You know Nobel-winner Toni Morrison, “who once dubbed Bill Clinton the ‘first black president,’” endorsed Barack Obama. I was recently reading an item by Greil Marcus (not online) in which he pointed out that Chris Rock said it first. And you know what? the Internet says Greil Marcus is correct: Chris Rock, Saturday Night Live, November 2, 1996; Toni Morrison, The New Yorker, October 1998.
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The Edge of the American West 
21 comments
January 29, 2008 at 12:42 am
Ben Alpers
What’s interesting is that neither Rock nor Morrison used the expression in the sense in which its almost always used today, i.e. to suggest that Bill Clinton has a special rapport with African Americans.
Instead, both Rock and Morrison used the phrase to liken the persecution of Bill Clinton to the false accusations often suffered by Black people.
Here’s Chris Rock (from the link above):
And here’s Toni Morrison (as quoted in anarticle by Elizabeth Alexander posted yesterday on Salon.com):
Although Chris Rock attributes the perception of Clinton’s blackness to himself, while Toni Morrison implicitly attributes it to Clinton’s (presumably white) persecutors (though she may have actually heard it from Rock, I can’t imagine that’s the “murmur” she’s referencing), these are fundamentally similar uses.
The shift in the use of the phrase–from African-Americans making an analogy between the endless attacks on Clinton and their own community’s experience of racism to (predominantly white) pundits uttering a feel-good suggestion that “Clinton understands those people so well he’s practically one of them”–is fascinating. Among other things, it’s an instructive example of the way in which our culture tends to bury and distort certain kinds of discourses about racism.
January 29, 2008 at 6:53 am
NewMexiKen
Good thing Toni Morrison isn’t a historian or the AHA would have to establish a committee to look into her plagiarism.
January 29, 2008 at 6:54 am
eric
To be honest, Ben, I’m not sure I’ve noticed anyone recently being specific about what the Bill Clinton/”black president” meme is supposed to signify.
January 29, 2008 at 7:06 am
eric
committee to look into her plagiarism
Oh, gosh, this wasn’t really supposed to be that kind of post.
January 29, 2008 at 8:23 am
Ben Alpers
Well, I googled “‘first black president’ Clinton” and the names of a lot of news organizations, and I found a lot of examples of the kind of usage that I referred to.
Columnist DeWayne Wickham in a July 2005 column about Clinton in USAToday associated Morrison’s usage with Clinton’s closeness to African Americans and Africans.
Here’s Roland S. Martin on CNN, rejecting the characterization, but parsing it as a (silly, in his opinion) way of saying that he “did right by African Americans.”
And there’s the opening paragraph of a CBS News analysis of Bill Clinton’s recent behavior on the campaign trail:
Jeff Zeleny, in his New York Times “The Caucus” blog report on Morrison’s endorsement of Obama, writes that Morrison “affectionately referred to Bill Clinton as the nation’s first black president.”
Frank James, blogging the same event at The Swamp, the Chicago Tribune Group’s Washington Bureau Blog writes that Morrison “who dubbed former President Bill Clinton the nation’s ‘first black president’ because of his affinity for African-Americans and theirs for him.”
In fact the only place where I ran across any suggestion that the term referred to anything but Clinton’s mutually positive relationship with African Americans was in a predictably offensive recent exchange on the Don Imus radio show, in which co-host Karith Foster produced this brilliant analysis of the debate question to Obama about Clinton’s supposed status:
What I don’t find is anyone clearly using the term in the sense that both Rock and Morrison did: that Clinton was persecuted like black people tend to be persecuted.
January 29, 2008 at 8:24 am
Ben Alpers
Curses….foiled by the lack of a preview button again. There was supposed to be a close blockquote tag at the end of that first blockquoted paragraph.
Sorry.
January 29, 2008 at 8:28 am
eric
Fixed the formatting, Ben. And thanks for substantiating.
January 29, 2008 at 8:40 am
Ben Alpers
Thanks, Eric! Here, by the way, is the link to the Frank James piece at The Swamp, which I neglected to add above.
January 29, 2008 at 8:52 am
SEK
You can’t expect Morrison to be familiar with the work of Chris Rock? What next? You think Maya Angelou’s a fan of Dave Chapelle?
January 29, 2008 at 8:55 am
eric
There has got to be a name for the intersection of Toni Morrison–readers and Chris Rock–cognoscenti. If it weren’t Greil Marcus who first pointed out the connection, I would call this intersection “the blogosphere.”
January 29, 2008 at 8:56 am
ari
Thanks, SEK, for that link. Will my mother be impressed? Absolutely. It all comes back to mom. Even for Dave Chapelle.
January 29, 2008 at 8:57 am
eric
Even for Dave Chapelle
Racist.
January 29, 2008 at 9:10 am
SEK
The show itself is worth watching in full. I just watched in OnDemand (in the free, “Cable Showcase” section) a few days ago. Every time I see Chappelle un-stoned, I marvel at just how brilliant the man is — I mean, how much of your arm would you gnaw off to have a room full of students that sharp?
January 29, 2008 at 9:36 am
ari
The prospect of a room full of students that sharp is at once so thrilling and terrifying, that I can’t even really think about it. The prospect of a room full of student that stoned, on the other hand, I think is something I’ve experienced.
January 29, 2008 at 10:13 am
bitchphd
The shift in the use of the phrase is fascinating.
Very. I vaguely remember the Chris Rock joke now that you cite it, but I’d “remembered” the phrase in the way that it’s popularly understood now.
The stuff that’s been going on of late in the primary race also makes one reassess Bill Clinton’s comfort/facility with black congregations and so forth. I remember (or do I?) footage of him speaking at black churches and in front of black audiences, and thinking that he seemed very at ease and connected to the audience for a white politician. Now I’m thinking, crap, was it just good ol’ Southern boy pandering politics??
January 29, 2008 at 10:16 am
bitchphd
Will my mother be impressed? Absolutely. It all comes back to mom. Even for Dave Chapelle.
Gosh, I hope this is true.
January 29, 2008 at 11:13 am
drip
People used to say it about Larry Bird too. (Drove a garbage truck, daughter out of wedlock, Bobby Knight kicked him out of IU.) In fact, when Obama made the crack about Clinton and dancing I remembered Dennis Johnson commenting on Bird’s lack of ups. It may be a way of attributing a white man’s success in a black world to something other than talent. or it may mean that “blackness” in our culture is becoming internal. Either way, Chris Rock is very funny and Toni Morrison is not. And Dave Chapelle is the funnier than either of them.
January 29, 2008 at 11:19 am
ari
No, B, Clinton was/is great when speaking in African-American churches: Coretta Scott King’s funeral, for example. It’s not just a trick of memory, in other words.
January 29, 2008 at 2:35 pm
urbino
But that, I’m all but certain, has much more to do with growing up Baptist than with any affinity with African-Americans, per se.
January 29, 2008 at 2:57 pm
ari
Agreed. Or at least I suspect that what you’re saying is true. On the other hand, Jimmy Carter grew up Southern Baptist, no? And he certainly didn’t have Bill Clinton’s gifts for oratory. Clinton, in other words, is special in this regard.
January 29, 2008 at 3:01 pm
urbino
Oh, yes, Clinton’s a better orator, definitely. I’m just saying his ease in African-American churches probably has less to do with the “African-American” part and more to do with the “churches” part.