Toni Morrison and black president

Posted: Monday, January 21, 2008 10:01 PM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC/NJ's Athena Jones
Two things: About Bill as first black president. I've never hear/read anything more from Toni Morrison on that point. My understanding is that it was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But it's quoted so often these days, it would be so great to return to the topic with her.

Surprising Obama comment about investigating Bill's dancing ability. Seems he was pandering to the black audience, which may appreciate such jokes -- common as they are in the black community -- but could any other candidate on that stage have gotten away with saying anything so stereotypical? Even as a joke?

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Comments

It was a joke. It was funny. Moving on, MSNBC

Nick, NY NY (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:06 PM)

I think he did well at handling a tough question with some humor.

Joe (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:09 PM)

lighten up...it was funny

john, tulsa oklahoma (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:10 PM)

Relax on the dancing joke, guys. You're taking that much too seriously. Would you also say that Clyburn telling Bill to "chill" is also pandering to Blacks?

Scientific, Philadelphia, PA (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:15 PM)

South Carolina is NOT only a black community, I might add... The audience was NOT entirely "black" either... Ur point really fails to resonate with me...!

Rep0X (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:24 PM)

Domenico...
I'm sure we've all had enough racebaiting thank you. I know it's part of the Clinton plan, but you really gotta rebel sometimes. Oh, I forgot, your Latino, so you have to do what the Clintons tell you. See. How does it feel?

Steven (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:28 PM)

Morrison was right - Bill was the best president ever. Only Hillary will be better!

Hillary clearly was the winner tonight - elegant and well spoken. Hussein Obama lost on health care (his plan will leave 15 million Americans uninsured, while Hillary's plan will cover EVERY SINGLE American).

Go President Hillary!

and Hussein Obama - go home!

Martin (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:30 PM)

Martin (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:31 PM)

Of course he could get away with it as well as any other candidate - especially since Obama CAN'T dance.

Linda R, Bloomington IN (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:33 PM)

You clearly *can* do it, because they're doing it. Hillary has been talking out of both sides of her mouth about gender. Obama would be remiss if he didn't also remind folks about the historic nature of his candidacy. But he has broad appeal, outside of black folks. I don't think Clinton can say the same thing about men.

LeviH, Chicago, Illinois (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:33 PM)

EXACTLY! his comments about john being a white man weren't welcoming either

Chris, texas (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:34 PM)

No way! If Hillary had made some comment like that she would have been lynched by the media. And poor Edwards might not have made it off the stage. As a black woman, I concede the reality that there is a double standard. Reality is neither of the other candidates could have even got away with the brothah comment.

Chaunda (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:34 PM)

Wasn't he just mocking how inane the question was? Especially after having correctly chastised the MSM for asking about race so much (e.g., at the beginning of the MSNBC debate the other night)?

Joe M, PDX (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:34 PM)

Althea Jones -- Obviously, you and I did not watch the same debate. The debate that I watched, ignorant Joe John asked Obama a stupid question. Obama responded appropriately. I believe his dancing comment was in jest, not meant to be stereotypical as the white and black members of the audience clapped at his response--everything, is not in black and white. I am glad that the entire audience was able to recognize this.

Get a Clue, New York (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:42 PM)

"Surprising Obama comment about investigating Bill's dancing ability. Seems he was pandering to the black audience, which may appreciate such jokes -- common as they are in the black community -- but could any other candidate on that stage have gotten away with saying anything so stereotypical? Even as a joke? "
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ummmm, would another candidate even be asked that question? What is the correct way to address a racial question about a former President? How does one measure the "blackness" of non black people? Me thinks you are trying to read alot more into this exchange than it deserves. Seems to me that perhaps the question shouldn't have been asked? Maybe?

Nashville_fan (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:45 PM)

Ummm, I think it was the media that keeps highlighting the race/gender thing not the candidates.
Read the transcript of questions. Start there, you'll find it.

Sami Gabriel, Denver, CO (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:46 PM)

Aren't you the news media? Go find out

nctodc (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:46 PM)

I googled this first black president notion that adheres to Bill Clinton and while finding Toni Morrison's October 1998 New Yorker magazine article, I also found this Salon article written in 2001 by Jabari Asim
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/02/26/black/index.html

In this moving and powerful argument against Bill Clinton as "first black president", Asim asks,

"Are black men so hungry for modern heroes that we eagerly exchange brotherhood for Clinton's occasional teary-eyed assurance that he feels our pain? And are such gestures, regardless of their sincerity, sufficient to overcome Clinton's many, repeated moral failings? What have black men to gain by attaching our loyalty so firmly to a man whose place in history grows shakier by the minute?...

