The Other McCain

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Breathtaking: Liberal Calls Herman Cain ‘Minstrel,’ ‘Coon,’ ‘Sambo,’ ‘Monkey’

Posted on | February 15, 2011 | 27 Comments

Just when you think you’ve seen the worst of insulting liberal condescension, they surprise you:

Black History Month is Herman Cain
Playing the Race Minstrel for CPAC

In the Alternet article beneath that headline, pseudonymous writer Chauncey De Vega employs a lot of academic “race theory” talk to justify insulting Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain. And when he’s not merely insulting, De Vega is simply wrong:

Let’s consider the routine. First, Cain enters the stage to Motown music. Then Cain feigns swimming after rolling up his sleeves to show them his black skin and how he is a hardworking negro (not like those other ones). Cain bellows in a preacher affected voice and channels the folksy negro down home accent of his late grandpappy.

First, as Duane Lester at All-American Blogger points out, the gesture that De Vega describes as intended “to show them his black skin” was actually Cain doing a “no tricks up my sleeves” gesture like a magician, meant to show that not only was he speaking without a Teleprompter, but he was also speaking extemporaneously — without notes of any kind.

Second, De Vega’s suggestion that Cain’s ”down home accent” is an affectation is simply false, as anyone who has listened to Herman Cain’s radio show would know.

Having known Herman Cain since 2007, I can testify that what you see is what you get. And the thousands of people who’ve met Cain at Tea Party rallies and other events would tell you the same thing. This Alternet article was e-mailed to me by my cousin Brian Buchanan with this note:

We all knew it was only a matter of time before it happened.  I find it an odd dichotomy that if you disagree with Obama you are a racist but if you agree with Herman Cain then you are only supporting him because he “acts white.” I hope that people are finally waking up to see that the race baiters have cried wolf too many times. I wonder what they think of Allen West.

Exactly, and as Duane Lester writes: “Cain has called for the article to be taken down. In one of those rare instances, I disagree with him.  I want them to keep it up. . . . Leave the article up.  Sooner or later it can be used to wake someone up to the left’s unnoticed history of racism.”

But if they take down the Alternet article, expect to see a lot more of this type of stuff as support for Cain’s campaign grows: Liberal writers playing armchair psychologist to explain What It Really Means.

There’s a Memeorandum thread with lots more commentary from John Hinderaker at Powerline, Dana Loesch at Big Journalism, Sister Toldjah, Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air and Bryan Preston at PJM Tatler.

UPDATE: Apologies for omitting The Right Sphere from the commentary roundup. By the way, to explain why I was so late getting to this article today: I went down to D.C., got back about 5 p.m., and then took a five-hour nap. I’m still still recovering from “CPAC fever.”

UPDATE II: Discussing Obama’s budget, Dan Collins reminds us that there are still 5 A’s in “raaaaacist.”

This latest countertemps reminds me of when Rush Limbaugh was denounced for having employed the term “magic negro,” a phrase borrowed from liberal writer David Ehrenstein’s column in the Los Angeles Times. Here’s the “Today” show segment about that ginned-up “controversy”:

Americans are belatedly realizing that Peter Brimelow nailed it when he defined “racist” as “someone who’s winning an argument with a liberal.”

UPDATE III: As background — to show that Herman Cain is no Johnny-come-lately conservative — here is my May 2007 feature article:

