Black People Not Amused By Politico Suggestion That Obama Reach Out To Whitey

Posted by | December 26, 2015 18:00 | Filed under: Contributors Opinion Politics Tommy Christopher


There’s nothing like a molten hot take to warm up the icy news tundra of Christmas week, and so it is that Politico Magazine has stepped in to fill the void with a column suggesting that President Obama travel the country silently being spat on by racists in order to counter Donald Trump‘s Starkiller Base of white resentment. Lest you think I’m exaggerating, here is a little sample of Issac Bailey‘s well-intentioned but misguided column:

He shouldn’t say much at all. He should go primarily to listen, even if it means he has to endure being called nasty names to his face or risk being spat on. Because when you cut through the political rhetoric and fearmongering and empty, overheated debates, that’s the one thing people in those communities believe they haven’t received and want most—to be heard.

There’s a lot more to the piece (which you should read in full before judging) than that, but it doesn’t get much better than its headline – Why Obama Must Reach Out to Angry Whites.

On Twitter, black people have been delivering some blistering critiques of Bailey’s piece, including the observations that the author of the piece is black, is engaging in “tomfoolery,” is perpetuating the “magical negro” trope, and repeatedly identifies the burgeoning non-white majority as a “problem.” Here are a couple of snippets on the latter counts:

The ugly rhetoric just might force the country to finally contend with a problem many don’t even want to acknowledge exists: that we are fast becoming a nation in which minorities make up a majority of the population.

…But the current president—the nation’s first black president, born of a white mother, married to a descendant of slaves, father of 21st-century daughters—can use the allure and mystique of his office to speak to the American public, and all of its myriad, divisive factions, in a way no one else can.

Yes, and maybe he can open his mouth up wide and let all of the racism fly into him, then die.

Setting aside the fatally-flawed premise that it is President Obama’s responsibility to sooth these people while he applies Bactine to the knuckles they’ve been scraping on him for seven or eight years now, Bailey seems to have missed…READ MORE

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Copyright 2015 Liberaland
By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

12 responses to Black People Not Amused By Politico Suggestion That Obama Reach Out To Whitey

  1. allison1050 December 26th, 2015 at 18:37

    Bailey, Bailey and once again Bailey….I’m slowly shaking my head from side to side while my eyes are rolling around in my head.

  2. Larry Schmitt December 26th, 2015 at 19:08

    He gets called nasty names online every day without having to leave the house.

  3. MyDogsAreSmarterThanYou December 26th, 2015 at 20:09

    (T)hat’s the one thing people in those communities believe they haven’t received and want most—to be heard.

    Oh no, I hear them alright. It’s just that I choose not waste my energy on actually listening to crazy racist a**holes.

    • Suzanne McFly December 27th, 2015 at 08:37

      Hell yeah we hear them, hell one of them is even the leading candidate to represent the republican party in the next Presidential Election.

  4. Obewon December 26th, 2015 at 20:18

    Functional illiterates don’t know POTUS Obama reached out to angry whites providing HC, the largest middle class taxcuts in U.S. History, cleaner air, 55 MPG average by 2023, reversed GWB’s Great Recession record low everything, etc.
    RWNJ’s can now legally carry guns in national parks to shoot themselves!

  5. whatthe46 December 26th, 2015 at 20:21

    whiny little bastards.

  6. Anomaly 100 December 26th, 2015 at 20:34

    Sorry Politico, but it’s not in Obama’s job description to reach out to arseholes.

  7. DogsRgoodpeople December 26th, 2015 at 23:39

    In his book , Audacity of Hope , first published prior to his incredible rise to the presidency, one could see his desire to reach out. Unfortunately it took well beyond his first term for him to realize he was the target of emotional hatred. T baggers, religious zealots, etc. are not rational, they are emotional.

  8. majii December 27th, 2015 at 17:21

    How many times must these journalists be told that the one thing most of us blacks do not suffer from is Stockholm Syndrome? We don’t mind reaching out, and we have, but once we note that our efforts are rebuffed and we continue to be stereotyped and scapegoated, we make a conscious decision to permit the haters to be eaten alive by their hatred while we stand back observe and carry on with living our lives. One cannot make one’s self acceptable to those who consider themselves to be superior to them based primarily on race. The problem is not President Obama, it’s those who cannot, and will never, accept, that he won the presidency while being black, and there’s no cure for that.

    • Suzanne McFly December 27th, 2015 at 17:36

      The fact that he won twice and could win again if he was able to run should drive them nuts but they are already there.

    • bpollen December 28th, 2015 at 05:36

      It sounds to me like he’s saying that if Obama just knew his place, racists would be reasonable… finally. I’m just a little super-friggin-mega-ultra skeptical.

  9. bpollen December 28th, 2015 at 05:29

    There is a reason that I stopped reading Politico. Thanks for reminding me.

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