From JustNotSaid: But the one thing you never see is a joke implying that Obama presents a danger to white women, or a about Obama-as-rapist. Given that so many of the other jokes about him indulge in overt racial stereotypes, you’d think you might see something along these lines. But you simply never do.
Certainly, as evidenced above, there are people who wouldn’t be above making such jokes, if they resonated. If the President were a darker-skinned ex-football player, the internet would be plastered with jokes about locking up your wives and daughters and so on. That’s how the internet works: if you think it, somebody’s already put it online.
But Obama simply doesn’t evoke those fears. Absolutely no one seems to suspect him of chasing white women. Or, really, any women. (If Herman Cain had somehow been elected, there would have been endless jokes along those lines. He would have been compared to a pimp, have been named as a “suspect” in countless unsolved rapes, would have been asked to provide a DNA sample, etc, etc.)
But in 2008, white America subconsciously felt about Obama the same way it felt back when Michael Jackson “dated” Brooke Shields in 1981: it’s okay, really, we don’t mind. Really. I mean, he seems like a nice guy. You know, harmless.
The feeling back then was, our sweet little Brooke isn’t about to be defiled by some big black thug. (And this was long before the public had heard anything about Jackson’s child molesting.)
For similar reasons, white America — at least at first — didn’t mind having Obama take them to the prom. As it turned out, he was interested in stealing from their wallets. But he never evoked fears of rape.
Subconsciously, white America knows.
