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Salvo 02.17.2022

America’s Dangerous Racists

Rush Limbaugh Gives A Speech In Michigan

Rush Limbaugh’s on-air antics help expose the racist hypocrisy of today’s ideologues.

Some brave and righteous Democrats in Congress have boldly declared “unconditional war on racism.” In a new bill, they propose to establish a “Department of Reconciliation” to wage that unconditional war on all you racists—wherever you are hiding.

It’s also the first anniversary of the death of Rush Limbaugh—“America’s Truth Detector!”—which will forever fall just a few days after Lincoln’s birthday. The serendipity brings to mind some of Rush’s always entertaining and instructive reflections on the racist hypocrisy of the American Left.

Back in the ancient days when Barack Hussein Obama was first showing his ears on the national stage, Rush and all sensible and sensitive Americans understood that any criticism of Barry, much less any sign of ridicule or disrespect, was going to be dispositive proof of racism to the liberal mafia. As Rush said on air:

When Obama started out, we couldn’t talk about his big ears ’cause that made him nervous. We’ve gone from that to this: Not only can we not mention his ears. Now we can’t talk about his mother. We can’t talk about his father. We can’t talk about his grandmother unless he brings her up as a “typical white person.” We can’t talk about his wife, can’t talk about his preacher, can’t talk about his terrorist friends, can’t talk about his voting record, can’t talk about his religion. We can’t talk about appeasement. We can’t talk about color; we can’t talk about lack of color. We can’t talk about race. We can’t talk about bombers and mobsters who are his friends. We can’t talk about schooling. We can’t talk about his name, “Hussein.” We can’t talk about his lack of experience. Can’t talk about his income. Can’t talk about his flag pin. We can’t call him a liberal. It started out we just couldn’t talk about his ears….

The Obama campaign, and others whom the chattering classes had pre-approved to discuss the subject of race, even called out our “first Black president,” Bill Clinton, for racism. So late-night comics knew they might as well go on vacation, and they did. Any white Republican with a thought about race or Obama knew he faced the full consequences of media Omertà if he dared utter a word. Weapons of mass reconciliation would be unloaded upon him with extreme prejudice. 

But Rush was used to nihilist liberal racists trying to reconcile him to death more or less every day. So he just kept joyously pointing out examples of the racism destroying our country, which came almost exclusively from the liberals and the Democratic Party. And he invited Americans to join him in mockery of and contempt for that racism, and for the nihilist media that supported and promoted it.

Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, had already notoriously referred to Obama as “the first sort of mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” (This was years before the world learned that if you ain’t votin’ for Joe, “you ain’t black.”) Jesse Jackson accused Obama of “acting white” and was on record saying he wanted to “cut his nuts off” for “talking down to black people.” The Reverend Al Sharpton liked to remind certain black Americans like Obama that, “just because you’re our color doesn’t make you our kind.” Charles Steele, Jr., then president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, developed this theme, opining that Obama was more acceptable to whites than Michelle Obama was “because he has no slave blood in him.” So there was a lot of material to work with. 

But it was an article in the Los Angeles Times that gave Rush a gift he couldn’t refuse. The title was “Obama the ‘Magic Negro,’” and the article was written by a black liberal film critic named David Ehrenstein. Ehrenstein argued that Obama was a white fantasy, the “Magic Negro,” whose magic is that he makes the white man feel he can accept the black man and therefore feel good about his own tolerant white self. But in doing his magic act, Ehrenstein argued, Obama subjected himself to criticism from the Left for “alleged ‘inauthenticity,’ as compared to such sterling examples of ‘genuine’ blackness as Al Sharpton and Snoop Dogg.”

Rush read the entire article on the air, with his usual erudite commentary. Then, a couple of days later, he played a song parody based on the article, sung by someone sounding exactly like Al Sharpton. The melody was “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” 

Barack the Magic Negro lives in D.C.
The L.A. Times, they called him that
‘Cause he’s not authentic like me.

Yeah, the guy from the L.A. paper 
Said he makes guilty whites feel good 
They’ll vote for him, and not for me
‘Cause he’s not from the hood. 

