i don't usually like videos that are just wall-to-wall hot girls, but this one was special.

Maybe next time Obama can reference a Decemberists song, or maybe LCD Soundsystem. Something for the tight-jeans/Chuck Taylor-wearing set. Someone forward him a link to Pitchfork Media.

U R HILARIOUZ

I don't know the Jay-Z song either but I still - w/o needing to be clued into the specific reference - understood he was saying that you have to brush off the attacks of others. After all the brushing off the shoulders motion as a non-verbal visual cue is universally known and used.

Do you own the "over the head" motion now? If I use it when speaking to others who have not seen your new hit video will I be considered an elitist too?

Cute, but your logic fails.

I guess I don't get any of it. Other than if this is all about another chance for Feit to launch more N-bombs, then I get it.

its NOT condescension, it is a sincere attempt to explain why the politics of division by wedge issues must be understood & leapfrogged. if it takes quoting jay z to make you lumpen proles understand, then the ends justify the means.

anyway, you know he's the best choice of the 3 by 10 zillion miles, so STFU, stop kneecapping him because you're "toughening him up" for the eventual GOP slime, & support his ass.

I didn't know about Jay Z but I understood brushing something off your shoulders. This worldview also explains why he didn't go rabid on Clinton in the debate, when they put the weapons right in front of him.

Josh: "elitist" and clueless/out of the loop are two different things.

Support Obama! He is our God now!!!

It's posts like these that make me wonder if I'm white enough to read SLOG.

Seriously, dude.

All,

Clarification: I got that he was saying dust it off or water off a duck's back ... I just didn't get that it was culturally hep gesture provided by Jay-Z. ... which is what makes it.

I can understand this. I mean, clearly the metaphor Obama employed is too nuanced and sophisticated for a man of the people like Josh to understand without Jay-Z there to help him.

Oddly, no one in the audience had trouble with it. I guess they're all Jay-Z fans. Or latte-sipping NPR listeners. Or both. Or something.

[...]condescension. That is, Obama is evidently smart enough to contextualize issues while he thinks Wright and working-class whites are not.

It's not about who is smarter, Josh, and Obama has never referenced intelligence or assumed that voters are too dumb to understand him.

On the contrary: He's asking them to contextualize the world, to view it beyond the sound bites and news-fed opinions. That requires some faith in the American voter's intelligence.

You and everyone who thinks that Obama is being rude or uppity by talking straight to the American people, imcorporating nuance, history and all, are being condescending. You feel that he's not speaking to the common man when he goes beyond platitudes-- and he is.

its NOT a "jay z thing". its an urban reference.
jay z was referencing the same thing in his old song that obama referenced in this conference. he possibly knew the jay z connection, but only a retard wouldnt get what his hand gesture meant....why is this such a big deal?
random youtube and slog people decided to name it the jay z thing to be cute, or cause they are too stupid to just understand the metaphor that a child could understand. i mean, he spelled out what he meant using his words.

whats wrong with you people?

Awesome! Thanks, Josh!

Now I know how to visibly identify the stupidest asshole in Seattle!

See you around! ;)

Ignorance + Condescension = "However, it struck me during the silliness that less than a year from now, the basic image of black men may be in for a serious upgrade."

What you said V @ 13. After all, when he talks about recognizing the danger of dividing ourselves in our tendency to focus on wedge issues rather than our shared issues - he's talking TO us, not ABOUT us. Anybody who says Obama is elitist and hasn't read The Nation's "Obama's Community Roots," from the 4/03/07 issue, should do so: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg

1. Saying anyone clings to their beliefs is condescending. Explaining other people's beliefs as due to historical factors ourside their contorl like the economy is condescending. The SF comments were condescending. so is the repeated whine that other people are "obsessing" about things that are irrelevant. if other people think it is relevant then

it is relevant.

2. HRC was in her element? Fuck him.

BHO is in the same element.

HE litigated his way to winning his first race -- he got everyone else thrown off the ballot!

He lies or stretches all the time there are 1-- examples here are a few:

(a) McCain wants to be in Iraq 100 years when the CONTEXT of that remark was he is okay with it if no deaths as in Korea or W Germany
(b) constantly saying Clinton in the 90s is the same as Bush -- a rotten gutter like slander

(C) obviously bullshitting as per Josh Feit like when he said "oh I wasn't in the pew when he said that stuff"
(d) he takes oil co. execs donations, just not oil cos. donations
(e) he takes lawyer donations from law firms that lobby, just not lobbyist donations
(f) he claims he is so diff. on Iraw yet he admits if he had been in the Senate he does not know if he would have voted like HRC did. He also supported Kerry who voted like HRC did. So in 2004 he supported Kerry and had no problems with his judgment yet now he says HRC showed no judgment. And he can't even attest he would not have made the same judgment.

WTF??

in the end he's no different than most other pols -- not so diff than HRC BTW -- and 90% of the things most BHO lovers hate about HRC are just GOP lies anyway....the BHO folks IOW have picked up the GOP playbook....

so the entire claim to be different and holier than thou is a load of pure horse manure.
What a snob.

