Told You So: The NY Times has Discovered "Baracka Flacka Flames" and They Love It

The New York Times has "discovered" the abysmal "Baracka Flacka Flames" video. And predictably, the white gaze (with the incumbent whiteness of a cultural establishment that so often takes pleasure in the voyeuristic pleasures of neo-minstrel coonery) finds it brilliant.

The Times' piece has yielded two more data points: we now know that Barack Obama is played by comedian James Davis, and the video is produced and directed by Martin Usher. Both of whom are presumably African American. Score one for the team. Also score two points for black on black crime.

A quotable from "Prez N the Hood: A Hip-Hop Parody Stirs Issues":

And Waka Flocka Flame appears to be of mixed opinion on the song. “That they used it to be so sarcastic, it was almost a form of disrespect,” he said. He shared it on Twitter, though only to “let other people see how ignorant other people can be,” he asserted, not wholly convincingly. His manager, Debra Antney (who is also his mother), said she called up the influential hip-hop video site WorldstarHipHop.com to have the clip removed, to no avail. “That’s not a positive image for us, period, as African-Americans, where we came from, where we’re going today,” she said.

Mr. Davis, though, said he believed that the sort of humor in the clip helped move beyond basic binaries about racial representation. “I can speak to the educated black guy and the hood black guy,” he said. “The fact that we can come out and put on a full production like this in an area where there’s gang violence, in what people would consider the hood, is important to me.”

And he believes that the president wouldn’t be offended by his portrayal, if he ever sees it. “I don’t know what it takes to get to Obama,” Mr. Davis said. “If the White House is like other businesses, other offices, he probably knows about it. Maybe it’s on his to-do list: fix the economy, health care, watch this link.”

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We all have to negotiate these muddy waters in our own way. But, I would suggest that the creators of the "Baracka Flacka Flames" video take to heart Dave Chappelle's explanation for why he left his once beloved television show, "that sometimes they are laughing at you, and not with you."

The entire article from The New York Times can be found here.