Lost in translation?

The Washington Post is reporting that al Qaeda has expanded their arsenal of epithets to use against the US and the West, referring to the new president with something that would have been downright weird had it ban applied to Bush-43: In addition to being a "killer," a "hypocrite," and an "enemy of Muslims," Obama is also a "house Negro."

A house Negro, for those are fortunate to have lived their cushy lives unexposed to this noxious notion, is typically a member of an ethnic minority (typically Black) who makes nice with the folks in the majority (typically White) i

n order to gain their favor in the hopes that some of their bounty will rub off on him/her. This often involves demonstrating how different he/she is from the others in his/her ethnic group, showing that he/she is "one of the good ones" from that ethnic group. An "Uncle Tom," if you will.

The phrase supposedly derives from the days of slavery and later segregation, when "good Negroes" who didn't give Massah or (later) the Man any trouble would be invited to live and work in the house instead of out in the field. And maybe even wear some fine clothes. An oft-cited social phenomenon in lower-income Black neighborhoods is the alleged tendency for kids who seek to do well in school to be shunned, ridiculed, and derided—if not met with outright hostility—for trying to do better themselves by "being like the Man" and ending up like a house Negro.

The term can also be applied to non-Blacks in other minority situations. Marmot himself, a White guy from Long Island who wears traditional hanbok every day to his job as a translator of Korean media into English, was famously referred to as a "house nigger," the more offensive version of this epithet (Marmot refers to this incident here and here). 

Note to al Qaeda: If you were actually referring to the White House being occupied by a Black man for the first time, then you need to fire your translator (or whatever it is you do when you terminate an employee, short of literally terminating them). 

Ah, it's so nice that the Bush-Cheney reign of error is over. Just one week ago, had I passed a note like that to al Qaeda, I would have risked arrest for aiding the enemy. 

[photos from top to bottom: former US Army General, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, house Negro; former Secretary of State Condolezza Rice, house Negro; former Republican member of the US House of Representatives, J.C. Watts; and former host of NBC's Today Show Bryant Gumbel, uncle Tom (uncle toms often marry White women)]