Or Laura Bush. Or Barbara Bush. Or Hillary Clinton. Or myself.
Why?
We’re white.
As discussion swirls around ‘fist-bumps’ and so-called ‘news stations’ labeling the next potential First Lady as ‘Obama’s Baby Mama’ let us all be very clear: racism is not ok just because it’s on Fox.
Nice try asshat.
What part of ‘we are not stupid’ do you fail to get?
Let’s also be clear, the ‘blogger’ you see in the clip, Michelle Malkin, would be branded a ‘baby mama’ far quicker than I ever would. I wonder how she feels about this racism and sexism going on as she sits and spins for the GOP that uses her skin color to gain credibility with minorities? (yes, GOP, we see what you are doing)
Oh wait, apparently she thinks it’s ok because Michelle Obama has been treated with kid gloves and allegedly used the term ‘baby daddy.’
She’s kidding, right?
Sadly, she is not kidding.
Here is what that half of America is missing:
This has nothing to do with feeling the next first lady is ‘off limits.’
I expect everyone within an inch of Senator Obama be scrutinized.
I also fully expect Michelle Obama can take care of herself, and do not for one second worry the media is too hard on her or the right-wing bloggers too nasty. I get the distinct feeling Michelle Obama would and will handle herself as I would expect any strong, American woman.
Any strong, American woman who’s not a Republican, anyway.
What I will not do, however, is sit by and watch sexism and racism on national news. THIS woman might moan and groan over feminism and Clinton, over which supporters are voting McCain and which are too angry to kiss and make up with the Democratic party, but just as we called-out sexism with the Senator from New York, we are calling it out with the rhetoric surrounding Michelle Obama.
Let’s ask that producer if he would put the caption ‘Bush’s Baby Mama’ under First Lady Laura Bush. Of course not, because Laura Bush is white.
Maybe Fox News would consider ‘Trailer Trash Mama‘ under their next First Lady caption?
Or would THAT be offensive? Playing into stereotypes?
Of course it would.
How about a ‘McCain’s Stepford Wife’ under the next Cindy McCain story?
Of course not, Fox would never dream of anything so crass and offensive while labeling the woman who could be the next First Lady.
Yet Fox is fine with ‘Baby Mama’ as the words describing Michelle Obama.
Why?
It’s called racism, sexism, and it is as clear as Rupert Murdoch’s bias.
“Just who do you think your audience is, Fox News? A bunch of 11-year-olds? Didn’t you forget to call her Obama’s ‘boo’ as well as his ‘shorty?’ /eyeroll It would be so easy to get outraged by this, but instead these tactics make me howl with laughter, because it shows that the right is scared out of their minds. Yesterday’s ‘terrorist fist jab’ is today’s Obama baby mama. Tomorrow will bring something worse, but it ain’t gonna make their cause look any better. The Republicans are are going to get handled come November. This I know…
In the immortal words of Kimora Lee Simmons, MOMocrats co-founder Stefania Pomponi Butler ‘will beat a bitch’s ass’ for messing with our country’s next First Lady.”
Updated: Liza at Culture Kitchen gives us a background reminder on Malkin.
Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain blog, BlogHer.com, and MOMocrats.com. She thinks Fox News can suck it.
Sorry, QueenOfSpain. You know I love you, but calling out Fox News for being cheeky or crass or biased is like going to Huffington Post and being shocked that they aren’t being fair to Republicans (or Daily Kos or Talking Points Memo).
Media is evolving in response to years of liberal slant. If we’re going to be truly as colorblind as we like to think we are in our politically correct minds, we’ve either got to apply the same scrutiny you’ve applied to every black person who’s ever uttered the words “boo” or “baby mamma” to another black person, or we’ve got to just say “hey, that’s part of the spin Fox likes to put on things.”
I don’t go to Huffpo or Kos for my news, because their crass treatment of independents, Libertarians and Republicans is just as repugnant to me as Fox News’ treatment of Democrats are to you.
…and as much as I love you Mark…
There is a difference for calling out biased in news and blatant racism and sexism. J
ust like I called out Chris Matthews on HIS sexism, and that’s a news station I happen to like.
We’re not talking who they ‘favor’ here. We’re talking demeaning and ON PURPOSE stereotyping. This is bigger than which is right leaning and which is left leaning.
This is bigotry.
This harkens back to a really long (but productive, I think) conversation I had on FriendFeed regarding racism a couple months ago. I guess being a resident of the South, where one county can be so metropolitan and racially undivided, and the next county can be as backward as it was before the civil war, my radar is really tuned differently.
I don’t see silly jokes like this as racism, certainly not in a destructive sense (though it is disrespectful of public servants in a way that I’d prefer be avoided).
What I see as racism is what I experienced when I spent a weekend in jail in Van Zandt county Texas (sitting out a traffic ticket) when I was a teenager.
There were representatives from about three minorities, and two white guys in the holding cell (not including myself – also a white guy). While the whites were just barely outnumbered, in this rural county it was apparently so accepted that the white man was superior that when the hours upon hours of racist jokes were told by the whites in the cell, the minorities all seemed to genuinely laugh along with them as if it were the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
I grew up only a county away from this area, and had never experienced anything that horrific in my life.
That, to me, is inappropriate racist jokes. They are funny to those who truly think themselves superior due to the color of their skin.
Calling Michelle “Barack’s Baby Momma” is certainly no more than a crass ad hominem akin to the popular racial-style thrashing the left applied to former first lady Barbara Bush nearly four years ago.
“Crass and cheeky”, I think Mark has rose colored glasses on. Just because they didn’t do the news wearing their white, pointy hats doesn’t mean it’s not racism. She’s not his “baby mama”, she is his wife, partner, mother of his children, and potential First Lady. There is a huge difference.
The fact that Mark is comparing Fox and DailyKos illustrates the fundamental difference between Fox and, for example, CNN: He recognizes implicitly that Fox is an advocacy network, not a news organization. Unfortunately, many of Fox’s viewers see it as a news organization presenting “fair and balanced” information rather than opinion and advocacy.
Also unfortunate is the fact that Mark thinks it’s okay for Fox to engage in this kind of behavior as if racism isn’t nuanced. Sure, it’s not like Fox “reporters” are using vile epithets when they talk about the Obamas, but they also aren’t giving them the respect they deserve. If Keith Olbermann started calling Laura Bush a white-trashy redneck girl, that would be unacceptable. The same applies to Fox “News.”
My question for Cindy and John: How come you NEVER make any public appearances with your dark-skinned adopted Bangladeshi daughter? Are you ashamed of her? Is she treated like a daughther or a servant?
Fox News referring to Michelle Obama as Barack’s “Baby Mama” is just short of them calling her his “ho.” And if they thought they could get away with calling her that, they sure as hell would.
Memo to Fox News Channel: Don’t use ghetto slang when referring to the wife of the Democratic nominee, unless your planning to call the wife of the Republican nominee something equally as offensive. Better yet, don’t use ghetto slang at all.
Megan
“Calling Michelle “Barack’s Baby Momma” is certainly no more than a crass ad hominem akin to the popular racial-style thrashing the left applied to former first lady Barbara Bush nearly four years ago.”
Didn’t Barbara Bush receive a thrashing because she said that people were better off after Katrina? And she was referring to a largely poor, black population?
Suebob,
She sure got a thrashing from me over it. I thought it was a horrible thing to say.
Did Hillary Clinton run against Obama so we could sit back and let networks marginalize the smart, capable wives of politicians yet again? I sure hope not. In less than a week, the righties have set their sexist, racist eyes on Michelle Obama and decided she’s a fair target.
She’s a fair target to the extent that her views on real issues are expressed, but not on a personal level. And it’s not going to work, because I and many, many others will spend every minute we have making sure everyone knows how utterly wrong and evil they are.
I hope Fox News bankrupts Murdoch. A girl can dream, can’t she? 😉
Love how Malkin is now trying to say it was okay because Michelle Obama has introduced her husband as “My babies’ daddy.”
Saying “My babies’ daddy” in the context that Michelle Obama said it is the same as saying “the father of my children.” It is entirely different from saying “My Baby Daddy.”
Not to mention the fact that even if she HAD been using it in the sense that Malkin implies, it’s a far different thing for someone to poke fun at herself that way than for an organization masquerading as a “respectable” news source to use the same terminology.
I do love me some First Amendment Rights.
However.
Calling somebody a ‘Baby Mama’ is exactly the same as calling her a ‘ho’. You are spot on calling Fox News out for this. Like Summer said, just because they didn’t actually wear the pointy white hats… Fox News doesn’t have to wear the uniform while they play the game. The people who watch Fox News should know what they’re getting by now, so either they are just plain ignorant, or they’re racist. Or both.