Speaking out with a smile
Radio host Herman Cain keeps cancer, GOP in line
By Robert Stacy McCain
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
ATLANTA — Herman Cain laughs a lot, and he has lots to be happy about — including a successful business career and a popular talk radio show. Inside the Atlanta studios of WSB Radio on a recent Saturday, he told his listeners about a local newspaper columnist who wrote that “being a black Republican is not only oxymoronic, it’s simply plain old-fashioned moronic” and singled out Mr. Cain as a “token” and a “sorry opportunist.”
“He forgot – I’ve got a radio show,” Mr. Cain says as he issues an on-air challenge for the columnist to call in, then goes to commercial, laughing all the while.
Such cheerfulness might seem surprising for a man who, in March 2006, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his liver. After two months of chemotherapy, Mr. Cain underwent surgery in August — doctors removed one-third of his colon and 70 percent of his liver, he says — and then it was another two months of chemotherapy. And he is laughing.
“Now you’re looking at a man who’s cancer-free — and all my liver’s grown back,” says the 61-year-old former executive. But don’t call him a “survivor,” he says. “I’m a winner,” says Mr. Cain, former chief executive officer of the Godfather’s Pizza chain.
A graduate of Atlanta’s Morehouse College, he worked for the Department of the Navy and Coca-Cola before joining the Pillsbury Co. in 1977. When Pillsbury acquired the Burger King restaurant chain, he went to work managing the chain’s operations in the Philadelphia area. His success with Burger King won him appointment in 1986 as president of Godfather’s, another Pillsbury acquisition. He helped turn around the division and then led a management team that bought the chain from Pillsbury.
Now retired from the restaurant business, Mr. Cain keeps busy. He is a member of four corporate boards (including Hallmark Cards and Whirlpool), a member of the Morehouse board of trustees, an author and syndicated columnist, a regular guest on Fox News Channel’s “Cost of Freedom” business program and, most recently, a radio talk-show host, frequently filling in on Atlanta-based Neal Boortz’s syndicated program as well as hosting his own two-hour show each Saturday.
Then there is politics. In 2004, Mr. Cain sought the Senate seat vacated by the retirement of Sen. Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat. In the Republican primary, he placed second to Johnny Isakson, who later won the Senate seat. But Mr. Cain’s outspoken conservatism during the campaign won him many admirers – including Mr. Miller, who wrote the foreword to Mr. Cain’s 2005 book, “They Think You’re Stupid: How Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It.”
What Republicans have done lately doesn’t please Mr. Cain, who expresses the same frustrations that many other conservatives have voiced about the party in recent years.
“They didn’t stick to principles,” he says, when asked why Republicans lost control of Congress in the 2006 elections. He criticizes Republicans in Washington for spending irresponsibly, failing to pass Social Security reform and, especially, not heeding their grass-roots supporters on immigration policy.
“They were not listening to people outside Washington. If they would have listened, they wouldn’t have lost,” says Mr. Cain, explaining that he finds people are eager to tell him their views on political issues.
“I’m like a walking poll. … It’s not scientific, but it’s pretty darned consistent,” he says of what he heard about immigration last year “Republicans were screaming, ‘Secure the borders first.’ ”
Republicans in Washington “are too afraid of their political shadows,” Mr. Cain says. He adds that many of his colleagues on corporate boards are so “disgusted” with Republicans that they have stopped contributing to the party, telling him: “When they start acting like Republicans, I’ll write some more checks.”
Considering the party’s prospects in 2008, he asks, “Where’s the excitement? Where’s the fun? There is none.”
Yet, Mr. Cain is clearly having lots of fun. He performs his two-hour radio show standing up, and provokes a reaction with his criticism of the Rev. Al Sharpton (“He gets away with inciting racial tensions, but doesn’t want to be held accountable.”) and liberals who, he says, use “name-calling … to discourage black people from thinking for themselves.”
Soon, callers fill the phone lines, waiting to share their opinions with Mr. Cain, who keeps smiling and laughing even when talking with angry callers who disagree with him.
Mr. Cain is grateful for simple pleasures such as “watching my grandkids grow up,” he says, recalling the months he spent in treatment after his cancer diagnosis. “I was saying my prayers … and I had a whole lot of people sending up prayers for me,” he says.
“You don’t stop living because you’re fighting cancer. … If everybody stopped living because they were fighting cancer, one-third of the adult population would be sitting home waiting to die,” Mr Cain says, adding that he has no interest in sitting around. “Death’s going to have to catch me, and it’s going to have to run fast.”

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Category: CPAC, Election 2012, Herman Cain

Comments

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  • hmt

    If the author is an African American, who writes about race stuff, maybe he is not technically a racist; we shouldn’t equate his passion with racism. And perhaps he’s got a point about Herman Cain’s performance, although he might have got some details wrong.

