It’s a (Black) President, Huey Freeman- Boondocks Returns!
written by Esfac’e Black returns with HOT FIRE. The Boondocks Season 3 kicked off with one of the most pertinent issues in the Black community: Barack Obama and YOU. I won’t spoil the episode if you didn’t see it, but the moral of the story is simple: Barack Obama is the President, and he’s Black. He’s not the Black President. Get it? Because if you haven’t gotten by now, you lose….. (outdated Kanye West reference).
Aaron McGruder
The episode begins with a German filmmaker producing a documentary on Huey Freeman. The filmmaker can’t figure out why Huey isn’t excited about Obama becoming president. At the same time, he interviews every other outlandish character in the Boondocks universe and you get the full gamut of true-to-life reactions.
Riley- “The cops gonna be like Riley’s a real ni&&a. The president’s a real ni&&a. We can’t do NOTHIN.”
Sarah/Tom Dubois- “He’s just so great!”
Granddad- “This is what me and my generation, but mostly me, struggled for.”
Uncle Ruckus-…. you know what, just watch the episode. His reaction is much funnier in context
Thugnificent- “There’s a ni&&a running for president named Barack?!?!” (this is based on a real XXL Magazine interview with DMX)
All these reactions are pretty much what you encountered during the campaign. McGruder summed it up with his faux Will-I-Am track “D*** Riding Obama,” which is basically an ode to all the celebrities who jumped on the Obama bandwagon.
But I digress. McGruder emphasized something that is hard to remember. Obama is PRESIDENT. Not THE BLACK PRESIDENT. And Black people who tried to emphasize this during the campaign were vilified.
“Skeptics are treated like blasphemers. Difference becomes equal to hate.” - The Boondocks
Just because Huey Freeman (or fill-in-the-blank-random-person) isn’t skeptical of Obama, doesn’t make them an Uncle Tom, a racist, a Clarence Thomas, a sellout, etc etc. It just means they are skeptical/critical of the Obama presidency. I’ll take it a step further: We should all be skeptical, just like we’ve been skeptical of presidents in the past. Complacency breeds mediocrity. And if we were all of a sudden to just be okay with whatever the president did, just because of the color of the president’s skin, then we’d be a mediocre country.
Besides, if we never critiqued/analyzed our elected leaders, then is it really a democracy?
May 4th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Well said. I’m curious about how many people watched this episode and truly grasped the message. I have a theory that some folks are “surface” viewers while others search for the bigger picture. And this particular episode had a much bigger message than just “d-ridin’” - yet that’s really what folks focused on [Twitter, Facebook, etc.] Where’s the sense of responsibility and pride that so many of us expressed 2 years ago? How are we holding-up our end of the bargain? It goes beyond the campaign - “right now” is crucial.
May 4th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I was pretty excited to see the episode. Many of the sentiments that were ridiculed throughout the episode were commonplace 2 years ago. I thought that McGruder did an excellent job of really showing the absurdity of some of the more extremist positions regarding Obama, his candidacy, and subsequent presidency. I was actually surprised to see how universally accepted the episode was. I expected people to be up in arms or at least to have some dissent about the thoughts, but no, I’ve really heard none. It’s as if the episode magically imparted perspective on people. I’m also curious about how well accepted the episode would have been if it had been broadcast shortly after Obama’s victory, rather than two years later. I was definitely one of those people who constantly considered the fact that Obama was, and still is, fundamentally a politician. Although he is black, that in no way makes him immune to the political discourse, inquiry, and criticism that we levy on all of our politicians, which as you said, is what makes us a democracy. But yea, quality piece from McGruder. Hopefully people are actually digesting it.
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