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As a rule, I make a deliberate and conscious effort to ignore the former half-term governor of Alaska. But once in a great while, attention must be paid.
Like many conservative pundits, Sarah Palin is criticizing President Obama for his administration's inconsistent statements on the Benghazi, Libya, attack. Unlike many conservative pundits, Palin used the term "shuck and jive" to describe Obama's behavior.
In a Facebook post today, Palin wrote: "Obama's Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies." She also used the term in the text of the post, which concludes, "President Obama's shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end."
Let's put aside, at least for now, the fact that the latest Benghazi revelations appear to be entirely uninteresting, and even the most unhinged White House critics are yet to document any administration "lies" associated with last month's attack.
Let's instead ponder a fairly straightforward, two-part question: "Shuck and jive"? Seriously?
It's quite possible that Palin just isn't informed enough to understand the phrase she used (more than once), so Alex Halperin referenced the Urban Dictionary:
To shuck and jive" originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards. The expression was documented as being in wide usage in the 1920s, but may have originated much earlier.
"Shucking and jiving" was a tactic of both survival and resistance. A slave, for instance, could say eagerly, "Oh, yes, Master," and have no real intention to obey. Or an African-American man could pretend to be working hard at a task he was ordered to do, but might put up this pretense only when under observation. Both would be instances of "doin' the old shuck 'n jive."
As Jeffrey Goldberg concluded, Palin's choice of words "isn't an example of a racist dog-whistle because it's too obviously racist to be considered code."
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Sarah Palin's linguistic acumen is the reason she's quite popular with the Fox crowd.
Contrast with Joni Mitchell:
Ironically, it is Bain the outsourcer who is the cannibal eating the middle class jobs of working people and selling them off to China.
If Romney's performance in the debates was not shuck and jive to the undecided centrists, I don't know what is.
Good one John. And notice how the use of "shuck and jive" in the mouths of the great Joni Mitchell and the stupid Sarah Palin can take on such different tones!
Can I quote you on my facebook page? Very well written... I concur 100%!
It is quite possible that Palin herself "does not speak jive," coming from an area of Alaska without much exposure to it (or its racial connotations).
Which is no excuse! Someone dispatch Barbara Billingsley to her aid post haste!
I am embarrassed to say this, but I always suspected that Palin's infamous "blowing the racist dog whistle" in Florida with her "pal'ing around with terrorists" remarks during the 2008 campaign was a "script" given to her by some backchannel oppo researchers, I thought, from Rove via Norquist or some such non-McCain campaign channel.
I'm not excusing her, especially not because I am also from Wasilla and knew her in high school-- and Nicole Wallace may have the kind of insight to speak to this-- but I was fairly confident she had NO CLUE she was blowing a dog whistle for racists in 2008. Why? Because she didn't have enough calculation in her to be a message-shaper on that level, and especially, she had NO information about what is and is not a racist dog whistle in the American South (Palin and my own post-high school experience differs in that from 1985 through 1993, and then again from 1998-2006, I lived in both the "poor trash" and Deep South. And I studied within the Southern literary traditions). Palin can be a parrot of what she's heard, but she's not going to come up with the idea herself.
She lived in Hawaii, Idaho, and Alaska. And she's not a curious person. She might have absorbed unthinking racist attitudes in the backwaters of Wasilla-- I have no idea-- but her biggest and most unforgivable sin is cluelessness. Not that she's an "airhead" like people who don't know her might think-- people in Alaska don't easily fit Lower 48 stereotypes, and the isolation up there creates other categories of ignorance that few people have heard of in the Lower 48, things that ensnare both ordinary and sometimes really smart people.
But she'd have no skill in crafting a message specially designed to push certain buttons in the South.
And, since she lived in Alaska without a family TV from the early 70s into the 80s, it's quite likely her earliest exposure to the term "jive" came from the movie "Airplane!". Seriously. It's doubtful she ever even saw the sitcom "Good Times" with JJ Walker.