See, real black men, like Snoop Dogg
Or me, or Farrakhan 
Have talked the talk, and walked the walk 
Not come in late and won! 

And so on, until the song trails off with the Sharpton impersonator ranting wildly about justice, and buffets, and no cash in the collection plates. 

James Golden, a black host who worked for 30 years with Rush, was known and loved by millions of ditto heads under the alias “Mr. Bo Snerdley.” Recalling the hypocritical furor that came from the Left when he and Rush quoted their own prejudice back at them, Golden said: “Outrage about the parody exploded like a nuclear bomb, and I loved every single minute of it…. ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ is one of the most educational parodies that has ever happened in radio, and I’m so glad that it happened on The Rush Limbaugh Show.”

“Leftists went apesh*t over the tune. If the leftists go apesh*t, you’re on the right track.”

On the liberal premise that it was racist for any white man to criticize Obama—and that only sufficiently stereotypical “hoodlums” qualified as truly black—Rush had already announced a new position on the EIB staff: an “Official Obama Criticizer.” Golden introduced himself on air as “Bo Snerdley, African-American-in-good-standing-and-certified-black-enough-to-criticize-Obama guy.” After making a critical remark about Obama in standard American English, Mr. Snerdley switched into “jive” as fluent as Barbara Billingsley’s in Airplane: “On behalf of our EIB brothers and sisters in the hood, we’re asking you, Mr. Obama, what’s up with that, yo?” 

After the Reverend Mr. Steele had made his point about Obama not having any slave blood in him, Mr. Snerdley returned to the mic, as “Official Barack Criticizer for the EIB Network, certified black enough to criticize with a blend of imported and domestic one hundred percent fortified slave blood.”

Rush denominated race professionals Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson “The Justice Brothers.” The NAACP was the NAALCP, the National Association for the Advancement of Liberal Colored People, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. No wonder racist liberal hypocrites hated him so uncontrollably. You can still hear their outraged veins exploding.

When Michelle Obama memorably announced that she had never been proud of being an American until America allowed her husband to be a candidate for the presidency, some Democratic strategists thought Michelle might be coming across as a little too “authentically” black. They worked hard to massage her image for her major speech at the Democratic National Convention, and they came up with a formula that the fawning racist media promoted hilariously and obscenely for them. As Zev Chafets reports:

“Michelle Obama has to make this the Huxtables,” said NBC’s Norah O’Donnell. “Present the Huxtable image of the Obamas,” urged Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post. “The challenge is making the Obama family into the Huxtables,” said Rachel Maddow on MSNBC…. Chris Matthews begged Michelle to show the country, “This is the Bill Cosby family!” The future first lady stayed on script, and the next day Rush unleashed his Official Criticizer.

After brief introductory remarks in impeccable American, Mr. Snerdley shifted into authenticity: 

What was up with you last night, girl? The big lights all up on you and you come out frontin’ instead of breaking it down, yo?… look, you are a strong black sister, yo, come from our culture, you were out there fronting like you Michelle Partridge, everything is cute…. Okay, look, Michelle, you Obama’s shorty, you got the slave blood, he don’t. You supposed to understand what it is, and you are supposed to break it down for us. What did you do? You were fronting, girl. Fake.

When media reverence for Obama became a national religious experience, Rush anointed him as “the Messiah.” And for eight years, the Messiah wrought miracles of racist liberal reconciliation that bear fruit unto this day. Then as now, the leftist claim to speak for “black people” was based on a degraded, ugly stereotype of what it means to be black. It was Rush who saw this for what it was, and who encouraged Americans of every color to mock the Left’s racist sanctimony without fear.

We miss you Rush.

The moral? In this time of great healing, make sure you reconcile others, before they reconcile you. 

The American Mind presents a range of perspectives. Views are writers’ own and do not necessarily represent those of The Claremont Institute.

The American Mind is a publication of the Claremont Institute, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated to restoring the principles of the American Founding to their rightful, preeminent authority in our national life. Interested in supporting our work? Gifts to the Claremont Institute are tax-deductible.

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