IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP(ESS)

LAWN JOCKEY ALERT! Sorry, Bob, to the Lawn you go...

Especially if you're Hillary Clinton. She's done everything to make this campaign about race.

Not the issues - cause she and Barack Obama are twins in the Senate. At least Obama can say he was anti-war; the Borg Queen has the Iraq War vote on her record and refuses to apologize for it.

Then, she trots out her husband to tell us "Uppity Negroes" to get in line and vote for his wife, because, to hear him put it, Barack Obama is nothing more than a "kid" whose campaign is a "fairy tale". She's even got Bob "Sell-Out" Johnson to crack that whip on us uppity Negroes, and round us up back to the plantation.

Excuse me, but since I was born during "Camelot", I kinda like that shyt, and wouldn't mind seeing it revisited, even in the guise of Barack Obama.

Why? Because his campaign is about hope. And if you give up Hope, you have given up, period.

No, the Christian Progressive Liberal hasn't hopped on the Obama train just yet. He needs to quit talking noise about bombing Pakistan, and keeping troops in Iraq until 2013. He also needs to come clean on where he's getting his cheddar for this race. Grass roots can do plenty, but he's beyond grass roots (I'm smelling DLC largesse here).

However, having the Big Dog to imply that I need to get in my place and vote for his wife is giving me gas. His wife can't win on the issues; so they dig up race. Need we be reminded that when all is said and done, while Hillary may have the nomination at a very high and bitter cost, unlike 1980, when Ted Kennedy and Jimmy Carter kissed and made up, Hillary Clinton's smoking the good stuff that would facilitate such delusions if her camp keeps it up with the Obama attacks.

And trotting out Bob Johnson, the biggest corporate sell-out ever, does not do the campaign good; in fact, it might help Obama. African-Americans are still trying to live down that minstrel show known as Black Entertainment Television. Johnson sold out to Viacom, took his payday and told us Black people to "piss off; I never knew ya."

African-Americans like me have been trying to beg Comcast to extract BET from our cable lineup, as well as Faux Network. We shouldn't have to pay for cable channels we don't watch.

Well, guess what Bob? You're not "Big-Time" Bob Horry and this campaign is not the NBA playoffs. You want to be a fool, do it on your own dime. You can even carry the Borg Queen's water. I'm just wondering what the hell has she promised you, Magic Johnson, the Congressional Black Caucus members like John Lewis, Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson and Champagne Charlie Rangel, to go out and diss Obama like y'all doing?

I know, I know - the brotha stepped into Congress and when he didn't do his "lawd-mercy; I's glad to be up in here Senate" dance and jive for y'all; when he didn't start up with passing out the money train passes for campaigns like you wanted, and when you damned near had to put a gun on him to venture into Tennessee and campaign for someone he absolutely could not stand (Harold Ford, Jr.), Obama pissed off all of you with his independence. Not to mention some of you sistas were engaging in reverse sexual harassment and the brotha has a fine woman at the house. Why would you think he'd want ground round when he had filet mignon waiting for him at home?

So you're now engaging in a deranged and retarded form of payback on Obama by endorsing the Borg Queen. That was fine, as long as race wasn't the factor.

But her husband, her minions, with their code words "fresh & clean" "Shuck & Jive", "fairy-tale", "Kid", accusing the man of being a drug dealer, and trashing speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., so damned close to his birthday - well, as it did for the top Negro in Congress, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), you should be having second and third thoughts about hitching your wagon to this woman.

You know why Clyburn's having second thoughts? That brotha's a Southern brother who's fluent in code-speak, as most African-Americans who know their history, are fluent in code-speak. We know what a white person is trying to say when they want to be racist, but not sound racist. We know what "kid" means (calling a Black Man a boy as insult); we know what "he speaks so well" mean (as in "Damn, he can talk good for a Negro!?). Clyburn is now thinking, "If that's how the Clintons really feel about African-Americans like me, I might need to give Obama another look-see, cause I'm not feeling the Clintons."

In other words - "If I can't eat at your table, I damned sure don't want your scraps."

As a matter of fact, until Clyburn went public with his remarks, all of this was flying under the radar, but riding high in the Black Blogsphere. You know this pattern of "code-speak" has gotten bad, to the point that Donna Brazile quit straddling the fence and calling a spade a damned spade.

