Dec 27, 2008 9:00 am US/Central
RNC Candidate Distributes Obama 'Negro' Song On CD
This article was compiled from various news reports
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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President-elect Barack Obama. (File)
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
Tennessee politician Chip Saltsman, currently running for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent a controversial collection of songs to members of his party as a Christmas present, but one song in particular is garnering a bit of attention.
The 41-track CD, titled "We Hate The USA," pokes fun at President-elect Barack Obama in a song called "Barack the Magic Negro."
Saltsman defended the song as just a joke. "I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," he told The Hill.
Other songs in the collection also target prominent figures from this year's presidential campaign, including John Edwards. Tracks include "John Edwards' Poverty Tour," "Wright place, wrong pastor," "Love Client #9," "Ivory and Ebony" and "The Star Spanglish banner," according to The Hill's Web site.
The song, penned by Saltsman acquaintance Paul Shanklin, uses the music of "Puff the Magic Dragon" and is in reference to an opinion article by David Ehrenstein published in 2007 by the Los Angeles Times.
"Barack the Magic Negro" is performed by Shanklin, and is meant to sound as if black activist Al Sharpton were singing it, reports the Washington Post.
According to the Washington Post, lyrics include:
"A guy from the LA paper said it made guilty whites feel good, they'll vote for him and not for me cuz he's not from the hood... Oh, Barack the magic negro lives in DC, the LA Times they called him that because he's black but not authentically."
Rush Limbaugh originally played the song on his radio talk show in 2007.
Saltsman managed former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee's campaign for president and announced his bid for RNC chairman this month, according to the Washington Times.
In the L.A. Times opinion piece, Ehrenstein writes that The Magic Negro is seen as a figure of postmodern folk culture. "He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest," Ehrenstein explains in the article.
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