Rush Limbaugh calls Michelle Obama "uppity"
By EJ DicksonNovember 22nd, 2011, 1:45 pmComments (49)
Apologies if you weren't planning on giving yourself a concussion today by full-throttle slamming your head into your desk, but here goes: on Monday, while discussing first lady Michelle Obama's appearance at a NASCAR appearance last weekend (where she and Dr. Jill Biden were greeted with boos), radio pundit Rush Limbaugh accused the First Lady of "uppity-ism."
After Limbaugh defended the NASCAR fans' right to boo Biden and the First Lady — whom he refers to as "Moo-chelle Obama" — he went on to discuss taxpayers' resentment at having to pay for the President and First Lady's vacations (around 6:50 in the audio clip below):
"The NASCAR crowd doesn’t quite understand why, when the husband and the wife are going the same place, the first lady has to take her own Boeing 757 with family and kids and hangers-on four hours earlier than her husband, who will be on his 747. NASCAR people understand that’s a little bit of a waste. They understand it is a little bit of uppity-ism."
As you may already know from your racist grandmother, "uppity" is a pejorative term used to describe a person of color who is arrogant, presumptuous, or doesn't know his/her place. Although the word has passed into common use to describe anybody seeming presumptuous or arrogant, the term made its first appearance in the "Uncle Remus" black folktales of the 1880s, and later acquired some racist connotations.
In 2008, U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) also used the word to describe the First Lady and her husband, stating, "what little I've seen of her and Sen. Obama is they they're a member of an elitist class... that thinks they're uppity." So it looks like Rush'll have at least one person to talk to at the annual Racist Rich White Assholes convention at the Perkins off Route 89 in Prescott, AZ (time, date, and event as of yet unconfirmed).
Commentarium (49 Comments)
I don’t see how his comment was racist at all (Apart from the original origin of this word, but I'm not going to talk about word origins CoughCough "gay")
I strongly believe that the fame has gone to the heads of the first family. She tends to put herself in the spot light far more than ANY First Lady I am aware of. If you can find another, feel free to let me know about her, and her frequent appearances on shows like THE DISNEY CHANNEL.
She's the wife of the president. Good for her. No need to waste cash flying separate as stated above (which might I add is the first I heard of this.)
That may be a national security issue, But does it call for using such expensive jets? I mean Really.
Eleanor Roosevelt.
Nancy Reagan; remember the tv special where she re-decorated the White House and got all brand new gold flatware and gold rimmed dishes? And "just say no" which surely saved many from drugs?
And then there was Ladybird with her highway prettification stuff.
And Jackueline Kennedy - she was EVERYwhere.
Nancy Reagan's redecorating was paid for with private money and I suggest that "just say no" did at least as much for preventing drug use as Michelle's campaigns are doing to prevent childhood obesity. There's a study out that suggest that childhood obesity tracks along with the economy, meaning that her husband is probably doing more to keep kids thin than she is.
@Observer. That has nothing to do with what WhellParDONme was saying. The question was visibility, not impact.
Was more in response to Gazbo's comments, nope.
Its kind of like when people with nearly nothing win the lotto for biiiiiiiiig money. they always blow through it on stupid things. This time... they won the biggest fucking lotto and America is taking the bill
Yeah jess - we know the word you really want to say.
is Hooksexup's obsession with the Obamas
is your trolling.
"Failed trolling" rar rar rar...
zip sit
How dare Michelle not know her place, right Rush? Rush Limpdick has an extremely long and well known history of being an ignorant, racist asshole.
Good to know you're squarely against racism, "Fat Old White Men." Look in the mirror much?
Your mental superiority is so overpowering.
I understand the concern about the jets and the cost and does seem exorbitant but nobody seemed to care about the cost of the presidential travels when Bush and Clinton where in office. Also, Michelle Obama was on the Disney Channel to speak about healthy portions to children on the brink of obesity and children who aren't. I saw her segments and I actually learned something.
I thought it was great that they were at NASCAR. It was safe to expect a less than warm welcome but they went anyway. Shows a helluva lot more maturity than the people who were booing them.