Like anyone else who actually wants to diss MLK, but knows better, you quote his speeches and stretch them the hell out of actual content and context to fit your dissin'. When called on it, you say in protest that you didn't mean what you said. That it came out wrong than you intended. Taken "out of context", if you will.

But, you cannot unring a bell. You cannot recycle a postage stamp. And you damned sure can't eat words back up into your mouth as if they were never said, no matter who's telling you "she didn't mean what she said."

I know Hillary Clinton's getting a bad deal from the press - let's face it, in one of her proudest moments on the "Today" show sixteen years ago, she said that it was a "vast, Right-Wing conspiracy" out to get her and the Big Dog. And, guess what? We cheered that shyt - we loved having a First Lady who was smart, and knew how to hold down a friggin' 9-to-5, and could call the press on their bullshyt, not to mention being politically savvy and not zoned out on Prozac as is the current First Lady. They only trot out Miss Laura when Bush needs to look human.

Hillary's had a target on her back ever since. But that does not give her the right to make this campaign about race, because she has nothing in her arsenal upon which to fight Barack Obama in this campaign. So, because they are determined that nothing - NOTHING, will stop the Clinton agenda, they resort to the one weapon of mass destruction guarateed to destroy the progress made in this country, miminal as it is; that's guaranteed we take our eyes of George Bush's machinations that continue to send this country to hell, and finally, guarantees that the damage done from using this weapon will be of nuclear magnitude. Once those wounds are created, no soft words of apologies or kind words spoken to African-Americans; even the gesture of naming these House Negroes to positions in your Administration where they become nothing more than Lawn Jockeys, will be enough to facilitate healing the breach and polarization that weapon will cause.

And it will all be for nothing, because the rifts caused between the Clintons and African-Americans will be so wide, John McCain and another ReThug Administration will be able to drive right on through, pass "GO!" and collect their $200 dollars.

I hope the Clintons can live with gambling against such high stakes and we all look on, knowing she bet against the House and the House always wins. Even if you have Bob and Magic Johnson in your hip pocket to try and round up the rest of us who ran off and escaped the plantation, because we're hoping for the better.

THE BORG QUEEN RENTS A NEGRO

THE BORG QUEEN AND HER RENTAL NEGRO

Y'all knew that the Borg Queen (aka Senator Hillary Clinton) wasn't going to take Sen. Barack Obama's stealth move in bringing out talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey to campaign for him lying down.

I waited to see what she would do. At first, all it looked like she was going to do was throw down roundhouse punches at Obama's campaign, by digging up what the brotha wrote on his Kindergarten essay, then trying to play on American's fears by bringing up his full name, which his middle name is Hussein (y'all know where she tried to make that connection), and finally, enlisting the aid of Bill Shaheen, the husband of former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, to start talking about Barack's youthful indiscretion (cocaine use), and allegeging he was probably a drug dealer.

Obama a drug dealer? You can't make this stuff up.

But, not to my surprise, the Borg Queen came back with a lil' stealth move of her own.

Magic Johnson. Yes, that Magic Johnson (how many did you think there were?). He joined the Borg Queen on her campaign in Iowa, and instantly went from hero to Handkerchief Head Negro with sly digs and comments about Hillary's "experience" and how we didn't need an inexperienced person getting the White House.

To which, I say, "Negro, please!" As in "Please shut your friggin' mouth; you don't know jack about politics."

Now, this is painful for me to write, because I've always been a Magic Johnson fan. Long after his HIV status forced him to retire from the game. I remember when he made the announcement about his status, thinking, "If anyone can beat this, it's Magic Johnson."

But, to turn into a Handkerchief Head is hard for me to swallow, because Magic Johnson is the last African-American I'd care to pin that label on. Campaigning for the Borg Queen, after her husband goes on Charlie Rose's show and literally dissed an African-American for even daring to consider any other candidate except his wife, frosted my cookies in a huge way that I won't be forgetting too soon.

