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'Burn a Koran Day' Pastors Let the N Word Flow

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elbruce8/31/2010 4:38:21 pm PDT

The inability of wingnuts to understand context drives the whole thing.

It reminds me of the “magic negro” flack - the L.A. times published a piece on how the psychology of some people viewing Obama seemed to echo the “magic negro” theme, something which has a very specific meaning in literary criticism. Think “the Legend of Bagger Vance,” or for that matter, even “the Matrix.” There’s this black guy, and he’s totally awesome and badass but the story isn’t about him, oh no. Instead it’s about some snot-nosed white guy who the black guy is going to help to be awesome, because apparently a story about an awesome black guy isn’t good enough by itself; he doesn’t get to succeed except secondhand through a white person. That’s what that term refers to.

So what did the wingnuts do? Start lifting it out of context and running with that term in all sorts of directions that had nothing to do with its meaning. Rush was all over it. They were making silly parody songs, all because they figured if the L.A. Times gets to say it, they get to say it as much as they want, and repurpose it for whatever context they want.

The name of the NAACP is similar - it’s tied in with the history of the organization and the work they’ve done. Lifting the “N” out of their name and using it in other contexts demonstrates a racial insensitivity that’s simply insulting.