Barack Obama is AWB: articulate while black -- a commentary from 1/25/07 (pre-Biden) [View All]

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http://www.racialicious.com/2007/01/25/barack-obama-is-awb-articulate-while-black/

About This Post
Written by Philip Arthur Moore
January 25th, 2007 at 8:00 am

Barack Obama is AWB: articulate while black

by guest contributor Philip Arthur Moore, originally published at TheThink

Why do I keep finding news articles about Barack Obama that conspicuously mention how “articulate” he is?

Reality check: ‘Barry’ Obama attended Columbia University, Harvard Law School, and was the first ever black American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review. His educational biography is impressive, to say the least, and when he stormed into the national spotlight at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, we should have taken note of how “articulate” Obama was with the English language (his native language, by the way) and moved on. Instead, writers, taking adjectives from the same play book and arranging them just slightly differently, are harping on how well Barack Obama can speak about as much as they harp on how well George W. Bush mangles the English language (which, incidentally, is also his native tongue).

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I could continue on with this game until 2008 comes, but I’d rather not. I simply would like to draw more attention to the gross overuse of the term “articulate” when Barack Obama’s name comes up in newspapers, television shows, or conversation.

For those of you who do not quite understand what is so problematic about the word “articulate” being used on Barack Obama, it would do you well to talk to a group of educated black Americans to understand how this seemingly harmless compliment can be perceived as something entirely different than a positive characterization of one’s oratory abilities.

Or, you can always enter in the phrase “you speak so well” +black into a Google search query to see what I’m talking about.

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http://www.racialicious.com/2007/01/25/barack-obama-is-awb-articulate-while-black/