A writer for the liberal news site Salon opined that Attorney General Eric Holder is President Barack Obama's "inner n-gger."
Rich Benjamin was reacting Friday to Obama's surprise remarks about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman's acquittal. Dubbing the speech "safe, overrated and airy," Benjamin contrasted Obama's "danc[ing] around the issues" of race while Holder, speaking to the NAACP this week, gave "trenchant thoughts on the acquittal, demanding action."
A writer for liberal site Salon called Attorney General Eric Holder President Barack Obama's "inner n-gger." (AP)
Obama "refuse[d] to say anything insightful or profound about the acquittal," wrote Benajmin, a senior fellow with the liberal group Demos and an MSNBC contributor. "In signature professorial style, the president gave us the 'context' to the episode and to black people’s 'pain.' But he didn’t offer a meaningful opinion on the episode’s hot molten core: racial profiling, vigilantism, and 'Stand Your Ground' laws."
Image source: Demos
He wrote:
Some of us have an Inner Child. Others have an Inner N-gger. Is Holder the president’s conscience? Or his Inner N-gger?Is Holder the president’s aggressive internal mind and voice — willing to speak truth to power, but unbothered with appearing like an angry black man?
"Obama’s Dark Doppelganger," Benjamin continued, also spoke bluntly in a 2009 speech when he called America “a nation of cowards” for avoiding the race issue -- "retreating to our race protected cocoons, where much is comfortable and where progress is not really made."
"The Secret Service calls the president 'Renegade,' his agency nickname," Benjamin observed. "It seems, these days, that Holder is the real renegade. The country’s Rogue Negro. And the president’s repressed Black Id."
Furious reaction to Benjamin's piece was swift, including from fellow MSNBC contributors Goldie Taylor and Joy Reid. Taylor tweeted at Salon: "TAKE IT DOWN."
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Benjamin responded to the furor calling it a legitimate question whether Holder embodies Obama's "complex double consciousness."
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