Barack The Magic Negro
"Barack the Magic Negro" is a song by American political satirist Paul Shanklin who wrote and recorded it for the Rush Limbaugh Show as satire after it was first applied to presidential candidate Obama by movie and culture critic David Ehrenstein in a Los Angeles Times op ed column of March 19, 2007. It was played numerous times in 2007 and 2008 by Rush Limbaugh and appeared on the 2008 album We Hate the USA. It is sung by Shanklin to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon". Shanklin impersonates black activist Al Sharpton, who regretfully sings that white people will vote for Barack Obama for President instead of Sharpton, because Obama is a magical Negro (a term previously popularized by Spike Lee), not a real black man from the "hood".
Limbaugh was criticized and accused of racism for playing the song. The controversy was reignited in December 2008, when Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent out CDs containing the song to 168 other RNC members as a Christmas gift, hoping to bolster his 2009 campaign for RNC chair. The move backfired, Saltsman dropped his bid to head the RNC, and ultimately African American Republican Michael Steele won the chairmanship.
Read more about Barack The Magic Negro: Background, Composition, Reception, Distribution of CDs By Chip Saltsman
Famous quotes containing the words magic and/or negro:
“Without, the frost, the blinding snow,
The storm-wind’s moody madness—
Within, the firelight’s ruddy glow,
And childhood’s nest of gladness.
The magic words shall hold thee fast:
Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light”
—Langston Hughes (1902–1967)