So, offensive, yes. Racist, yes. Clueless? Most definitely. Did she know she was saying what she was saying? I seriously doubt it.
hmm. Perhaps. but somehow she managed to couple this antiquated phrase with a Yiddish word, 'shtick.' So where did she pick that up? Must have been some television show with old comedians that she saw somewheree
-- It's not that I don't think she isn't tragically culturally ignorant, but that there is, I feel, more malice in her than you seem to think.
The other reason I don't think Palin understood the phrase she was using is that she appears to be misusing it.
Following the Urban Dictionary definition above, "shuck n jive" is something someone who is powerless does to appease others who have significantly more power, both for the purposes of slacking off or "stealing time" from a more powerful force who commands your time.
In what world view does the person who sits in the most powerful chair in the land have to "steal time" or appease a more powerful force with the ease of a trickster?
Maybe if the US were more of a direct democracy, we could consider "the people" the most powerful force in the land, in the respect that that was how Nixon found himself out of a job. But these days, that connection is so watered down and indirect as to be a completely miscast "master."
OTOH, those who delegitimize the nation's first African American president with racial beliefs of white superiority perhaps feel they are EVERY black man's master and cast him as their "boy."
Good lord, racism just makes me seethe.
jjm, I agree with you on the malice part. She drips with it, from the snarky tone that made its first national appearance in that speech at the 2008 Republican convention.
You will hear that tone a lot around Wasilla. We heard it in almost every speech George W. Bush did too. The unspoken bit of it goes like, "This is so obvious and we are so superior to it, I have to just SCHOOL you dumbasses in the right way to think."
The unquestioned voice of superiority, grounded in little but arrogance and gall, embedded in a sneering tone and a smirk.
I don't know where they get it, and lots of people around there don't have it, but I've heard enough of it to associate it with the Valley, and with some rural areas of the Midwest as well. Not backed up by anything in particular, and not feeling particularly deficient about that fact either.
She got famous for that tone, made her name for it, and now it is her brand. She apparently loves it, and delivers it with relish.
I imagine if she didn't, if she displayed more heart or reflexivity, she'd lose her sound bite gig as commentator pretty quick. I mean, how many other half-term governors or even former vice presidential candidates get the kind of air time she does?
So, just curious, since you knew or know Palin, do you think she fabricated her pregnancy of the down syndrome child?
No, everyone I know in Alaska believes that that is her fifth child. I don't know why she went to such extremes to give birth in the Valley or to travel so extensively with a late-in-life risky pregnancy. I can't imagine any doctor telling her that was OK to do such things. Unless the amnio revealed the Down's Syndrome early on, and she played it risky like a god playing dice.
Sort of a ballsy move, however you frame it. Especially if she disregarded doctor's advice. It is typical of Alaskans, however, to presume that "they know better" than any expert or authority, on just about anything. Doctors, professors, politicians, anyone who would presume to give advice, is generally cast as a stuffed shirt who can be blown off if you feel like it.
I don't mean to say everyone is like that, but that's what I referred to above, a factor of the isolation, and what my distant anthropology-eye sees when I cast it back on where I grew up.
When we moved up in 1976 (my dad worked on the terminus of the Pipeline), a popular bumper sticker around the state said, "I don't give a damn how they do things Outside!" (Outside is Alaskan vernacular for the Lower 48).
What that meant is that people thought they were John Winthrop landing on a new world, starting fresh, making a new kind of City on the Hill, with a bit of a land rush for a while there (Pipeline boom, then the later oil boom).
And imagine a state full of people who had all just moved there from somewhere else. There were few "old" buildings, nothing made of brick. Most common commercial building material (churches too) was corrugated metal, what, in Wisconsin we would call a "pole barn."
They were a collection of people not only running TO an IDEA, many of them were running AWAY from a past, as black sheep, someone who didn't fit in, was too ornery, curmudgeonly, who didn't like authority, didn't like ANYONE telling them what to do.
So back then, to even mention ZONING laws was to invoke the sign of the devil. "Nobody is going to tell me what I can and can't do on MY land!" So they put their septic systems too close to lakes. That was real nice, let me tell you.
