Hello? Now Sinbad is getting it mixed up as well. Blackface was generic. Barack Obama is a specific guy.

Via Instapundit, who has links and observations:

A reader emails: "Let me see if I've got this straight: a white man is not allowed to portray a half-white man (Barack Obama) on SNL, but a black man is? Race relations in this country are a bigger joke than anything you'll see on SNL." President Clinton wanted a national conversation on race. Looks like they've got one going now.

ANOTHER UPDATE: "Is Obama black or white? Yes." I'm well aware of the one-drop rule. What's changed, though, is who seems most interested in enforcing it.

The second update therein goes to Baldilocks, who points out correctly that the crucial issue is who gets to decide whether someone is black. True enough, but even Juliette has conjectured that people like me (white people with inexplicably full lips) may have some African ancestry. There's no way of knowing any more. And the more mixed-up we get, the more clearly people will see the irrelevance of race.

I just don't think anyone is pure-bred anything any more, and Lorne Michaels should cast the best actor for the job. In comedy, that means the most brutal and ruthless caricaturist. Politics is tough; it's supposed to be tough. And comedy is tougher, if you do it right.

By the way: Tiger Woods is all-black, too: don't you ever forget it. Black beats Asian. And a royal flush beats a straight flush, godammit.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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