So basically if you address an audience as through they can actually figure things out and contextualize ideas, your condescending and elitist? But if you pretend to be down with the man on the street, you're sincere? I'm not sure people really understand what condescension means anymore. When Clinton or Obama pretend to like things that average working class whites like to garner their votes, that's condescension. However, assessing a class in an objective, even harsh manner is pretty much the opposite of condescension. Contempt maybe. Condescension, no.

Connecting himself to Jay-Z in any way shape or form, or any hip hop or even pop star, or being "culturally hep" in any way, is going to be an enormous negative for Obama. The attitude that it's somehow a good thing for a political candidate to be making references like this is insane. It's going to cost him millions of votes. Is America ready for a black president? Yes. A hip hop president? Not in a million years.

Hipness is a huge political negative. Don't go there.

Fnarf@20 is right, but there's a difference between flaunting hipness and quietly alluding to it.

agreed.

unPC @ 18

i am genuinely interested in learning about some playing-field levelers about obama. seriously. Not joking. i really do want to read about some of the negative aspects of obama.
could you please post your sources for these claims about him?

hey josh!
whats up, shock jock?
next stop...morning zoo crew!

you're such a douche.

Fnarf, you're being hysterical if you think this is going to cost Obama millions of votes. Most people won't even realize what he was doing.

In the audience, when looking forward at him, on the left side is an older white male gentleman, on the right is a younger white lady and an older white lady. When he made the shoulder brushing gesture the crowd got up and cheered exorbitantly, as did the older male and younger female. The older lady sat still, but from what I could see she was clapping and cheering from her seat. That white male had no idea what he was cheering for, unless Jay-Z opened the show, which isn't something I've read. NO FREAKING IDEA. While I realize it was a gesture that could be reasonably understood, it does not merit the kind of attention it received without the pop culture reference.

I also noticed when Obama goes on to attack Clinton for attacking him, just before he does the hand gesture he says it's "all right." He uses the standard verbal abbreviation, alright, with what I noticed to be a pronunciation that is directly between the common pronunciation (awl-rahyt) and the pronunciation (aight) that is so commonly used in Ebonics.

I just stopped believing he is any more genuine and any less contrived than any of the other political machines (candidates), he's just got different consultants than the usual Washington crowd. He'd be a different President, for sure, but probably not any better.

Oh yeah. You just stopped believing. M-hm.

i'm not sure it will cost millions of votes. but it did seem like a slightly different obama. then i saw the video where he was explaining what he likes about hip hop and what he doesn't... and i thought it was a bit strange.

@24,

I'm a douche?

Thanks for the specific critique.

How is it elitist to have a Jay-Z reference go over your head, unless you're positing a lack of familiarity with Jay-Z as a superior quality to have?

Anyway, I'm with Jon Stewart. I'd rather have a president who's smarter than me, or elitist, if you'd prefer, and it's too bad more voters don't feel the same.

Josh. Seriously? You and I are the same age. We have a lot of the same reference points. You sound like a crazy old man with this post.

Dirt Off Your Shoulder was a HUGE hit for Jay-Z. It has been sampled and mashed-up to death. It's a fucking cut.

Even if you aren't out in the clubs, or don't listen to hip hop, or have no idea about the Jigga Man, this song was pretty unavoidable for a long time.

Thank god he didn't pop his collar. Hip hop is not some underground movement. It is the predominant musical culture in America, and has been for some time.

@21: you are correct. Fnarf, Obama slyly referenced a hip hop song. He didn't walk onstage to NWA's Fuck Tha Police.

Jesus Christ. Hire some more black people at The Stranger.

Another thing: @14 has a valid point. "Brushing your shoulders off" was not invented by Jay-Z, just as "raising your hands in the air" was not created by MCs, but, rather, from the old timey gospel.

To understand cultural reference points is to know the people you want to lead. Barack Obama is the first Presidential candidate we've had that can do this.

Hillary references SNL and slams back a shot of booze. Ladies is pimps too? Not with that sort of same-as-it-ever-was frat boy behavior.

@24,
Please do not insult Douches.

Josh is an aging dweeb.

Josh appears to be going all Travis Bickel on us.

Obviously Josh has never had to work hard physical labor in his life ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnzKegOZkGI&feature=related

BHO's gesture is NOT a reference to Jay-Z!! It's an old folktale

--"dust the dirt off your shoulders" does not originate with Jay-Z--nor is it goateed hipster irony..... It's an old folktale (so much for culutural literacy ...)

The idea dates back to an story about a donkey who is being buried alive in a well by a mean farmer..... Eventually the donkey realizes that if he just shakes "the dirt off his shoulders" he can keep stepping on the dirt and eventually he will be lifted out of the well.

Props to http://blog.szczawinski.com/... for noticing this... see also

http://www.hollyspringsfarm.com/...

Not everything is about the young people.....

Hey Josh,

Too bad you don't know any black people. You could have spared yourself the embarrassment of this post by asking them to explain the reference. Too busy with the rest of the white hipsters in Seattle who prefer to limit their association with blacks to the canidate they vote for president. That way they can get the poser cred. without actually having to speak to one.

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