Tag Archives: herman cain

Standing By Your Man: Savvy or F*cking Stupid?

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Although he was completely unqualified, completely unprepared, completely (but hilariously) uncouth, and unapologetic about this unqualifiedness, unpreparedness, and uncouthness, I have to say that I’m going miss Herman Cain — the realest motherf*cker alive. Seriously, we’re going to see Jerry Sandusky working at Chuck E Cheese before we see another elderly black pizza man with a bag of hard “candy” in his pocket become — even for 25 milliseconds — the presumptive leader to be the republican nominee in the race for president.

Never mind the fact that he had absolutely no chance to win and you can (rightly) argue that his appeal was mainly due to the fact that his presence allowed many their “See? I hate Obama — his policies, his name, his weed lips, his big bootied wife, and his black gums — but this proves I’m not racist.” moments, he was entertaining, his hats kicked ass, he looks like he smells like Old Spice, Champale, and Viagra powder, and he wasn’t above singing random negro spirituals at press conferences. Do I want him as my president? F*ck no. Would I hook him up with one of my aunts? Probably not. Would I hook him up with a down on her luck middle-aged white co-worker who’s just looking for a casino buddy and someone to hand job? Definitely.

But, while Herman Cain definitely piques my interest, today I’m a bit more interested in his wife. It’s no secret that Herman Cain’s hermancane is the reason why he dropped out of the race. Although none of these allegations have been confirmed, by the looks of things it seems like he’s f*cked more white women than Rick James. Yet, the best way to describe Gloria Cain’s demeanor through all of this is annoyed — not annoyed that her husband thinks he’s Lexington Steele, mind you, but by the women making these claims. It’s almost as if her default public face is “Here we go with these silly bitches again.”

I’m aware that this may very well be her public face. Perhaps he’s been sleeping on the couch for the last 6 months. Perhaps she’s pulling a Hilary — standing by her man in public to eventually reap the benefits of his ascension. But, at the moment she’s making a very conscious and conspicuous choice to let everyone know that she’s standing by her husband’s side, and you can’t help but be curious why.

Now, this situation is far from unique. In just the last week, we’ve seen the bizarre back and forth between Bishop Spermin’ and Permin’ and his wife and we were also made aware that that Laurie Fine — the wife of Bernie Fine (the longtime assistant basketball coach at Syracuse accused of molesting ball boys) — knew that her husband had “issues” at least nine years ago and is still married to him. These are men who allegedly did despicable things, things that you’d think would be dealbreakers for anyone, but their wives obviously didn’t consider ending the relationship to be the immediate choice.

While I used to think otherwise, I have to say that I don’t consider a person in this situation to be automatically wrong anymore. Again though, none of us have any idea of what’s really going on in these women’s heads and driving them to at least consider staying. But unless a woman’s life is in danger, I just can’t call her stupid or weak or hopelessly adickted or any other negative adjective for choosing to stay with a shitty man.

It’s a very cliched way to look at things, but life is, well …life is f*cking long and hard, and if a person staunchly believes that they still have a better chance of tackling this life monster with their faulty mate at their side, who am I to begrudge them? Perhaps Gloria Cain’s “silly bitch” smirk is really just her saying “Look. I put all my chips in on this number 7-ass n*gga 40 years ago. Can’t stop the roulette wheel now, and don’t know if I’d want to even if I could.”

Anyway, people of VSB, I’m curious: Do you think that women like Gloria Cain are stupid for standing by their men? Also, while we all have our automatic dealbreakers (cheating, domestic violence, etc) can you ever envision yourself in a situation where you might be tempted to overlook those things for the greater good?

—The Champ

The Post-Racial Tipping Point?

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Confused? Me too. This is how I feel right now.

Last week we looked at Herman Cain’s place in the Black community…well, now CNN is claiming that Cain’s race isn’t as important to conservatives as it used to be. And it’s got me ponderin’.

See, I’m baffled. Damn near dumbfounded. I almost feel like I’m sitting in some alternate reality where Michael Jackson is Black and it doesn’t matter if you’re Black or white.

Why, you ask?

Well, for the first time in history, it seems like nobody in the Republican party realizes – or cares – that Herman Cain is…wait for it…

…wait for it…

…Black.

Now either the majority of Black people are indeed full of sh*t or something odd is going on. For years, Black folks have been shown, taught, and reminded that race was as important a factor in our lives as our education, money, or Tyler Perry. There’s a popular meme in the Black community that no matter who you are or how much money you have, you’re still just an educated n*gga with money.
Yet, somehow, Herman Cain seems to be in a plausible position to push forward and actually secure the Republican nomination for President. Is it possible that we could have two Black men competing for the nations’s highest position?

Like, for real?

Just to keep it gully, I think Justin Bieber has a better chance of making it into a BET cypher than two Black men running for President, against each other. I think that welllllll before we get to the formal nomination Herman Cain will say something else ridiculous (akin to his belief that people in that small Tennessee town were right to stop a mosque from being built on land owned by the Muslims building the mosque or electrocuting Mexicans) or somehow fall out of favor. Will it be solely because as we get closer, white people will somehow wake up and realize, “hold the phone, that’s a Black man up there”? I don’t know. And to be fair, I don’t actually think that everybody’s racist.

