I found Joan's reasoning and excuses as offensive as the commentary by Erin....Yet as a Black man I do understand the various impacts and influences white racism has on Black folks in this culture it really has harmed and destroyed many people...

Erin's actions are not new but for me what is more significant is how white liberals will response to a reality of Black personhood they have never witnessed or observed on a scale of this nature..A liberated Black man with a set of paradigms unk to the so-called progressives is really life altering and will be a series of events that will truly alter american culture....

This is a threshold moment and it is truly awesome on every plane of reality

Next thing you know they will be clamouring for a full frontal calendar of our President Elect in all his naked glory.

But, on the other hand, I gather Ahmedinajob, Chavez, and Putin have very tiny (pardon the expression) dicks.

So this could really enhance our diplomatic stature abroad, in more ways than one, if you really think about it. And the broads will love it too. This President could get everything he f...... wants for all of us, my frems!

It might give the Obama Administration a leg up when he meets with these guys.

Unlike Walter Map, at least I can admit when I am wrong.

What do you think is wrong with that guy anyway?

I differ with Salon.com much if not most of the time. I even refer to it as saloon.com and stalin.com.

White people are generally clueless about African American sensibilities and this piece takes the cake, focusing on Michelle's nice but irrelevant buttocks.

So, even if these rich limousine liberals don't have the class to apologize, I will apologize for them, because they are too smug and supposedly too hip to apologize for themselves.

You see, they think it is such a big deal that they voted for Barrack and sent him lots of money, that makes them feel entitled to get down like they were funky, and comment on Michelle's fullsome ass-buttocks.

Yes this is horribly racist.

It is.

And. I am sorry for these sorry m.....f's.

How very white of Joan Walsh. She thinks that it is ok to offend black people if she can find another black person to do it.

Proud of this piece? Salon is always proud to find hack writers who are black. I think you must do a casting call to find them.

Most black people were offended by this piece of trash. Walsh doesn't address that very simple fact so I guess I'll read the NY Post or National Review online. They are openly racist so I won't be shocked when I see the proof in print.

"The serious theme underlying this article is the way black bodies have been sexualized, exploited and abused throughout history."

I think the statement above greatly over-intellectualizes the historic power dynamic between blacks & whites in the U.S.- there was/is no quasi-mystical power in big black female buttocks- they were simply available to white men whenever the whim struck and could be taken with no recourse available to the woman being assaulted.

Mythologizing the black female form negates a very simple, very ugly truth- for too long black women were seen merely as a warm moist expedient receptacle for a white man's penis in a time of momentary lust, and absolutely no further thought was put into it than that, other than where was the nearest brush to drag her in to.

That is the ugly history we are trying desperately to put behind us, and it is the history that we must again confront on some level when faced by an article like that written by Kaplan- yes, it makes we tight-assed liberals extremely uncomfortable, and perhaps it is from that which Kaplans draws at least some of her "joy"...

Nice gesture but really ERIN Kaplan cheap pulp fiction to validate her Blackness at the expense of Black woman is a very old custom in Black venues..We have long tolerated black apologists, self esteem challenged Black folks, all manner of Black folks that have been wounded by white racism, privledge, supremacy,etc you know the script...

I am sadden that people Like Joan and salon fear the reality of this moment and threshold chapter of American life about to unfold in full view on jan 20, 2009....

I'm like the white base drummer in "Drum Line."

Remember him? He said, "I just love black people!"

I think he was one of those rare few: a black person born into a white body, which is why he could drum so well.

My best friend in high school was a white drummer who had really good chops. One day we went to this club in Perth Amboy, where this black band was really cooking, and they let my buddy, Noel, sit in. He did the best he could and they were all smiling at him when the set was done. He made the mistake of saying, "you know, guys, I wish I was black." and they all looked at him like he was crazy.

All my life, it's been like that. In the Army they kicked me and all my black friends out of this MP unit because we didn't fit in. Sent us to infantry to die in Vietnam.

Talk about bad. Besides being stupid, this article is racist, poorly written and just,well, come on, it's just dumb. However, unfortunately, it's kinda typical of the stuff in Salon.

being black is not a uniform or a script, or a costume..I do respect your integrity just as you are..BTW there really is no difference when it comes down to respect and humanity we are all human beings at the end of the teardrops...

About time is right. I've hated walking down a hall of presidents and seeing one white guy after another.

I got kicked out of the Peace Corps in 1963 in Washington DC where I was training to go to the Middle East and teach English. They said we shouldn't go on that march because there would be violence. I went on that march anyway, and it was one of the most wonderful experiences in my life, my friend. It was as big a high as we are all feeling now.

Bottom line: after getting kicked out of the Peace Corps by that white liberal administration I ended up getting drafted four months later and wound up in Vietnam 12 months later.

I'm not complaining. I survived. I survived and then some.

Cheers.