If Obama's candidacy shows anything to politicos, it should be this: YOU CAN'T CONTINUE TO TAKE AFRICAN-AMERICANS VOTES FOR GRANTED AND NOT HAVE IT COME BACK TO BITE YOU IN THE ASS. We are not a monolithic group - and we don't like African-Americans like Magic Johnson trying to lecture us on who we should elect as POTUS. Especially when the brotha's only foray into politics was a worthy one - stepping up legislative efforts on HIV research, education and prevention.

At least he's done better than Michael Jordan - Mike wants you to "be like him" when he's collecting his checks. Political forays into issues like, say, CIVIL RIGHTS, are alien to him and problematic when it comes to getting that check. Magic eschewed that and remade himself into a remarkable businessman, purchasing and running Starbuck establishments and his Magic Johnson theaters, where going to see a movie can be a really fun experience (he even employs people to throw out those who would talk at the screen non-stop during a movie, and he has good eating going on in there, too). Magic's even gone on to make some forays into Civil Rights issues as well, so going over to what I consider "The Dark Syde" is making me toss my breakfast this morning.

Now, you're probably saying I'm being too hard on Magic, by tagging him a Handkerchief Head for spewing Hillary's talking points about Obama. Even if he didn't mention Obama by name, we all knew who he was talking about. I thought Lawn Jockey was too strong - he didn't go that far off...yet. He should be able to endorse anyone he wants - everyone African-American doesn't have to get on board with Obama. And, you're right, because at this point in the game, this African-American woman is not on board the good ship Obama, because his vagueness on his political platform reminds me of John Kerry - whenever someone asked Kerry for specifics on his campaign promises, he'd tell you to "go to www.JohnKerry.com" for more information, when it's just easier to tell us what you got planned.

A gospel tour with Donnie McClurkin damned near gave the LGBT community apoplexy - I thought John Aravosis at Americablog was going to do more than lynch Obama on his blog. And sending white campaign workers to black hair salons to ask sistas getting perms or their weaves hooked up, what they thought about Obama, showed an inherent unfamiliarity with the demographics of the very base of voters Obama was trying to reach.

My friend Skeptical Brotha, cynically referred to this period of the Obama campaign as "Amateur Hour", and I couldn't have agreed with him more.

Obama appears to have corrected that - just as the Borg Queen begins her own fumbling of her front-runner status.

Should the Borg Queen win - will there be a Cabinet position for loyalist Negroes like Magic? Create a government agency that provides oversight of professional sports, perhaps? I want to know what's in it for African-Americans like Magic Johnson, or, for that matter, half of the Congressional Black Caucus that have hitched your wagons to Hillary Clinton's campaign. You need to review just what the Clinton Administration did for people of ethnic background during the 1990s:

• Gave us trade agreements that took your jobs out of the country (NAFTA & CAFTA);
• Increased taxes on the working and middle-class;
• Opened the door for media consolidation and monopoly (and probably gave birth to Pravda networks like Fox Network);
• Dismantled any and all gains made by Civil Rights and Affirmative Action with that "Mend it, don't end it" shyt;
• Refused to stand up like Harry S. Truman and further integrate the Armed Forces by allowing gay and lesbians to be open about their sexual identity, instead of hiding it with that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" shyt;
• Pushed through all legislation that the ReThugs wanted that would screw over anyone else through cutbacks in social policies and programs;
• Slung people like Joycelyn Elders and Lani Guinier under the bus because Oren Hatch whined about their positions on masturbation and affirmative action like a lil' byotch.

So, I want to know what's in it for you that support the Clintons when it's well documented that everytime he had the opportunity to do some real Field Negro stuff, he always choked and put away that honorary Negro card Toni Morrison gave him. Because his wife is no better on her track record either. You can find continuous votes to fund the mess in Iraq among her atrocities, and her recent attacks on Obama should wake all of us the hell up.

I'm on record about Obama - he has not articulated his policy platform well enough for me to co-sign. But whenever I see a brotha being attacked, as if, by virtue of being Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, Hillary thinks she's entitled to the White House because she hitched her ambition wagon to Bill and suffered the public humiliation of being cheated on because her husband got a blow job in the Oval Office; well, what qualification for the job is that?

Magic Johnson - you can add him to the list of Rent-A-Negroes. I'm wondering who's going to be next, because you know, John Edwards is going to have to trot out a rental Negro, too.