Sometimes I have to laugh at what does and does not end up making the news or going viral. Chris Brown as one of half a dozen singers to get a Grammy after breaking the law – huh? The man threw a rage-filled beat down on a beautiful, talented sister and barely a boo, hiss or a peep? What’s that all about?
An Asian guy scores a couple of baskets for a grossly underachieving New York Knicks team and suddenly the world is aflame in stories? Huh?
So when Samuel L. Jackson (That’s Nick Fury to us comic nerds) comes out and says he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because he was Black I guess I should’ve known with the fickle nature of the Internet that this story would be huge in no time.
If you type the words “Samuel L. Jackson voted for Obama because He’s Black” you get a full page of results with that exact quote blaring at you. Hollwood Gossip. Nerve. The U.K. Daily Mail. HuffingtonPost. Free Republic.
It’s like suddenly everyone picked up a copy of Ebony magazine (where he did the interview) for Black history month. The most talked about quote in its N-word dropping entirety is:
”When it comes down to it, they wouldn’t have elected a [bleep].”
“Because … what’s a [bleep]? A [bleep] is scary. Obama ain’t scary at all. [Bleeps] don’t have beers at the White House. [Bleeps] don’t let some White dude, while you in the middle of a speech, call [him] a liar,”
“A [bleep] would’ve stopped right there and said, ‘Who the f–k said that?’ I hope Obama gets scary in the next four years, ‘cuz he ain’t gotta worry about getting re-elected.”
And this is shocking to who and why? I guess you can clutch some pearls about Julius’ use of profanity and such, but it’s not like he said anything that anyone with common sense doesn’t know. Some columnists have reacted to his interview as if openly saying that people voted based on racial identity is some huge reveal, as if White voters haven’t been doing the same thing in municipal and state wide elections for a hundred years.
What I find more compelling is Jackson as a cipher for what may be occurring in the Black electorate that was pretty tepid on Obama just a year ago. In an earlier interview this past January in Newsweek he said:
“‘Some days I agree with Dr. [Cornel] West and what he says about the President not dealing enough with the plight of the poor,’ Mr Jackson said in the Newsweek interview.
“‘Then I think about how they won’t give him credit for anything… The President got about a week of moderate applause for capturing the most-wanted man in the world,’ he said in reference to Osama bin Laden.
“‘You ask me, he should have put that mother****** on ice and defrosted his ass November 1st.”
This is the kind of turning point mentality that Obama needs in order to pull off the huge turnout and passion amongst Black voters that he’ll need to get re-elected. If the older Black electorate has moved from “I’m tired of defending you” to “He doesn’t get credit for anything” then Barack has a pretty good chance of turning this plane around and landing back in the White House. Insert the Snakes on a Plane reference whenever you like.
This article originally appeared online at Politic365.com.
