Akkam’s Razor

Update: I wouldn’t even know about this story if it wasn’t for Phillybits.

It was probably 20-years ago, when I was a wee-lad at Northeast Catholic High School, that I first heard Gil Scott Heron.  Mind you, in my working class, nearly all-white neighborhood and school, there’s no way that Heron would come up in conversation or in academics.  No, I heard it on Howard Stern - who basically helped raise me.  Howard had a very race-centric shtick at that time (late 1980s), and Heron’s “Whiteys on the Moon” was exemplary of what my kind of white-folk grated against - being blamed for the wronging of blacks several generations ago, with a feeling that it was totally unwarranted.  Frustrations over crime, the Section-8′ing of the neighborhoods, and a decline in the comparative advantage for whites (particularly males) certainly enabled a hostile posture on race.

YouTube Direktvideo link

Enter Clinton-supporter, blogger, and former US State Department veteran Larry Johnson, who has been hyping an explosive video that he claims portrays Barack Obama’s wife Michelle with a tirade against “Whitey”.  As of this post, the video has not appeared.  Seems that call outs for the failures of “Whitey” are actually a “Scuse me while I kiss this guy” mishearing of “Why’d he”.  Booman via Tbogg:

From what I understand, it is a tape of Michelle Obama criticizing the Bush administration.

How you’d write it:

Why did Bush cut folks off medicaid?
Why did Bush let New Orleans drown?
Why did Bush do nothing about Jena?
Why did Bush put us in Iraq for no reason?

How you’d say it:

Why’d he cut folks off medicaid?
Why’d he let New Orleans drown?
Why’d he do nothing about Jena?
Why’d he put us in Iraq for no reason?

How Larry Johnson wants you to hear it:

Whitie cut folks off medicaid?
Whitie let New Orleans drown?
Whitie do nothing about Jena?
Whitie put us in Iraq for no reason?

It is most sad that some of the Obama opposition chooses to see things solely through a race filter, especially when the actual message is one all Democrats can rally behind.