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Timothy Noah, master of self parody

Aug 6, 2008 Homo sapiens, Politics and Poker, Sisyphus, Style

I kept checking to make sure this wasn’t just something I missed on April 1st, but no:

When white people are invited to think about Obama’s physical appearance, the principal

Boy, could this guy pass!

Boy, could this guy pass!

attribute they’re likely to dwell on is his dark skin. Consequently, any reference to Obama’s other physical attributes can’t help coming off as a coy walk around the barn. A whole genre of humor turns on this reality. A Slate colleague informs me that an episode of the TV sitcom Happy Days (“Fonzie’s New Friend”) had its 1950s-era characters nervously discussing the fact that a black man in their midst was so … skinny. Was it true that skinny people liked fried chicken? That they were good at basketball? And so on.

No, really. Seriously.

So we, who thought we could take some solace regarding our melanin deficiencies in our endowments of underlying flesh, turn out to be no-good racists again on that score too.

I feel like a bit, fat idiot.

UPDATE: Racist idiot, that is. (Via Glenn.)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under Homo sapiens, Politics and Poker, Sisyphus, Style. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to “Timothy Noah, master of self parody”

  1. DK Says:

    August 5th, 2008 at 8:32 am

    The question of why white people so easily scream at other white people for being racist is a fascinating question.

    Part of it according to Ian Jobling is the quest of white people to demonstrate moral superiority and gain power over other white people.


  2. Vanity press « Likelihood of Success Says:

    August 7th, 2008 at 10:49 am

    [...] and Bill Patry doffs his capHow to write books in a prison campThe whole world is a narrow bridgeTimothy Noah, master of self parodyWhy hasn’t Keith Olbermann been fired?Solzhenitsyn and meChurchill was right about the [...]


  3. I didn’t write this myself « Likelihood of Success Says:

    August 25th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    [...] Political comedy gold!


  4. No cream, thanks — I like mine Socialist « Likelihood of Success Says:

    October 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm

    [...] Imagine if you described Obama as a SKINNY socialist!