Tar-paper shacks with visquine on some of the windows, a big dirt pile in the front yard, your own gas tank and hand pump for your car, maybe some old vehicles up on blocks, back behind the trailer with 3 or 4 snowmachines, a four-wheeler or cat (to bring the moose out from the woods-- moose are big!), motorcycles, and a float plane out on the lake on the other side of the barely framed-in house. (that's the late 70s-early 80s-- things are a bit more civilized and burby now)
Gravel roads. Everybody with numerous starbursts in the windshields, spread more with each front and breakup. Potholes. Lots of drugs. Guys who work long stints on the Slope and come back with a lot of money to blow. Permanent fund dividends for whole families, and stories of the parents taking off and leaving the kids to hold the fort while parents blow the whole nut for all of them in Vegas. My mom taught a lot of those kids in elementary school, many who came to school without good winter coats because their folks had blown all their Dividends.
And what ever you do, DON'T try to tell anyone what they can and can't do. So there's lotsa ornery and odd and extremist people making lots of righteous and ill-considered decisions.
Think Jack Nicholson in that last scene in Five Easy Pieces. Hitches a ride to Alaska in a semi, leaving his car at the pump at a Washington State gas station, girlfriend still in the cafe. He doesn't even take his coat!
Another really wonderful film I've always loved was called "Leaving Normal." Christine Lahti and Meg Tilly. Parts were made out in the Valley, and it is very realistic in its portrayal of life up there.
I have a friend from WV whose aunt (?) Anne Killekenny knew SP in Wasilla, too. She wrote a letter about her when she first was announced running mate of McCain. We were sent an early summation of the person.
It didn't take very long to figure out she would be a disaster for this country, although so many love her sharp tongue and love of guns.
I won't keep on, but she is just a mean spirited person that likes to run down others for sport and high five each other. he was so detached from it all in Game Change. Steve Schmidt said the movie was accurate.
I for one would love to see her just enjoy her remaining days in private and go hunting and see her kids and grandkids.
The next time someone is trying to defend "Intelligent Design" ask them to then explain this woman!
Palin was created for the explicit purpose of comparison for without "stupid" how would we recognize intelligence?
She is proof that women should stay home and out of politics thus the reason the right winged religious nuts like her.
So, you think women should stay in the kitchen just like Romney does? What happend to equal pay and equal rights?
Don't forget her cohort in crime over at FOX Megyn Kelly who wanted to know if 'Obama has gone native'...
Tyler...
You mistake our beliefs... We LOVE women...LOVE,LOVE, LOVE women...
It's racist, bigoted FOOLS we can't stand... Regardless of gender...
Case in point...
"Dr" Paul Tyler: do you practice the same kind of "medicine" Dr. Paul Broun does? Thanks for reminding us that even morons can get through medical school. It's why we have to ask the doctor's political preferences so we don't get any of you Republican incompetents.
Paul S. Campbell, you surprise me with that comment. I can't imagine you saying such within Nancy Pelosi's hearing.
I've dropped two physicians because of political beliefs.
That actually did harm my health.
We're all still waiting for someone to show anything Sarah has done that's dumber than Joe Biden
What did the President know about Benghazi, and when did he know it?
What did Secretary Clinton know about Benghazi, and when did she know it?
WE KNOW NOW!!!!
So you consider it patriotic to assume a terrorist group is telling the truth when they claim responsibility, but the president is lying when he says we don't know for certain who is responsible?
Classy.
Arthur66,
You know nothing.
You assume much.
We all know what assume means.
What because bumble brain Sarah Palin says she knows!!! snark
Sarah's big reveal, Trumps big reveal, and Justin Timberlake married. I'm giddy with boredom.
Stewardess? I speak jive.
Oh, how I loved that moment!
That comment is so full of win.
They had the Psychiatrist on the news today giving a good description of a Psychopath and it was amazing how it fit Romney. Except Romney is probably more like a Political Psychopath that is more in line with Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and so many similar other ones.
I think so. I have been saying this for some time. Antisocial Personality Disorder. (Whereas his running mate is a case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.)
I think he's closer to a Sociopath.
