Image Source: WENN.com
If there is no such thing as “talking White,” then explain to me why President Barack Obama, in particular, goes to such lengths to talk Black with Black people?
What are you talking about, Charing Ball?
This (from USA Today):
“When President Obama returned to the campaign trail Sunday, he re-introduced one of his favorite characters.
Yes, “Cousin Pookie” is back.
As he has in previous elections, Obama cast Cousin Pookie and other family members as the kinds of disinterested voters that Democrats need to get to the polls this election.
“It’s not enough just for you to vote,” Obama told backers Sunday in Maryland. “You’ve got to get your family to vote. You’ve got to get your friends to vote. You’ve got to get your co-workers to vote.”
And, then: “You’ve got to get that Cousin Pookie sitting at home on the couch — he’s watching football right now instead of being here at the rally — you’ve got to talk to him and let him know it is not that hard to exercise the franchise that previous generations fought so hard to obtain.”
As mentioned in the blurb, this it is not the first time the “Cousin Pookie” trope has shown up in speeches before largely Black audiences. As this archived article in the Houston Chronicle notes, “Cousin Pookie” first made an appearance during the 2008 presidential campaign when the then-Senator Obama told a predominately Black rally in Kingstree, S.C., “I need you to grab Cousin Pookie to vote; I need you to grab Ray Ray to vote.” Cousin Pookie’s lazy ass would resurface again during the 42nd anniversary of the historic voting rights marches in Selma, Alabama, where he told the predominately Black audience: “If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.”
It should also be noted that President Obama has also been called out over the years for his “blaccent” and overall code switching between Black and more mainstream audiences, in particular using Black slang and euphemisms like “Nawh, we straight!” In fact President Obama’s double speak has become so legendary, it recently became the subject of a hilarious Keys and Peele’s comedy sketch in which the president switches between formal greetings for White constituents and more relaxed and basically “Black” greetings for the brothers and the sisters.
So what’s the problem here? Isn’t it a common experience for Black people to “put on” for predominately White audiences and relax a bit among our own? Sure, which is why I’m also perplexed by the confusion over “talking White.” And as this 2012 New York Times article pointed out, it is not just Blacks, who engage in this sort of linguistic pandering, in particular noting:
“Our last three presidents have all been able to shift their speaking styles — an ability that is distinct from eloquence or empathy. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were known for speaking in a “folksy” manner: Mr. Clinton with black and Southern audiences, and Mr. Bush with Southern and Latino audiences (he would even switch into Spanish in his speeches). Before them, Lyndon B. Johnson was perhaps the president most notable for variation in speaking style. More recently, the blunt (and occasionally profane) style of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, and the strategic sprinklings of Spanish by Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, have contributed to their rising profiles in the Republican Party.”
In that respect, President Obama is no different than any other president or politician in general, who seeks to connect with his constituency. However, there are times when Obama’s code-switching when he does it to Black audiences, proves to be problematic. Take for instance Cousin Pookie.
The “Cousin Pookie” narrative is never mentioned to congratulate young Black men on graduating form college or for landing his first job. Instead this fictitious cousin of the Black voter has been painted mostly by the first Black president as lazy and shiftless. Basically, he is a man-child, who hangs out on couches all day and doesn’t vote. And just like Charles Barkley’s “unintelligent Blacks,” who keep the community from being successful, according to the POTUS, Cousin Pookie is the reason why Black people are not being taken seriously in the political sphere. Despite the appearance of familiarity, Cousin Pookie isn’t really here to help President Obama connect with the community, but rather to help him serve the community a slice of the poundcake speech in disguise. Talk about a dog whistle…
By evoking the imagery of lazy Cousin Pookie, President Obama has masterfully avoided giving his Black constituency the serious discussion as well as consideration around policies and grievances that we have longed care about. It is because of our lazy cousin, we have been deprived of stump speeches about mass incarceration, police brutality (particularly in the wake of Ferguson), education (in particular the closing of inner city public schools) or even breast cancer and fibroid research funding. Thanks to the inactivity of Cousin Pookie, the Black community does not get to be pander to like any other special interest group in America. Instead we get lectured about how we need to get off the couch, put our marching shoes on and go vote.
Of course the flaw in all of this is that we already did vote.
And if I recall many of us, including a few Cousin Pookies, voted specifically for Obama. In historic-making droves – and twice. In fact, the African American voter turnout was so high in 2012 that it exceeded the White vote for the first time in history. Black constituency, including Cousin Pookie, voted with the intentions of supporting a candidate who vowed change and offered them hope for a better tomorrow. However with all those votes, which Blacks have hand-delivered to the Obama presidency over the years, in some respects the conditions for the African American community under his leadership has gotten statistically worse, like rising Black poverty and an even greater wealth gap between Blacks and Whites.
Despite his personal hardships, Cousin Pookie is still more likely to support the president and his policies – way more than the Tea Partiers, the Birthers, Fox News, the Republicans and some blue-dog Democrats in both the House and the Senate and just the general racists, who have been the main hinderance in the first Black president’s ability to get anything done (so he says). And even as his national job approval ratings are at an all time low in ten states, 86 percent of Black Americans, including Cousin Pookie, still approve of his job performance.
And that’s likely because in Cousin Pookie’s old, lazy heart, he knows that the first Black president is doing the best he can under insurmountable circumstances. Therefore blaming Cousin Pookie for the lack of accountability the government, by way of elected officials, has to the community seems like a piss-poor rallying cry – if not flat-out deflective.
As if President Obama cared about making sure Cousin Pookie voted, he would have been leading House and Senate Democrats in passing counter measures to voter ID laws, which are already showing to have negative affects on Blacks and other minority’s ability vote nationwide. Or he would have been making a major stink about it. That’s how you rally folks up. Not by trying to make them culpable for what is ultimately a long-time failure in leadership. Seriously, it’s one thing to chastise people about not voting but if the people we voted into office don’t feel like they have to be directly responsive to our needs (beyond telling us how we are not marching and voting enough) then what the hell am I voting for? But you see, the president doesn’t see Voter ID as problematic. No, really…
The biggest irony with the return of Cousin Pookie is that he comes on the midst of one of the biggest protests against police brutality in our nation’s history, organized and manned by young people, who probably have nicknames similar to Obama’s favorite non-voting and wayward factious cousin. Unlike his previous advice to Pookie about getting his lazy bum off the couch and putting on his marching shoes to demand political change, Obama reminded us again that “we are a nation of laws.” More specifically:
“Ours is a nation of laws: of citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. So, to a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let’s seek to heal rather than to wound each other.”
Talk about giving Cousin Pookie the runaround.
Not to mention, all this Cousin Pookie talk is just corny. I mean come on Obama! It is 2014. Cousin Pookie hasn’t been a meme since New Jack City. And since our president, who is known for lecturing Black audiences about not only our responsibility to this government, but also how we need to be more respectable and adherent to the standards in society in general, you would think that he would actually be the standard – and in front of all audiences. But instead, he has one voice in front of predominately White audiences and another voice in front of Black audiences and we’re suppose to believe there’s no such thing as talking White…