    Personally, i thought Cain’s rhetoric in his ultra partisan speech was over the top and the delivery felt like a right wing version of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. He even used the tired right wing, “liberals accuse anyone who criticizes Obama is a racist” strawman.

  • http://912member.blogspot.com just a conservative girl

    May have gotten some the details wrong? He called him a monkey performing for the white folk.

    Of course the speech was partisan, he was speaking to conference full of conservative activists.

    Disliking the speech that Herman gave or even disliking his policy stances is fine, but if a conservative had used these words about a liberal making a speech at a progressive activists conference and it would be the roar heard around the world.

    There is no justification for this language. Also, I have been called a racist more in the past three years since Obama has come onto the scene thank all the others years of my life combined. It is no strawman. My congressman told Arabic media I didn’t like Obama because I was racist. Two former presidents have said that disliking Obama is at least in part about race. Sorry, but saying that it is a strawman argument is simply ignoring the facts.

  • hmt

    Firstly, the author in question did not call Herman Cain a monkey. Read the artcile, he was even gender nuetral.

    Secondly, Herman Cain spent a good part of speech telling us how common it is for him to be called all sorts of names (inlcuding “Uncle Tom”) just for the crime of being a black conservative. He recalls how one night somone called him “shamless” for being black and critcizing a black president. My question: why he is he now taken back to read such an artcile from some guy on alternet? Why does he shamelessly want the artcile taken down? It is clear he wants all the attention and sympathy and whatever. Btw, why doesn’t Andrew Breibart take down the malcious, misleading edited video and the artcile on Sherrod Brown from his website even after multiple requests after being proven wrong by one and all? Alternet artcile is opnion, Brietbart’s was news. What a shame.

    Lastly, you say “Two former presidents have said that disliking Obama is at least in part about race.” That is true. Nothing is black and white. And to delude yourself that that is not the case is fooling yourself. Both extremes are wrong. Both are strawmen. I don’t deny that some liberals use the race card in their arguments, i also argue that some conservatives are at least partly motivated by racism in their criticism. And some play the reverse race card.

    Finally, i find RSMcCain calling the artciel in question, “breathtaking” amusing.

  • Joe

    I did not think I could be surprised by the Lefties. Wow. Never underestimate their ability to be mendacious.

  • hmt

    Correction: I meant Shirley Sherrod (not “Sherrod Brown”).

    Also forgive all the typos in the above unedited post, which is supposed to be a reply to ‘just a conservative girl’

    *
    Just wanted to add, you guys remmber this right?

    Usage of the title “Obama the ‘Magic Negro’” by David Ehrenstein for a Los Angeles Times piece later inspired the satirical song “Barack the Magic Negro,” written by parodist Paul Shanklin and broadcast on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. It received new attention in late 2008 when it was included on a CD sent by Chip Saltsman, running for chair of the Republican National Committee, to members of the committee.

    But that’s just raaaaacism!

  • Joe

    What, no mention of maccaca?

  • Anonymous

    I find your willingness to defend racism while exhibiting your ignorance of spelling equally amusing, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

  • Joe

    Chauncey DeVega just can’t accept a black man can be conservative. Better he be like Chauncey, drinking Colt 45. Boy oh boy, do lefties get mad when negros leave the Democratic Party Plantation. .

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_72CXMYWR2356GL6KJVU47OMJFA Right Klik

    Chauncey De Vega attacked Herman Cain with intense and hateful ridicule for one reason and one reason only: Herman Cain is black.

    There’s simply no excuse for attacking a man on the basis of his race.

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  • hmt

    Those are typos when i was typing fast. Its not the ignorance of my “spelling”, the ‘nature’ of the many misspellings in that comment clearly imply that. And more pertinently, my language skills have nothing to do with the veracity of my opinions in question.

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  • GoingGoing

    for one reason and one reason only: Herman Cain is black.

    Nope. The reason: Herman Cain is a black conservative

    … who made highly partisan statements, to an almost exclusive white audience, against liberals and black liberals, and tells us how he is targeted all the while for being black and conservative. He made highly black and white statements in his caricatures of liberals and his opponents. He used the “black conservative” victim card. A purely conservative speech doesn’t require him to speak about his race at all. but he did.