Barack joked about the dance moves, because he could not suggest more real criteria, like those mentioned by Asim:

"Maybe the former leader of the free world has already successfully negotiated our well-worn rites of passage. Maybe he has been frequently mistaken for a shoplifter, mugger, drug courier or carjacker. Maybe he's been followed around stores for no apparent reason. Maybe he has been pleasantly surprised when a cab responds promptly to his outstretched hand. One thing he certainly has not done is pursue his livelihood as most African-American men have done, with grace, dedication and integrity, far beyond the spotlight."

Faith, Milton, PA (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:51 PM)

Well he still has a since of humour, after the Clintons
accuse him of everything but being in the KKK. Borack
seems to be a decent/honest person,no one with any wisdom would accuse the Clinton's of honesty.

Bob Alaska (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:53 PM)

Geez, let it go already. Obama made a harmless comment that was, quite frankly, funny. It would have been funny if Clinton or Edwards had said it too. Another example of the media needing to take some blame for fueling the fire that allowed race to get blown out of proportion. And just in case you were wondering, I am a 27yo Asian American female w/ a grad school degree. And I am voting for Obama. Who cares if he's a black man? Who cares if she's female? He inspires me, and I think he has what it takes to lead this country.

J. T. (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 10:54 PM)

give him break,now race again?????????????

joe mas (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 11:11 PM)

Toni Morrison tagging Clinton as the first Black President original was a joke, So it follows that Obama would further joke about it by saying I have to see his dancing ability inorder to know if he is a brother. Toni said Bill was the first black president, because of his love of food and women. And I like the fact that Obama can say things that most canididates can't or haven't. We need some honesty and less timid responses of our politicans.

sonya, atlanta, ga (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 11:15 PM)

No. And they also cant do other things that Obama can do. Unify the Country. Change the world perception of America overnight. Meet with the heads of Muslim leaders in a roundtable setting. And so on. His uniqueness makes him the best canidate by far.

Peter (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 11:27 PM)

Barack was probably getting a joke at Musicians' expense. Everybody knows that Musicians don't dance. After seeing a couple thousand rythmless couples from the bandstand, they wouldn't risk it, come hell or highwater.

Steve Turner cedar Falls Iowa (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 11:49 PM)

do you really have a problem with that answer? Is campaigning with a black, affable, 6'8", former basketball player stereotypical? Even as a joke?

Toni Morrison's comments were not "tongue-in-cheek" but rather a pointed put-down of black men, whom she asserted indulged in certain "appetites." And that because Bill Clinton could (recklessly) indulge in the same things (loosely put to be food, wine, women) quite openly in a way the average black man could not.

I know I do not do her essay well... it is worth it to you to just read it. And do not dwell on the superficial comparison but reflect on what she really says about our society.

jade7243 (Sent Monday, January 21, 2008 11:51 PM)

Chris Rock had Bill pegged.

DCortez, Houston, Texas (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 12:18 AM)

Toni Morrison? I believe she won a prize for her fiction...not her great intellect.

Why is Obama continually chastised...or questioned...about his race but Hillary never about her GENDER?

Heather (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:13 AM)

Bill is so "black" he nods off during an MLK celebration. It must've meant A LOT to him:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/21/clinton-caught-dozing-off_n_82542.html

Olivia, PDX (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:17 AM)

From Toni Morrison's "First Black President" essay in The New Yorker, 1998: "African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke?"

http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/clinton/morrison.html

The first usage had nothing to do with Bill Clinton's policies or civil rights record -- it had to do with his stereotypical "blackness" as defined by Toni Morrison. It had to do with how Bill Clinton's personal appetites were offensive to establishment America.

joejoejoe (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 3:12 AM)

To those who took the joke so literally - get a life. Being Black is ok with us - What Clinton is to us is not being afraid to be around us, seeing us through a good prism and above all treating us with respect. THAT IS WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT CLINTON

Dorothy Kincaid, Alcoa, TN (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:49 AM)

I am a Black Actor on Broadway in New York City. I have always enjoyed and been challenged by the work of Toni Morrison.
I am embarrassed and insulted by her comment on Bill Clinton being the first and blackest President in our life time.
I will continue to discuss Toni Morrison in social settings, however, I believe the subject matter will changed quit a bit.

I will be waiting, along with millions of black men like myself, for her apology.

Black Broadway Singer\Actor

CTG (Sent Tuesday, January 22, 2008 10:29 AM)

People who took Toni Morrison's comment literally lack the ability to read between the lines. Do a simple word search. Read the ENTIRE quote and do a dictionary search for the word TROPE and see what it says. READ BETWEEN THE LINES and realize what she is REALLY saying. Literal interpretations are the shallowest of all.

Sarah James, Charlotte, NC (Sent Monday, January 28, 2008 9:49 PM)

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