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Obama Wrecked Brainy-Black-Guy Cred

Nation's first hip president renders formerly-hip a bit square

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff

Posted May 26, 2009 10:33 AM CDT

(Newser) – Sure, in his first 100 days President Obama made much-publicized strides forward. But he also ruined the game of “black male intellectuals” everywhere, writes G’Ra Asim for Salon: “This dude is destroying our street cred.” Whereas Asim, once “the only African-American male in Advanced Placement US History,” once posed “a credible threat to the social order,” now he stays up nights searching the Internet for ways to be hipper.

“What is a milestone for Obama is a millstone to the coolness of black male intellectualism,” Asim opines. “Being confronted with an unapologetically intellectual, hyper-articulate black dude who is self-assured to the brink of arrogance” used to bring “bewilderment and consternation” from interviewers and parents alike; now the success of Obama—“the first hip president”—renders people like Asim “interminably square.”

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

Then-Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., holds up a glass of beer during a conversation with local residents at Bethlehem Brew Works in Bethlehem, Pa., April 20, 2008. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

This photo released by Obama for America shows a Barack Obama teaching at the University of Chicago Law School. (AP Photo/Obama for America, File)

In this May 17, 2009 file photo, President Barack Obama waves as he arrives to deliver the commencement speech during the 2009 graduation ceremony at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, file)

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It is that much harder to belittle and distance oneself from mainstream culture when a commodified facsimile of your particular, once unknown archetype prevails on a national level. - G'Ra Asim

Where I got my kicks imagining that my flamboyant displays of subversive cerebral fortitude made the white establishment want my head on a stick, my brother's comparable acts will be met with a propensity to picture his on the dollar bill. - G'Ra Asim

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

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Obama Wrecked Brainy-Black-Guy Cred