Isn't it odd that NASCAR fans were upset about the "waste" and "unnecessary" gas and oil the Obama's used for their flights, yet they couldn't care less about the hundreds and hundreds of gallons of gas and oil being used for NASCAR?
Red necks.
I think it's "redneck," but I digress. A 757 burns approximately 6700 lbs of jet fuel an hour or 1000 gal/hr (ok, it's a little more but I made the math easy). Given a two hour flight, for one person, her family and entourage, vs, what?, maybe 10000 gal to entertain a couple hundred thousand?
The bottom line is, this is a term with obvious racist underpinnings. Limbaugh is completely incapable to giving measured or thoughtful critique and he resorts to inflammatory language. He is well aware that it's inflammatory, he is well aware that it's a racist word; that's what he does, that's his kind of radio program. To 1. be shocked by it every time he says something offensive, or 2. feign ignorance that he is aware his language is inflammatory, is ridiculous.
Also, Rush is a racist white guy, and a misogynistic jerk. Try to find anything positive Rush has ever said about women. You won't find anything.
Anybody notice what color the background of this web page is? WHITE. Racism.
Anybody notice the color the font of this web page is? BLACK. Reverse racism!
I'ma be honest here: Rush Limbaugh should be shot in the face. It's a fact. Also, if you're a hillbilly/Republicant/right wing racist asstard, you, also, should have, at the very least, a punch to the throat.
I'll bet the libtard troll loves this. That guy fucking hates black people
His African American employees disagree, apparently.
Liberals hate black people so much. That's why so black people are Republicans. Derp!
Seriously. At least Rush's African american employees know their place.
I can't stand Limbaugh, he's by far the worst of the worst out there. But I have to be honest, I can't stand Mrs. Obama either. She should have to pay for all of her exorbitant outside-of-the-norm vacation expenses from her personal funds.
By presidential standards, she isn't even close to the "norm", which fact you would know if you spent as much time reading history (Im'ma guess none) as you do looking for things to be pissed off about.
Really? What do you base that on, Gazbo?
Not that I base my opinions on anything valid...
But they are his opinions. I just use people's names to troll them.
I know you are but what am I?
He calls it the way he sees it nothing more nothing less.
I think Rush is upset that Michelle is a woman who won't buy his drugs for him. And a black woman at that!? Man, we're talking about sensory overload here. And all you people complaining about the Obamas' expenses, where were you during the second Bush administration? Perhaps if the Fortunate Son hadn't spent a third of his term vacationing, the nation's straits wouldn't be so dire. Cause and effect. Hiroshima always gets the bigger outpourings of grief, but if it weren't for Pearl Harbor ....
I cannot wait till this guy dies. Seriously.
You should probably examine your life, Jinna. "Cannot wait" for someone with whom you disagree to die? Someone who doesn't even know you're alive? Kind of sad.
I'm kind of sad. Trolling Hooksexup 24/7, telling everyone how smart I am and how they should examine their lives. Don't they know I'm perfect?
No. What's sad is a fucking loser who trolls somebody using their own name. But that's jr for you.
Someone say my name?
I've used the word "uppity" to describe people who are giving me attitude, regardless of their race, for years. Learned it from my mom, who used it in the same fashion. I have no idea where she heard it. Neither of us are racist in any way. Ummmn.
Apparently you are a racist, lolwut. Sorry.
I'm also a racist and a homophobe.
And a copycat who can't come up with my own name. I need help to type Stoopid.
And I came up with this name too. Derp!
hilarious things about Hooksexup comment threads: When the topic is about racism, the resident racists accuse everyone except themselves of racism...while supporting the racism of their wing-nut heroes.
Manufactured outrage. These are not "regular" people. If you ask me, the Obamas should never be on the same flight, in exactly the same way the President and the Vice President are never to be on the same flight.
this foreign asshole needs to reconsider how he speaks to my country's First Lady.
The article writer is incorrect in defining "uppity" as a specifically racist term. I have certainly seen it used that way, but also as or more commonly applied to women, and occasionally to other groups. Wiktionary and dictionary.com define it with this broader meaning.
Now you say something