Hmm, I wonder who could have inspired/encouraged this type of discourse?

[bigtree]

"I was wondering if you could stand up and give us a little jig real quick," asked "Jennifer," one of the participants in Obama's video "Hangout" on Google Plus. The president declined, citing, diplomatically, the fact that his wife always makes fun of him when he dances, rather than the fact that it would be an insulting question even if he wasn't the leader of the free world.

Setting aside the overtones of a white woman with a southern accent asking a black man to dance a jig for her — see Twitter (links in article) for how that went over — the crowd-sourced online interview is still a budding journalistic form, and this does not get the medium off to a particularly dignified or promising start. And if old media are any guide, it's only downhill from here.

read/watch: http://gawker.com/5880712/president-asked-to-dance-a-jig-by-random-internet-person


You want to respond in kind, but it's usually more productive to do just the opposite. Trouble is, that's also biting it back; not a very healthy exercise. Like the article says, it's only downhill from here. . . .

[Tx4obama]

1. Pretty unbelievable that she asked that, but she looks young and ...

there is the possibility that she didn't really understand the history behind that word.

[bigtree]

2. heh

Mr. President . . . 'do a little dance for us'.

[Found in Yonkers]

4. There is also the possibility that Ann Margaret will make me her personal sex slave

I wouldn't bet a dime on either one.

[bigtree]

6. no one in my house thinks that's a benign question

. . . asked innocently.

The dominate response on twitter is "Really???"


from urban dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jig

2. Jig

a little dance
hey monkey boy do a little jig

[Found in Yonkers]

7. Yep

Sad but true.

[redqueen]

18. And the probability of her being well-meaning and innocent...

is infinitesimal.

[bigtree]

19. thank you

[redqueen]

21. My pleasure!

Now that the GOP's dog whistles have become air raid sirens, dog whistles among the general public seem to be ramping up in popularity.

Hardly surprising, really.

[janet118]

3. President Bojangles . . .

could you do a little dance for us?

[bigtree]

5. age-old rhetoric, shamed out of public discourse for a couple of decades

. . . the republicans have resurrected it all for their political and monetary gain.

what was old is suddenly new and on the surface again. Now we have to explain to a new generation why it's not okay to ask the nation's first black president to dance for you (much less ask him to 'do a jig').

jig
n. Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for a Black person.

or . . .

1. To dance or play a jig.
2. To move or bob up and down jerkily and rapidly.

but, historically . . . my family understood what it normally inferred. It's emulated in those old wooden slap toys with the ramshackle black gentleman on the end which bobs up and down and shakes uncontrollably to the rhythm of the slaps on the board. I understand that folks were sometimes made to do this in public on demand.

[lonestarnot]

8. Fuck her. I'll respond in kind.

What a pig!

[bigtree]

9. I think someone put her up to it

seemed practiced

[lonestarnot]

10. Never know who is on whose payroll these days. Thanks Citizens Ufuckingnited you bastards.

[Tx4obama]

11. MORE TO THE STORY....

Jennifer (the 'jig' person) is the SAME woman that President Obama asked for her to send him her husband's résumé
and he'd see why he can't get a full time job as an engineer - after she asked President Obama about why there are H1B visas being issued when engineers here in The USA can't get those jobs. She was very respectful in the video below ...

See here: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/president-obama-tells-unemployed-engineers-wife-send-me-your-husbands-resume/

[bigtree]

12. right. her husband's job went to foreigners

. . . where have I heard that argument before?

The President very skillfully told her he couldn't understand why that would be the case.He even went so far as to offer to take her husband's resume and look into it for him.

I guess I saw the exchange differently than you. I saw the same anti-immigrant nonsense that was pointed in the President's face the other day. I'm not surprised that it followed with such disrespect when she didn't get the answer she wanted.

I didn't take her even tone in asking the President of the United States to 'do a little jig (dance) for her as respectful.

[Tx4obama]

13. The video in the link in my previous comment does not contain the jig comment ...

all I said was that what is in 'that video' appeared to be respectful dialog.

1) President Obama has always said that The USA needs more Americans getting engineer degrees because we don't have enough here now.

2) Jennifer's husband hasn't had a full time job for three years.

3) I think she asked a valid question, and President Obama's offer to look into the issue of why no company in The USA has hired him since companies are still hiring out of country folks was a good solution to the question.

That's all

[bigtree]

15. no

it's not so simple as for her to be polite and expect for her bullshit to fly.

I still say the President knew what she was getting at and refused to buy into the argument that somehow his immigration policies were preventing her husband from getting a job.

Then she asked him to 'do a little jig'. Hell of a coincidence, huh, that her words are exactly the same as the description of offensive slang that is listed in the urban dictionary under 'jig, as in 'do a little jig' for us. But, look Tx4obama, I've dealt with this undercurrent of bias all of my life. I don't need an urban dictionary to know where she was coming from. I imagine, though, that she played her bull close enough to the edge that she'll have plenty of room to distance herself from what I and each and every member of my family recognized immediately as offensive. Sorry to see that you're willing to give her a break. That's life. It comes at you from wherever you're standing.

[Raine]

14. Well he sang a song last week so obviously the next thing he wants

to do is a "little jig" ... of course.

[Zoeisright]

16. "Jennifer" can fuck off.

Bigoted old hag.

[RebelOne]

20. I am not condoning what she said,

but she is hardly an old hag.

[redqueen]

17. I heard that this morning. Who the HELL was that?!

After that, she asks him to sing, then proceeds to COMMAND him to sing.

Makes me want to cuss a blue streak.