black…MYstory

I guess Georgia Republican Representative Lynn Westmoreland must have caught a plantantation flashback.  In a interverview yesterday, he was comparing vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to Michelle Obama (oddly enough, I didn’t realize Michelle Obama was running for vice president but, I digress) and offered the following:

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity.”

He was then asked to clarify that he said “uppity” and he stated:

“Uppity, yeah.”

Uppity is a word that has often been used to disparage black people who some white folks believed were too proud of themselves or, more often, were perceived to be not acting in “their place” on the racial hierarchy.  In other  words, an “uppity negro” was one who had the audacity to believe that he/she was equal to a white person.

So, to hear someone, particularly a Southern politician who would be well aware of the implications of such a word, using it to describe two black people, leads me to believe that he was using it in the racially-tinged way that it has come to signify.

So, Rep. Westmoreland, from this uppity negro, I present to you the “Middle Finger” award.

Popularity: 13% [?]