Everyone knew what Michelle meant when she called Sen Obama her BABY DADDY.
Most people liked it. Thought it was keeping it real.
You just don’t like it cause Fox knows how to tweak you liberal KOOKS as evidenced by your hysterically overwrought apoplectic reaction to
a cute and harmless joke…
Big Daddy
The Ultimate Baby Daddy
Yes big daddy just like we like to watch you silly republicans get their briefs in a bunch over a Rachel Ray fringed scarf or a liqour ad.
This is not just a cute joke, and beyond a racist statement, in a way I feel it demeans Mrs. Obama’s intellect and her ability to be a leader as First Lady.
I generally stay out of blogging politics, because, let’s face, it, so many say it so much more eloquently than I could. But when racism and sexism is so blatant, how does one stay silent? To say nothing, isn’t that like tacit acceptance?
http://casadecruz.blogspot.com/2008/06/oh-no-they-di-nt.html
The sad thing? Most people probably didn’t even notice. And most of the people who watch FOX News think it’s just “liberal hysteria” that some of us do care about what passes for “political discourse” in this country has become.
Besides, you should have seen my conservative dad freak out when I made a joke about George W. Bush back when he was running for president the first time.
I cannot say that I am in the least bit shocked that this is the route that FOX has chosen to go with this. They are going to play ont he social construction of black women as ball busting licentious whores because it is cheap, easy and people with racist/misogynists leanings will love it. Just last week an artist exhibited a picture of the Obama girls with the words nappy headed hos underneath them. As much as Obama claims that the civil rights movement got POC 90% there I am sure that his opinion has to change as he watches the media attack the women that he loves.
I notice the intro is conveniently missing in this clip. Are you sure it wasn’t the liberals, who actually said that statement? “Stop picking on …” That was the case in the Rush Limbaugh “Magic Negro” spoof. It was actually a liberal newspaper columnist who said it. The media then jumped all over Rush for being racist.
Also, I live in the south, and “baby daddy” or “baby mama,” although derogatory terms, are not racist terms. Here, they mostly reference so-called, “rednecks,” Which are most often white. I just think all this racism hysteria is ridiculous.
By the way, why don’t you people have a problem when the Huffington Post actually publicly hopes for the death of Tony Snow, who battled cancer, or any of the horrible things they say on a daily basis?
Well, we are talking about Fox News – which is purely entertainment television for the uneducated right wing hysterics. I actually block it out as needing parental passwords on our television because my hubby will put it on just to stress me out – he thinks they are funny and OK to watch for the shits and giggles. I don’t want that crap on in my house.
Just as Limbaugh and his crowd are entertainers, not legitimate reporters, so are the lot at Fox News.
ARRGH! I’m so tired of whiners calling out the “liberal media.” Who I might add, have taken it lying down for the past eight years, never challenging the Bushites. Thank you for this post – it’s critical to note the hypocrisy that Fox Entertainment Channel (I can’t even call it “news”)wallows in. This election is certainly going to bring out the best and worst in us all and I shudder to think of what the Right has planned in the coming months. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride sister – fasten your seatbelts. And keep writing – you are SO refreshing to read!
John Scalzi captured the heart of the issue.
http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=870
Fox News Would Like To Take a Moment To Remind You That the Obamas Are As Black As Satan’s Festering, Baby-Eating Soul
Published by John Scalzi at 11:22 am
Money quote:
“…It’s shit like this that makes this story on CNN, about whether Barack Obama should be considered black or biracial, an absolute hoot. Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot. To everybody who cares about Obama’s racial identity, either positively or negatively, the man is a black man, married to a black woman, who has black children. Black black black black black black black black.
It sure as hell matters to Fox News, which is why it’s dog whistling about Barack so loudly that it’s vibrating the windows. Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News having a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men. Someone at Fox News just ought to call Barack Obama “boy” at some point so we can have all the cards right out there on the table…”
What qualifications does Grand Inquisitor, Ariana Huffington have??? NONE, except for getting a bunch of money from her wealthy gay ex husband. Did she become an loyal informed American by being born and raised in Greece? What gives her the right to put everyone else under the microscope and be so critical? We should put Arianna Huffington under the microscope!!!