Conservatives Hum the Tune of "Barack the Magic Negro"

Rush Limbaugh is making things too easy for liberal writers. It has recently been discovered that Rush features a song on his web page entitled "Barack the Magic Negro," a parody of "Puff the Magic Dragon" written and performed by comedian Paul Shanklin.

The full title of the song explains where Shanklin got the title- "Barack the Magic Negro-- That's What The L.A. Times Called Him." However, many feel that the parody is taken out of context- Shanklin, who impersonated Al Sharpton in the song, is a white conservative, while the L.A. Times writer that called him "Obama the Magic Negro" is an liberal editorial writer for the newspaper. Whether or not the song was intended to create controversy is irrelevant- the problem that many Republican and Democratic pundits are having is that it is featured on Limbaugh's website. The song is easy to find- it owns a bold headline in the upper-left corner of the main page of his site. Limbaugh even played the song on his show, ignoring the still raging fire from the Don Imus incident.

Barack Obama is a political pioneer that many Americans feel could become the next president. According to David Ehrenstein, the author of the L.A. Times piece, Obama isn't just running for the presidency. "Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination - the 'Magic Negro.' The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist. Wikipedia's reliability as a source can be questioned until we all turn blue in the face, but the site does have an entry for "Magic Negro."

Ehrenstein goes on to say in the article "[the magic negro] is there to assuage white 'guilt' (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest. As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic - embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is 'Magic.'..."

Clearly, Ehrenstein did not intend to make a joke out of calling Barack "The Magic Negro." It is a widely accepted literary term used to describe archetypes of black characters in fiction and nonfiction works. His article was simply relating the term to current events, and in doing so, he unleashed a hell-fire of Republican writers that only bothered to read the title of the story.

Source: ABC News