As only Sarah Palin could do, she has confirmed she is a racist, while attempting to show that she isn’t racist! Here is the original remark of Palin made via her Twitter comment:

 

“Obama’s Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies.”

 

As a result of that comment, it was obvious that Palin was making a racist remark for no particular reason, except that she is racist.  Nothing about Obama’s handling of the Benghazi matter related in any way to his race. People across the country were outraged, not at Palin’s attacks of President Obama, as we have heard those for the last four years. However as Palin is becoming increasing irrelevant, she has to work harder to grab headlines, so she has now resorted to spewing racist remarks. After people across the country expressed outrage at Palin’s choice of words, Palin expressed her outrage, at our outrage, by confirming that she is in fact racist. She said:

“I would have used the exact same expression if I had been writing about President Carter, whose foreign policy rivaled Obama’s in its ineptitude, or about the Nixon administration, which was also famously rocked by a cover-up,”

What Palin doesn’t understand is that by using the phrase “Shuck and Jive” about anyone, she is making a racist remark. To “shuck and jive” means to intentionally mislead by words or actions, and was associated with African-Americans trying to deceive white men in power. It was widely used in the 1920’s.

 

Wikipedia confirms that people trace the origins of the phrase to a period when slaves sang and shouted gleefully during corn-shucking season, and was associated with lying, teasing, and evasive behavior exhibited when dealing with “white people.” According to the 1994 book by Clarence Major, ‘Juba to Jive, a Dictionary of African-American Slang,’ ‘shuck and jive’ dates back to the 1870s. It was a southern ‘Negro’ expression for clowning, lying, and pretense.

In case you might think that Palin used the phrase innocently, think again. The phrase was used in 2008, by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo, about Barack Obama when he said:

“You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference.”

Cuomo received significant media criticism for his use of the phrase. Roland Martin of CNN explained that ““Shucking and jiving” have long been words used as a negative assessment of African Americans, along the lines of a “foot shufflin’ Negro.””

 

Some sociologists believe terms like “shuck and jive”, particularly when applied to African Americans, reflect a degree of covert racism  Clearly, Palin meant what she said, and said what she meant. If she uses this phrase to describe people other than African-Americans, she is still comparing those people to African Americans in a racists, derogatory way. To admit that she uses this phrase often to describe other people, doesn’t vindicate her, but only confirms that she uses racist comments often and without regard to their offensive nature. For Palin to suggest that she didn’t intend this remark as a racist remark would be like saying she wasn’t intending to be racist when she said “Sambo beat the bitch,” but that she just forgot Obama’s name and she uses “Sambo” to describe anyone whose name she doesn’t remember.

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