****************************************************************************
It's getting close to the election, and even though Barack Obama is not on the ballot, at Fox it's always a good time to fire up the base with a big dose of "scary negro".
What's the source of their racial panic? It's part of an interview Obama recently gave to Rolling Stone. Here's the entire quote:
From Rolling Stone:
What music have you been listening to lately? What have you discovered, what speaks to you these days?
My iPod now has about 2,000 songs, and it is a source of great pleasure to me. I am probably still more heavily weighted toward the music of my childhood than I am the new stuff. There's still a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Those are the old standards.
A lot of classical music. I'm not a big opera buff in terms of going to opera, but there are days where Maria Callas is exactly what I need.
Thanks to Reggie [Love, the president's personal aide], my rap palate has greatly improved. Jay-Z used to be sort of what predominated, but now I've got a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne and some other stuff, but I would not claim to be an expert Malia and Sasha are now getting old enough to where they start hipping me to things. Music is still a great source of joy and occasional solace in the midst of what can be some difficult days.
Now, a normal person would read the above and conclude that our President has varied and eclectic musical tastes, of which rap is but a part. Furthermore, even as a middle-aged white guy, I'm well aware that the term "rap" covers a lot of ground, and cannot be easily categorized.
But this is Fox we're talking about, and if nothing else, they know their audience. Immediately underneath the quote, there follows a couple of YouTube clips of rappers Lil Wayne and Nas, and it doesn't take the Fox denizens in the comments long to get the message:
These are the guys whom you will see at the November polling places.
Looks like all that ooga-booga about The New Black Panthers wasn't in vain. Mission accomplished.
Oh, and how interesting...just as I was about to publish this, I find that the page has been taken down.
Too late, Fox. That's what screen grabs are for.
{H/T to the wonderful Roy Edroso at Alicublog.}
*************************************************************************
Edit: A couple of people in the comments objected to the original title, so I have changed it.