Michelle Obama "...needs to be less Jackée and more Jackie O." - Byron Pitts, CBS

More of this! How wonderfully 'Camelot'!

Less of this! Too...Um... 'Black-Alot!'

Yes, it's the opening of the DNC's Denver Mile High Love-In. Let's get all together, bury the hatchet and get on with the election (PLEASE!).

But not CBS...First Katie Couric kept prodding, asking Kathleen Sebelius what she thought Michelle Obama "needed to do" to basically make people love her. How could she appear... pause... less, as she put it, "controversial" and "edgy". Now wait a sec. The only fucking people worried about her being "controversial" and "edgy" in the manner Couric was suggesting are those bozos at Fox "News" (the quotations are on purpose) with their "terrorist bump", and the Pyscho-Right-Wing-O-Nauts (BTW, I made that word up just now, I like it. It's "mine"). But wait...that wasn't enough bullshit...So! On then to the convention floor for more idiotic comments....

Here, Byron Pitts showed, once again, that in this country, race and stupidity march down the same street, hand in hand ... no matter who is opening their mouths, not matter what the color of their skin. In this case it was a "respected" African American newsman. After speaking to a Man of the Cloth, whom he was also interviewing about what Michelle ought to do to suck up to people (read: Men) who can't stand a smart, strong woman in any position of power, he did a "back to you Katie" and said in summary, and I quote, "(Michelle) needs to be less Jackée and more Jackie O." Holy fuck.... He didn't just say that did he??? You've got to be kidding me. He just compared Michelle Obama to a slutty black woman character from an old TV sitcom. Yes, he did just do that. I looked across the room at my partner (who's black by the way). He looked back, and then said -- speaking dead-pan, matter-of-factly, and only as a black man can, one who has seen this kind of bullshit for decades -- "She can't be Black AND the First Lady, you know." Holy crap, he's right I thought. We're so fucked.

So on national television the presumptive First Lady just got compared to a 'Ho - one of the mouthiest and obnoxious female black characters to grace a sitcom in years Sandra Clark, played by Jackée Harry on the black comedy sitcom "227". Some have kindly described her character as "flamboyant" and, to her own credit, she won an Emmy for her role. But others, and those others being African American "others", were less than thrilled with her, and many other network television characters in such "black sitcoms" (Note: There are no "white sitcoms", are there?). And these portrayals have long lasting effects, symbolically and culturally in our society. And so it has consequences when a national newsperson makes even the worst attempt at a joke (which it was not, it was advice) that suggests Michelle Obama is even remotely like Jackée (as she was later known by her one name moniker in her spin-off).

In Enlightened Racism: The Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream, Sut Jhally, television and culture critic, notes that many black folk were offended by the main characters found on many of the networks' prime time "black sitcoms" and have been vocal critics. The shows were, and continue to be, offensive, exploiting stereotypes to get the laughs, all at the expense of the audiences they are supposedly empowering. Just take a look at one such recent incarnation (brought to you by those bright and forward thinking folks at FOX, fucking surprise there....) that car-crash of a sitcom starring Flavor Flav "sambo-ing it up" for all to see. Right down to the white gloves and playing the butler sometimes. Jhally notes the critical comments Blacks make about these enslaving performances:

"These are comments from people who are acutely aware of the power of images and for whom stereotyping is not just a minor problem, but one that affects their everyday lives. Moreover, these stereotypical representations were seen not simply as one-dimensional but as negative and demeaning." (Jhally & Stewart, 1992, 118)

And though Sherman Helmsley ultimately topped all as the actor who received the most sustained critique for offensive portrayal of black characters in such sitcoms Jhally points out a dubious honor goes to "Jackie" (Sandra Clark of 227 ) who was ALSO found to be "especially offensive" to Black viewers for her stereotypically-demeaning performances in such sitcoms (Jhally & Stewart, Ibid). Pitts must know this character still resonates - hell it resonates with me - a 45 year old white guy from Canada, you bone head!

Now, looking back at the two pics above I think comparisons to either person - Bouvier or Harry - are wrong. One is racially offensive but the other is also woefully romantic for a bunch of elitist democrats who fucked up JFK's and MLK's dreams. So now they live vicariously through some twisted version of Camelot (in Southside Chicago? Blackalot) but the damsel has to subscribe to white ideals of behavior and carriage if she is to suceed. When Couric says "She is so 'edgey'" - it's basically code for don't be "uppity". So get over it. Now. But, in the mean time, this is the best that Bryon Pitts, himself a previously illiterate, self-made, pushed to college out of the shit-hole that must have been Baltimore for him then (cuz Christ knows the schools aren't any better here now) can come up with to compare Michelle Obama to? And his best advice is "She needs to be less Jackée and more Jackie O." That's just very, very, very sad... So, for my part I hope Michelle Obama takes her edgey self, goes out into the back alley, and then PUTS THE BEAT DOWN on you and Katie Couric for that drivel you call "news commentary". And as for being more like Jackie O.... She'll be there. Pill-box hat and all. Looking over Michelle's shoulder, maybe even getting one in for JFK - Jackie O. was more than fashion, she had more substance, she'd kick your ass too.