Michael Moore's Frustrations Boil Out Into Racism

Left-winger Michael Moore (Moore is not, to my knowledge, a registered Democrat, finding them too moderate for his tastes) has lashed out against Barack Obama, finding him to be acting too White for his tastes: "I went into the polls voting for the black guy, and what I got was the white guy..."

Bill Maher (who is a professional jerk) finds it funny too. As Ta-Nehisi Coates observes, it's just racist.

. It really is no better than the Kenyan anti-colonial bit, and in fact is good deal worse. I said this yesterday on twitter, but it would be as if my Jewish accountant messed up my taxes and I said, "Dude, you're Jewish, what the hell?!?!"

In fact, I'd be getting exactly what I deserved. If you paid more attention to Obama's skin color, than to his speeches, the voluminous amounts of journalism noting his moderation, his two books which are, themselves, exercises in moderation, than you have chosen to be ignorant.

You are now being punished for that ignorance. No one should feel sorry for you. Try not being racist.

This whole "acting White" phenomenon is so ridiculous anyway. It's just a racialized stand-in for "I don't like nerds" or "I don't like squares". But of course, the race-element to it invests it with an extra historical punch. And when White people arrogate to themselves the right to determine who is and isn't authentically Black (and, in effect, tokenize the entire Black race as their pet revolutionaries) -- yeah, that's pretty racist.