    You can accuse Chauncey De Vega for being highly partisan (perhaps black) liberal, but racism? Not necessarily based on that article alone.

  • ThirdEyeBlinded

    Where was this kind of collective conservative outrage in the blogosphere when Michael Steele was attacked in similar ways for the same crime? I guess some right wing quarters were busy loathing him for being an “affirmative action” guy that was forced upon them by the establishment.

    Or is something cooking guys? Do the movement conservative really think Herman Cain is going to be the savior who is going to dethrone Obama?

    Before you get your hopes high, be practical. There’s going to be voters both in the left and the right who will be motivated by race to vote. And then there will always be identity politics. Some people might just sit out if there isn’t any white candidate to choose from. Do the math.

  • ThirdEyeBlind

    Herman Cain is not only a black conservative, he is also a republican.

  • Anonymous

    Herman Cain terrifies them for the same reasons Sarah Palin terrifies them. He is a real threat to the Emperor Obama’s re-election chances. And as pointed out above, he is that dread thing, a black conservative Republican. An awesome, smart, articulate, thoughtful and thought provoking man, a man who will never vote “present.”

    Obama is a phony. Herman Cain is the real deal – and it is funny to read what Chauncey De Vega wrote… “bellows in a preacher affected voice and channels the folksy negro down home accent of his late grandpappy” – and, uh, did he say anything when Obama played that game, and it really was an affectation? Has he decried Obama’s phony newfound piety? His trying to portray himself as every potentially popular ex-president in order to build his own stature? I haven’t seen it.

    Love Herman Cain. Love Sarah Palin. Love that we have all the bright new energy in our up and coming candidates. (The Dems have nothing but Clinton retreads and death-warmed over Reids/Boxers and Bidens._ Love the Other McCain for pointing out this latest example of the liberal “civility.”

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    If they used the same creativity they devote to mendacity in some productive fashion instead, their evidently limited abilities might actually be of some small benefit to mankind.

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  • Anonymous

    I agree that it would be better for that Chauncey De Vega post to stay up at Alternet. The longer it’s up the better chance of the not paying attention public hearing about it. NAACP will ignore this as long as they can claim not knowing about it. While we probably can’t know what the author’s race is, I disagree that a black person can’t be racist against another.
    I suspect that the Manic Progressives don’t have the immunity they may think when using such language to criticize African American conservatives.

  • Anonymous

    Not likely.

  • Joe

    I linked to Chauncey’s blog above and he describes himself as a “(somewhat) respectable negro.” I can’t tell if his picture is him or Redd Foxx holding a can of Colt 45. I am going to take this at face value and conclude he is African American.

    But I agree, black on black racism is very real and very common.

  • Susan

    Breathtalking?

    After all that has gone on before you had to known this is exactly what the Democrat State-run media would do to Herman Cain.

    What will you do, give-in by blattering on in the blogosphere for another ten years about how Liberals are reaching another low point?

    Or will you stand and defend all those talking the hits by resisting the narrative?

    As the man from Legal Insurrection stated, once you allowed the hits upon Palin to stand by accepting the false premise that she is ‘damaged goods’ you bascially stated that NO Conservative can win.

    ‘evil is allowed to triumph when good people do nothing’ and for at least the last ten years all the good people have done is to coward in fear wondering when vicious Liberals will end their evil ways.

    If you think vicious Liberals are not going to crawl up Mr Cain’s anal cavity seeking any little thing upon which they can damage him-even making shit up- then you still do not know what America is up against.

  • http://twitter.com/jfxgillis jfxgillis

    Southern White NeoConfederate Stacy McCain steps up to defend his valet from the depradtions of a field hand?

    This should be amusing.

    Chauncey DeVega is Public Enemy Number One in the Conservative Blogosphere Because He Called Herman Cain a Race Minstrel

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  • reality

    everyone is a racist…if you say no you are not..without a doubt you are a liar.

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