Yea I know there is something certainly wrong with these people, because things they want to do certainly don't make sense.
I agree with AnnaBe, definitely closer to a Sociopath.
Everyone thinks Romney is a psychopath after that blond kid sneezed "bullmitt" and got his hair cut off.
And because Romney tied his dog to the top of the car.
And ran a blind person into a door.
And told Palestinians they are racially inferior.
And said he wants police to steal more vehicles from Mexicans and "self deport" them for driving without a license after Bush used the Real ID Act to outlaw drivers licenses for Mexicans.
And so on.
Republican "Shuck and Jive":
Yes we can.
Obama is what prosperity looks like.
Good info... can you state the source? :-)
Source after FDR:
Source before FDR:
You can't trust single sources with the exception of BLS.
Government records were limited before unemployment insurance and social security, but the link between republicans and economic collapse began with Ulysses S Grant. Government records just don't go back that far.
Population decline causes real estate values to collapse, and that represents about half of all US wealth.
Pretty obvious what's going on when you look at the trend this way.
Increased unemployment is linked with ethnic cleansing, like the Real ID Act and Mexican Repatriation, Operation Wetback, ... (racism).
Yes, what is the source? But, it rings true to me!
Timeline:
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/region/timeline-earlier-recessions-and-depressions-324767/
This timeline matches university records from multiple sources (i.e.: reasonably accurate for some of the older data).
Taft and Reagan are the only republicans that improved the economy, and coincidentally the only republicans that refused to implement racist policies.
And.
Woodrow Wilson is the only democrat that collapsed the economy, and coincidentally the only democrat that signed racist laws, like the one that requires "immigrants over 16 to speak English, Hebrew, or Yiddish".
Wilson outlawed Mexicans, while Reagan and Taft encouraged Mexican immigration.
I'm still wondering why zero university and public school text books include this chart.
How can anyone know how to do public policy right without knowing things like this?
Gotta be careful if you call-out Crackhead on sources. This person can flat-out do some research.
Always a pleasure to see GREAT posts !
Obama 2012 !!
I don't lie.
Except about the water buffalo thing.
Crackhead, you know that God wanted the product of that union between the space aliens and the water buffalo to succeed.
Palin still adds entertainment value.
I hope she never goes away completely. I just hope she never gets elected to anything.
It didn't? But...Karl Rove?
"...intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power,..."
Sorry Jeffrey Goldberg is wrong, Palin's choice of words are absolute dog whistles to the racist crowd! This President didn't intentionally mislead US, that would be George W., on the lying road into Iraq! Why is this stupid woman even still relevant, she's another example of upward failure that WE as a nation have devolved into! Can we stop with the relliguluous wing-nuts, or better yet have them all move to Texas and then let Texas secede from the Union! I am so angry and disgusted by the corporate owned lame-stream media that promotes this ignorance, and dumbs down the conversations; I'm angry that Americans have taken the bait and allowed themselves to be duped, bamboozled and aren't even ashamed of having people like this idiot on the national stage!
"Palin's choice of words are absolute dog whistles to the racist crowd!"
They are definitely that. Nevertheless, we can count on seeing the usual suspects whining "It's not racist/You can't take a joke" and similar bullpucky.
Er, I think you may be misreading this. Palin was definitely accusing the president of misleading people. (It's not true, but that's what she is saying.) Goldberg is saying it's not dog whistle because dog whistle is using coded language to hide racism, and this is just flat-out racism with no disguise.
I agree with you completely! But let's see if we can reframe it...I am an American and an Obama supporter. I read and listen to the MSM and thus far I haven't been bamboozled or dumbed down. Oh, occasionally I get a little shaky, but after I've thought it through, I usually come back stronger than ever. And maybe a little bit wiser, too. And look at you, Zora Renee, it surely hasn't bamboozled or dumbed down you!! Just keep on speaking out for what you believe in and, whenever possible, point out the error of the other side's way (complete with references, of course!). I think you're terrific! And SP has had way more than her 15 minutes of fame. If we ignore her, she'll go away.
Thank you, Lena and Joe6Pack. Your descriptions of Palin are perfect!
