Why was Bill Clinton referred to as "the Black President"?

[question everything]

Besides a skin color, what are the characteristics of a black president?

[loveangelc]

1. what an insult to black people.

[goldcanyonaz]

6. You speaking for the black people now? We love Bill Clinton.

[emilyg]

13. Shame on you.

[mcscajun]

2. From an essay by Toni Morrison. It's been taken out of context ever since.

Toni Morrison
Clinton as the first black president
New Yorker, October 1998

-snip-

African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."

For a large segment of the population who are not African-Americans or members of other minorities, the elusive story left visible tracks: from target sighted to attack, to criminalization, to lynching, and now, in some quarters, to crucifixion. The always and already guilty "perp" is being hunted down not by a prosecutor's obsessive application of law but by a different kind of pursuer, one who makes new laws out of the shards of those he breaks.

full essay

[question everything]

4. Thank you. Interesting

and how poetic Toni Morrison is.

By that criteria, the only thing that Obama has for his is his skin color. A very refined, some say aloof, man.

[goclark]

5. Toni Morrison is voting for OBAMA and she took back her words

in a open letter to Sen. OBAMA.

Go Toni~ :bounce:

[goldcanyonaz]

8. Can't unring a bell. She just chose Obama this time around, great.

[BootinUp]

7. Are you suggesting that author started it?

She says right in there that it started years earlier I believe.

Personally, I always thought it was because he had such strong support from the black community and he seemed to connect with them at rallies, speaking events etc.

[mcscajun]

9. I suggest nothing. I merely quote. It caught fire after this essay, though.

And Toni is a She. :hi:

[EffieBlack]

14. Thank you for posting this!

[MannyGoldstein]

3. From The "Black Hand"

It refers to the Clintons' propensity for shaking down people in exchange for favors:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hand_(extortion)

[BootinUp]

10. ridiculous

it was praise not a slight.

[HughMoran]

11. That's wrong

:yoiks:

[goclark]

12. Here is the link to Toni Morrison's endorsement

:bounce:

http://www.observer.com/2008/toni-morrisons-letter-barack-obama