Obamas

My favorite headline so far today, from YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia, via New America Media:

“Hot Chicks Dig Obama”

I find it strangely complementary to this month’s I-can’t-help-but-sound-a-bit-down-when-I ‘m-saying-positive-things-about-black-people cover over at The Atlantic Monthly: “Why Obama Matters.” (Though first place for this award goes to NBC’s Brian Williams for “African American Women: Where They Stand”)

But “Hot Chicks Dig Obama” gets to its point a bit faster, no?

Gee, I hope I’m hot enough to vote for Obama. Read the rest of this entry »

I must say, this is my favorite Michelle Obama picture, the lower body solid and powerful the upper posture bespeaking “from the heart.” And all, of course, in a really cute outfit.

The picture is from a New York Times story by Katharine Seelye, about presidential candidate wives, “They Stand By Their Men, Loudly.” The story is a little bit weird in its construction, though I guess it wants to be about the changing presence of wives in the campaign.

Indeed, the story suddenly made me wonder if I should come up with a campaign equivalent of the “weight statement,” a term I’ve used to describe these sort of non-stories that are frequently trotted out by celebrithon media, in which a female actress declares that she “loves her curves,” or so on. It becomes a way for the media to talk about women’s bodies without saying anything directly, instead reporting what women are saying about themselves.

There’s a tinge of nonstory around this NYT report, so must ask, what is it really trying to say?

Read the rest of this entry »

How was that for a long blogging hiatus? But summer gets short, and I had some sort of epiphany that blogging less would mean more of other kinds of writing. It didn’t turn out to be particularly true, I learned, but coming back to $3.60 was just the tiny low-pressure carrot I needed to get some really annoying work done. Book proposals out to eight presses (who each of course wanted a different package), an article out, and a conference and writers series in the works, developing fellowship programs for the cinema, and countless query letters and so on: Yay August! Phew– I’m glad you’re almost over. (Never thought I’d say that!)

And anyway, there are gazillions of old, retiring posts on $3.60, in favorite categories like world-making, feral women, and the global uncanny. Who needs me?

In other news, this week has also seen, sadly, lots of back to school shopping. Oh, who am I fooling? Back to school shopping makes school so much better! Read the rest of this entry »

Huh, Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish, one of the Atlantic Monthly’s blogs, has posted this video of Barack Obama first hearing the Libby news, while giving a speech in New Hampshire. (The video is after the jump).

On hearing the news (did he really hear it right that moment? I’m unclear), Obama immediately makes the connection between the Genarlow Wilson sentence and the Libby commutation.

This is the same connection Obama would go on to use in a speech he has given in a variety of venues, which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to this story by Christi Parsons in the Chicago Tribune, Barack Obama came with it during a Democratic candidate’s forum yesterday to the NAACP (story below). The article compares his statements to the NAACP with a speech he gave at Howard University, where he spoke in “mostly lofty terms.” At the NAACP event in Detroit, however, Parsons’ describes Obama’s statements as combining “his intellectual assessment of social problems with a stronger does of personal feeling.”

Read the rest of this entry »

African American Political Pundit has an excellent survey of some of the takes on the Obama Girl video, which I’m sure you’ve probably seen by now (it’s after the jump, if you haven’t).

What do you think?

Fun and irreverent take on being young and down with the Obama campaign? Or sinister shadow of the Harold-Fordism Obama should expect throughout his campaign?

[6/20/07: Jack and Jill Politics has a nice update, here.]

Read the rest of this entry »

[you can sing the title with the Beatles or w/ Slick Rick, depending on your mood]

I am sure you are well-apprised of what I am going to call “The Michelle Obama feminism challenge.” But just in case, Mirror on America did a very nice post last week, outlining some of the most notable sites of contestation, particularly as they’ve been crystallized in Debra Dickerson’s recent article in Slate, and Maureen Dowd’s syndicated op-ed piece, reproduced here from the San Jose Mercury News. Racialicious also has a great post outlining the Dickerson and Dowd articles (amongst others). It’s redundant to rehearse the Racialicious and Mirror on America points, so check them out!

Read the rest of this entry »

I didn’t want my students from Racial Passing to feel left out of the end of semester postings. We’ve just finished reading Percival Everett’s Erasure, so here is one for you– from Gawker, by way of Racialicious: “Blacks Terrorize Harvard Students”:

Last weekend, on the bucolic Quad at Harvard University–typically, the site of a casual game of Ultimate, or perhaps an afternoon reading of some Shakespearean sonnets before English class-an unusual and, to some, frightening scene was played out. There were people throwing things! And running! And jumping! And most scary of all, every single one of them was black. So the Harvard students watching from their dormitory windows, growing increasingly agitated at the sights below, did what any normal, white Harvard student would do when they saw a large, seemingly unruly group of black people: They called the cops! Read the rest of this entry »