Sarah Palin may come from Wassilli,
And she may be a comely young filly,
But, then when she went
To become President -
Now, I find that incredibly silly!
Sarah Palin disconnects with Reality,
Often sinks to the depths of venality,
But to disrespect BO,
Well, now, that's mighty low.
Now she won't win Miss Congeniality...
Sarah Palin gets Benghazi to thrive
By describing Obama's 'shuck and jive'...
This arse of an elephant
Keeps her career relevant,
But can't manage to keep it alive...
No more "fancy pageant walkin'". Thank you Tina Fey! And thanks again David.
"Shuck and jive" well let's not forget "blood libel" She just gets worse and worse!
It takes stronger words and edging ever closer to the N word to keep that little thrill going for all the anti-Obama junkies. Limbaugh does this too.
I'm hardly defending that shrill rainmaker, but I think I'd have to be black to know if I would take offense at this. There's definitely lingo and slang that comes from lots of ethnic, religious, and cultural groups that make it into common usage. I personally have used "shuck and jive", I've used "@!$%#s and giggles", and some inappropriate yiddish at times. Could she have used better words? Of course. Should we let this blow past and give her as little thought as possible? Absolutely. Let her fade off into the Alaskan sunset.
I'm not black, and I knew immediately that this is offensive. When you use racist language referring specifically to African-Americans when talking about an African-American, it's not just a poor choice of words, it's deliberate.
I'M not black either and yes, I knew it was offensive BUT I really wonder if 'these people' do...they also look at you with giant cow eyes and say 'I'm not racist'...and i believe they BELIEVE it. Sarah Palin is 'word challenged' and honestly, she should just STFU. But FOX and those that DO know can hide behind her garbage...
You don't have to be black to recognize a racist comment. Just like you don't have to be a woman to recognize a sexist comment. Or be mentally disabled to recognize that "retarded" is extremely offensive.
Examples: Warren Buffet champions the Middle Class, even if he's as rich as hell. Josh Wheddon advocates feminism even if he isn't a woman. I am CONSTANTLY offended by the racist slurs of the Tea Party even if I'm not black.
I do agree with one thing you said, though. Palin should fade into the Alaskan Sunset.
NOOOOOOOO - we don't want her! I keep hoping one of these days I won't have to hide the fact that I'm from Alaska anymore.
Joan - Please don't feel bad...I'm from NH and we have Romney's summer home and that jack*ss loud mouth Sununu.....another ignorant Republican.
It's not our fault.......they're everywhere...
I wish Trump would take his 5 million and buy them all a clue !!!!
Josh Wedden certainly is too a woman! Casting Nathan Fillion as the Captain of Firefly was the touch of a genius wholly secure in his feminine sensibilities.
Can you limit your reporting to things that matter, as far as Sarah Palin is concerned just say something like.
Apparently Sarah Palin said something today, it wasn't intelligent or important. Now back to the real world.
Or perhaps you could just skip a post with "Palin" in the title, rather than demanding that only things you want to hear get reported?
I usually do skip anything about her, but it mentioned dog whistles so I thought it might have been a cute pet story.
That will shut her and her like up faster than anything.
The only two references I can make between Palin and canines are, when she used a helicopter to shoot at wolves (truly sportsmanship!), and when she dissed the White House Christmas cards because the photo only showed Bo before the hearth... In both cases, she showed nothing but disrespect...
I doubt Palin the "hunter" could hit the broad side of a barn with a blunderbus standing next to it.
Sarah "shoot em'up" Palin, the queen of opportunism. She helped bring Gobbledygook back to the platform. Even when the band starts playing a different tune, she's still humming the old one. I think she has Blackaphobia.
It's called Xenophobia, the fear of others who are alien or different...
I do not understand how the news media can give the GOP credence when they criticize the White House reaction to Benghazi. The media spent days reporting spontaneous demonstrations in many cities all over the Middle East. I remember many demands made that the U.S. punish the producer of the video. Now, with complete Romnesia, the media claims it looks bad for the President because he didn't report FB or Twitter posts from possible terrorists?? Sadly, there may be only one news show left for me in two weeks -- TRMS--
The GOP knows everything better on every topic, as they are so quick to tell you.
