For Limbaugh, ‘uppity’ a choice word

12th December 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Dwight Ott
Contributing Writer

(Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune) – When was the last time you heard the word “uppity?”
That’s what talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called the president’s wife in one of his recent rants. The radio talk-show host used the term some weeks ago in explaining why it was right for a NASCAR crowd to boo Michelle Obama, who was at the event with Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president.

The word “uppity” has a troubled history when it comes to Blacks. It has, in the past, tended to inflame racial tensions, not calm them.

But that did not deter the bombastic Limbaugh from throwing this flammable verbiage at the first lady of the U.S. At least one local veteran politician said such racial-tinged rowdiness would likely get worse as the country moves toward the November 2012 presidential elections.

The trouble started [Sunday/Nov. 24] when first lady Obama and second lady Biden were booed and jeered at a NASCAR Sprint Cup finale at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida.

Some liberals were so outraged by the disrespect for an American first lady, that concerns were raised that such incidents could further lend the event a different meaning for the word “race” in the title “NASCAR race track.” This view was reinforced by the revelation that the two women were at the event to support men and women in the armed services through a program called “Joining Forces,” not to push politics or their own personal agendas.

Rush Limbaugh rushed to the rescue of the NASCAR crowd. That audience, he said, is known for its southern conservatism, much the way his own “Ditto-heads” listeners are.

Claiming to know what the audience was thinking, he said the racecar fans were angry over Michelle Obama [a woman he has called “Moo-Chelle” and the “first linebacker”]. The anger, he said, stemmed from the first lady’s telling Americans how to eat and exercise. He said they were also angry over the country’s economic condition and Obama’s claim that people like some of the NASCAR fans clung to their Bibles and guns.

He added that they were also angry over Mrs. Obama’s recent use of a Boeing 747 jet to fly the family to a vacation spot before the president arrived.

“NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste [to take Boeing 747],” he said. “They understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism.”

Limbaugh, a rotund former drug addict, may have his own personal reasons for resenting the first lady, especially when she tells audiences how to discipline their eating and exercise habits to fight the contagion of obesity in America.

But even for political veterans like former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode — who know a thing or two about being booed — the booing and Limbaugh comments were out of line. He said the booing did not support the notion of a “colorblind America,” which conservatives touted after Barack Obama’s election as the first U.S. Black president. Goode said there was “more underlying this.”

“It’s not unusual for public officials to be booed at sporting events,” said Goode, who is now a minister. “What made it surprising was that [the first and second lady] were not there in support of the president or herself. She was there to promote more support for the armed services. Even though the booing was traditional, there was more underlying this.”

He said the booing and Limbaugh comments revealed deep-seated racial resentment.

“Underlying this is a group of white conservatives and others who never accepted Obama as president and Michelle as first lady or the first family as first family of this nation.”

He added: “We all need to recognize that racism is alive and well in this community and is manifested by this and by members of Congress who refuse to accept Obama as their leader. His wife, Michelle, too is sometimes a victim of such hatred and dislike.”

He said the situation would grow worse as the country approaches the Nov. 6, 2012 presidential elections.

“This will not go away. It will intensify as we move to the elections of 2012.”

This article was originally published in the December 12, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper