leaning black pundits refer to as "street-culture." I see little that's different in what Williams is saying about Michelle from what you might hear from Young Jeezy. This isn't an isolated statement about something someone said last year, it fits into an established narrative of who black women are. Rather than being the hyper-sexualized Jezebel popular in rap music, she's portrayed as the masculine ball-buster, the kind of women ignorant men write "why I don't date black women" essays about, trying to convince themselves that there's something rational about hating the kind of woman who gave birth to you. Williams' statement makes me angry not because it's about Michelle, but because it's so manifestly not about her, but about black women in general. And maybe with some kind of messed up, terrible rationalization I can divorce myself from what happens in Hip-hop because I know Jeezy isn't talking about my mama. But when people talk about Michelle like this, they're talking about this universe of brilliant, accomplished black women who never seem to get their due. They're talking about the women I know; my mother, my aunts, my cousins. And it makes me furious.

My own personal opinion is that Williams needs a beatdown. A good, old fashioned, Junebug and Ray Ray visiting him, beatdown. How he feels he can so freely disrespect and LIE about Michelle Obama, comparing her to a MAN, no less, trying to strip away her humanity.

No thank you.

She's the First Lady, and Juan's '300 pieces of silver' behind better signify.

John McWhorter Actually Has a Point

Hear John McWhorter on NPR, discussing the book All About the Beat: Why Hip-Hop Can't Save Black America.

I typically don't agree with John McWhorter, but on the issue of Hip Hop, I tend to agree with his position more than I disagree. 15-20 years ago, I would have probably been more resistant to his position. I once saw Hip Hop as something that had a lot of potential to be a vehicle for social change. That's not the case anymore. That fire fizzled out a long time ago. It has been replaced by something completely different.... something much more destructive than constructive.

I have become a little more Conservative as I have gotten older, and I can't stand anything about Rap music or Rap culture, particularly as it is packaged today. The problem for folks like John McWhorter, Bill Cosby, and Juan Williams is that Black folks are not very open to their message...often because of the messenger. Part of the reason has to do with the fact that a large number of Black folks are so brainwashed and indoctrinated into the Hip Hop lifestyle, and brainwashed by the Black establishment (Civil Rights Inc.) that they will never be open to the ideas of McWhorter or Cosby/Puissant. And so the message fades with the messenger.

This will ultimately be to the detriment of Black people, IMO.

Juan Williams Discusses Growing Divide in "Black America"

Juan Williams examined the Black intra-racial divide on NPR's News and Notes program yesterday (Thursday). This has been evident for the last several years.... but Bill Cosby helped to really get a discussion going on the issue. It seems that before Cosby so boldly raised the issue, Black Americans were treating it like the Elephant in the room.

Well Juan acknowledges the Elephant. He discusses data from a recent NPR/Pew Research report on the issue of racial identity. The report seems to support what I have felt for a long time- that there is no such thing as a "Black America" per se. That is such a monolithic term and I have never favored the way that it has been used. This society is always attempting to place Black people in a box. In fact, Blacks seem to be the most "Boxed in" of all the major ethnic groups.

However, since the Civil Rights struggle of half a century ago, Blacks have become much more diverse, socially, culturally, economically, and politically. This is especially true in terms of cultures and values. The truth is, there is no overriding issue, such as unmitigated racism, that requires the kind of oneness or unity that was seen 50 years ago. Blacks have chosen many different paths. Unfortunately the media has not caught on to that fact. We are still referred to in monolithic terms....and it annoys the hell out of me. Ironically, this media ignorance has been one of the reasons for my push back against the Rap Culture, BET and the like, because there is this track record on the part of the media to lump Black folks together in one big pot.

The results of this study are not new to Black Americans, since many have known this for years. But it may be news for the news reporters and the TV producers. Will they do something constructive with this information, such as change the way they refer to Black people or change the way they report events? Somehow I doubt it.

The report is similar to Dubois's two Souls analogy, although it is now manifesting in different ways.

This Black cultural split is real and "the community" is becoming more divergent everyday. This is why I also don't like the term "Black Community" because it suggests a oneness that does not really exist and has not existed since the Black Pride movement of the 70's thru parts of the 80's. Black people are clearly choosing different value systems and lifestyles. In addition, the Black intra-racial gap is also growing in terms of economics and education.

There is a permanent underclass that is emerging, and Black Americans will disproportionally be a large part of that group.... and this time it will not be because of an oppressive White Man holding them back, it will be because of the choices that they have made and the value systems that they embrace.

So how will Black people identify in the future since the skin color paradigm is being shattered? A more important question might be... would society (esp. the Media) finally recognize our diversity?

It is amazing to me that in 2007, people like Dog Chapman, Michael Richards, Don Imus, etc feel that they can run to ONE MAN whom they feel represents all Black people. It's insulting. When Dog Chapman ran to Al Sharpton, it was just as insulting to me as the racist tirade itself... perhaps even more insulting.

But as long as we share Brown skin, I think we will always be treated as a monolith. This, in a way, is turning into a new form of racism. White Americans are seldom required to deal with these racial identity issues. But as a Black American I constantly feel under attack... as if I must constantly answer for the wrongs, the lifestyle choices and the values embraced by the wider group.