And if Mitt gets the WH, MSNBC and TRMS may go the way of Big Bird. The right cannot stand any outlet they can't control.
Indeed, the authoritarianism is wired in their brains.
...and this family feigned shock when Palin's grandson called someone a "faggot" on national television. This family has shown themselves as racist and bigoted on more than one occasion. I guess we can add this to the list.
Sarah Palin is an idiot plain and simple.
I mean, she DID have a show on the same network that is home to Toddlers in Tiaras, My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding, and Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo.
This useless woman will never have enough money or enough attention.
Why is NO ONE in a position of ANY POWER or the media (other than MSNBC) stating what we are really dealing with when it comes to the Republicans (not of old), the Conservative RIGHT (Sinunu), the Tea Party: PURE RACISM! It's blatant, in-your-face, and quite honestly, I'm sick of it. I've seen more ignorant, racist, hate-filled comments, attacks and signage than has existed since the Civil Rights movement. This is absolutely ridiculous! Palin is an embarrassment to this Country! *PERIOD*
Hatred of Obama really lifted the lid on a pot of boiling ugliness.
It's disheartening to realize how regressive and pervasive a herd mentality is once that tacit permission is given to release base emotions. Human beings really haven't progressed as much as we'd hoped.
Palin is just so ridiculously stupid that it is truly mind boggling.
Doing her duty to rally the folks that understand the dog whistle and the outright racist connotation. Ugh.
I do not feel misled or a conspiracy, what's with these folks? It's the rhetoric to which they are addicted.
I just find her silence on the recent use of the word retard amazing. She made such a outraged protest earlier I expected her making the same round of Fox shows waving her Mamma Bear credentials as she bloviated. But nothing not a peep, so quiet in fact I was sure she was up on the glaciers away from all technology but apparently not.
The cynic in me might think she only takes offense to the use of the word when they are in the other party.
Oh, you would not believe how hard the wingnuts down in the fever swamps are trying to find conspiracy and cover up in the gaps of knowledge on this idiotic thing. I would point you to an incredible amount of effort being put into this -- and they're doing the work for free because they know, THEY JUST KNOW evil stuff has happened -- but I don't want to give free advertisement.
There are always more ways to skin a cat than there are cats up for skinning . Just like there are only so many ways to say , no matter what your good thing is , the personal stuff just needs to be quiet or embarrasing .
There must be some good advice for dear old Sara Palin . The trouble is how would she know .
Sippie Wallace -
Women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don't advertise your man
Don't sit around gossiping, explaining what your good man really can do
Some women nowadays, Lord they ain't no good
They will laugh in your face, Then try to steal your man from you
Women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don't advertise your man
Your best girlfriend, she might be a highbrow, she changes clothes 3 times a day
What do you think she's doing now, while you're so far away
She's loving your man in your own damn bed
You better call for the doctor, mama, try to investigate your head
Women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don't advertise your man
Women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don't advertise your man
Don't sit around, girl, telling all your secrets,
Telling all those good things he really can do
If you talk about your baby, you tell me he's so fine
Lord honey, I just might sneek up and try to make him mine
Women be wise, keep your mouth shut, don't advertise your man
Don't be no fool, don't advertise your man (baby don't do it) -
Is anyone really surprised after hearing the explanation of Paul Revere's ride from this moron....
Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are morons.
"You can sweep the trash out of the trailer but you can't sweep the trailer out of the trash"...er...a...sorry...just shukin' and jivin'. Once Palin got a taste of the big money there was no turning back...which is exactly why she resigned from office...the smell of big money. Most people see this obvious behavior and stopped giving serious thought to her bought and sold opinions.
BTW Mr. Benen...wish you would show how America could make it more expensive to provide goods and services from out of the country and bring them back here as it would be to just provide them here at home. Also now's a good time to show how Pelosi's House got bills passed to begin doing this but they were killed by republican filibuster in the senate. Just saying...and wishing my opinion could be as widespread as Palin's-ha.