Justice delayed is not justice denied. At least not for you guys. I have thought long and hard about who to appoint as your official Jesse Sharpton--The One White Person To Speak For You All. The task is grueling in ways that you can not comprehend. And for those reasons, I shall not announce your leader/diplomat/kingmaker/spokesperson today. I thought about claiming CP time. But it was recently pointed out to me that the brothers can't take the rap for this too. The fact is that I'm moving on MW (Magazine Writer's) time. You shall hear from me soon enough. I assure you all that you will get to the Promised Land. Even though most of you are already there. Except for Lions fans. And white people who live in Gary, Indiana. I feel for you.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
did anyone say laura linney? is there anyone whiter than laura linney?
I know the polls are closed but it will be a grave injustice if Laura Linney isn't chosen! She's paid her dues! We will fight for Linney as she has fought for her country - she even played the wife of a president of this country, and founding father! We're NOT bitter!
What about just picking Joe Biden?
No need to explain, Mr. Coates.
We white people are honored just to have a colored person of your caliber paying any attention to us at all.
Awwww peep, you almost made me do a little shuffle!
We white people are honored just to have a colored person of your caliber paying any attention to us at all.
Plus TC is so articulate and bright and clean cut. I mean, it's an incredible story, man!
There are people who are Shocked, Shocked I say, that this sort of thing is going on.
I don't think I can compose an e-mail that is Post-Everything enough to convey the richness of the irony necessary to continue this thread.
So I'll just say that I am enjoying it from all sorts of perpectives.
But I still disagree with the final choice.
Lions are 3-0 in preseason, that is as close to the Promised Land that we are going to get.
You shouldn't announce on-line first, instead text to it all voters at 3:00 AM.
As a white person from the Detroit suburbs who was really pulling for Jeff, I feel I am fated to spend more time in the wilderness.
Sigh ...
sv asks: "did anyone say laura linney? is there anyone whiter than laura linney?"
Yeah, that little redheaded guy from that miserable show "thirtysomething."
Ta-Nehisi said: "And white people who live in Gary, Indiana. I feel for you."
I feel for anyone who lives in Gary. It's the ass-ugliest place I've seen in America.
@ CB: You know I just have a funny feeling he's going to pick Joe Biden.
how about a text message?
I feel for anyone who lives in Gary. It's the ass-ugliest place I've seen in America.
But it must be nice to be from a place that makes everybody remember a catchy tune!
I lived my first few years in Gary and was born at Gary Methodist. While my mother was in the hospital after giving birth, people would come up to her and ask, "Is that your white baby in the maternity ward?" I was the only white child in the ward at the time. She found this fairly funny.
Take your time. It doesn't matter who you pick - Mayor Carcetti speaks for me across the board.
Clearly you don't understand Why We Can't Wait.
Actually, we don't have to wait anymore. We have one of our own - if Michele will share him!
Can you inform us by text message?
Dammit, forgot to read first.
I'm mid-western, middle-aged, white and a faithful reader of your young blog, and I have no idea WTF you are talking about in this post. I mean zilch, zippo, nada. Hopefully the younger and hipper commenters will clue me in, because I haven't even reached the 'confused' level of engagement. I'm still back with my dog at "huh?"
I'd actually like to nominate the dude who posted just before me, "sab": "I haven't even reached the 'confused' level of engagement..." That's perfect. I know he speaks for me, and for all white America.
Can you inform us by text message?
I will use text messaging--to inform my black readers who I've selected. They will need fair warning. The rest of you will get it as it trickles out. I suggest posting at black barbershop. You stand a good chance of overhearing who you new leader is there.
And sab, I'm going to resist the urge to make jokes. There are no hyperlinks in this post. I'll change that. Try reading it then.
Rather than CP time, or MW time, neither of which terms I am qualified to use, I think of the longer-named Left-Wing-Mostly-Volunteer-Community-Action-Group Time. 'Cause none of the events for any of the groups like that I'm involved with ever start anywhere near on time, and it's folks of all races and backgrounds and occupations responsible.
Somehow I'm thinking your more top-down, John Birch Society-type right-wing meetings don't have that sort of problem.
Yes, I realized nominations have closed, but for some reason I just realized who would be the perfect spokesman for white folks: Cary Grant. (Maybe it was the rhyme of Cary with Gary? Anyway...) Why? 1) Grant Made being white actually seem cool, but 2) not that cool, and anyway 3) it was back in the '50s, and 4) now he's dead.
Sab --
Ok, it is a tongue-in-cheek reference to how Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson come on a talk show to "explain how black people feel" about some issue -- as though black people hold some monolithic opinion or worse as though those gentlemen are qualified to describe it.
Richard Cohgen, since he already thinks that he's got the gig.
Don't blame me, I voted for Don Draper. But... How could Mitt Romney not have been nominated? He is surely the whitest guy ever. Didn't you watch his interpretation of "Who Let the Dogs Out"?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDwwAaVmnf4
Following ilikepie:
....And so Ta-Nehisi had an election to select a better spokesperson for black America and lo, it was Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian. Which is far better in every way than Al or Jesse. For one thing, he has a cape.
And then, in the interests of fairness, TNC decided that white people could vote on a representative, so we don't get stuck with Cokie Roberts and James Carville.
On which, I still like C3PO. But I want to add in Roy Blount Jr, who is funny, and Tom Bodett, who is soothing like Garrison Keillor but not too soothing.
As Long as we're waiting for a spokesperson could we have a food list and a Music List too? As a white person I find it hard to navigate the cultural mores of my society when I constantly have to wonder if as I white person I am forced to defend among others David Allan Coe, Ozzy Ozzbourne, and Justin Timberlake. I tell you it aint easy being a white dude in America.
(TNC LOVE the Irony man keep up the good work.)
I see where this is going and, on behalf of the Great Les Grossman, I want to take this occasion to tell our black overlords, "Gofuck Yourselves!"
Because I'm not a total jerk, I want to share this thing on McCain's Prisoner Problem (that I've posted elsewhere) with Ta-Nehisi's lackys:
John McCain Multiple Choice Test:
Senator McCain is a Prisoner of __________ (Choose no more than 7 because more than 7 would be too many.)
(a) War
(b) The guys running his campaign
(c) Lobbyists
(d) Lobbyists running his campaign
(e) The Bush administration
(f) His wife’s fortune
(g) Ambition
(h) Ambition fed by his wife's fortune
(i) The GOP base
(j) His maverickyness
(k) A bad temper and a mean spirit
(l) Stuff Mark Salter made up for the books McCain
(m) Love
(n) Self-love
(o) Gaffes
(p) Gooks
(q) Azkaban
(r) Zenda
It's too bad a spokesman must necessarily be alive, because I don't think anyone could top Bing Crosby. I guess we could just put "White Christmas" on an infinite loop.
Jon, the spokesperson (PERSON! not MAN!) doesn't need to be alive. In fact they don't even need to exist at all in the temporal-spatial sense.
I can't believe we didn't think of C3PO until now! Crap!
On which, I still like C3PO
I'm not sure white people are ready for a gay leader.