But I can’t lie, I’m surprised by the fact that for the first time in Black history, a man’s policies and principles seem to be touted by the party that currently and almost intentionally seems to have the least amount of color amongst their representation. I’ve seen coworkers sing his praises with happiness and tout his plans. And yes, Virginia, they’re white.

Hank Williams, Jr, in the now famous segment that got him kicked out of Monday Night Football lore, said that Herman Cain was the only GOP candidate that made any sense.

Hear ye, hear ye. Hold me.

Would his ascension to the Republican nomination be proof that we are truly living in a post-racial world and that the vast majority of us Black folks complaining about race need to shut up? No. I will forever feel like white people view certain members of our populace as exceptions. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Herman Cain, etc. These aren’t regular Black people.

They’re different.

And they’re all politicians of sorts. Herman Cain’s biggest asset seems to be knowing how to say what white people want to hear. It’s a true skill, trust me.

Interesting enough, all of the racial rhetoric coming out of the GOP involving Cain seems to be coming from him. He seems to be touting a certain type of dissociated Blackness, which is why so many Black people don’t trust him. He’s speaking all of that “you can do it because I did it, by myself” non-sense that gets many people labeled modern day Uncle Toms. It’s an interesting sort of alienation politics that grants him good favor amongst white people (his entire base at this point) and pisses off nearly every Black person within a 1-mile radius. Even his alma mater (and mine), Morehouse College, isn’t exactly singing his praises right now. And amongst the HBCU circuit, this might be the first time nobody wants any part of this competition.

While there is some truth to what he’s saying – for a significant portion of us, our failures are largely our own doing – to ignore the centuries of institutionalized racism is probably as idiotic a mentality as one can have. We have plenty of proof via actual studies about people with ethnic names not getting called back for job interviews while “mainstream” named people (think Jim, John, Beth, Sarah) get the opportunity to interview for a job. And since jobs are a big part of the current political landscape, I think that very real study is telling.

Some of the excitement I’m reading about the Tea Party and GOP’s approval of Cain almost seems ironic. Their excitement is largely driven by proving to people that they aren’t racist. It’s like learning play jazz flute in order to tease the kid up the street who plays jazz flute. If they support a Black man, they cannot inherently be racist. Further, Herman Cain’s popularity proves that race isn’t a big deal.

Yeah, we’ll see when it comes time to pull that lever. Granted, we’re still a long way away from a formal nomination which is why I think that these conversations keep happening. Nobody really seems happy with the current crop of candidates anyway so Cain is something like a positive by not being so negative for the GOP. But I can’t lie, I might have to eat my hat if he actually were to get nominated by the Republican party.

The larger point still remains though: I’m completely surprised by Cain’s success at this point because he is, indeed, Black. It honestly seemed like so many people who disliked (and still do) President Obama did so for very little more than petty reasoning, which makes the race card seem appropriate. His entire presidency has seemed like he’s been running from behind because everybody wanted him to fail. You can’t ignore the big elephant in the room.

But somehow that doesn’t matter with Cain…yet. So maybe we are in a post-racial world. Or not.

Talk to me AFTER he gets nominated.

Does Cain’s popularity amongst the GOP indicate that we are in a post-racial America? Or are we watching an early form of the Bradley effect taking place? Or more sinister, do you Republicans are just trying to make a point??

What gives?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka THE LESSER HALF aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

[ADMIN NOTE: At midnight on October 20, we're going to take VSB offline until next week while we finish handling all of the site issues we seem to be having. Most people seem to not be suffering from random f*ckery due to our site being hacked but enough are that we need to go offline to fix them. We'll be back on Monday. Thanks for sleepwalking with the kids and sorry for any inconvenience. Posse out.]

Herman Cain: Uncle Ruckus or The Realest Motherf*cker Alive?

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There are numerous things I actively do (and don’t do) to avoid potentially and unnecessarily violent confrontation. While others honk at and flip off motorists who’ve upset them, I smirk, shake my head, and take solace in the fact that my car would literally f*ck their car up if I wanted it to. I don’t date women with accent marks or hyphens in their names. And, if your nightclub has undergone three name changes in the past two years, you probably won’t find me there.

Why do I go through these lengths? Well, one of my goals in life is to be a 60 year old black man. And, from what I understand, it’s very difficult to be a 60 year old black man if you get shot to death before you reach 60, so I try to live in a way that decreases the likelihood of that happening.

Now, 60 isn’t an arbitrary age. It’s important for me to get to that point because I want to shake hands with a Martian (I figure we’re around 30 years from making that happen) and, more importantly, I want to enjoy the same filterlessness that my dad currently does.

As anyone who has a 60+ father, uncle, or grandfather in their lives will tell you, 60 is the age when men (black men in particular) lose their filters and any sense of self-consciousness and will say anything they want to about anybody at any time. I desperately want to make it there too. I literally cannot wait for the day when I’ll be able say things like “Does your mother know that she raised an idiot?” to a city council man’s face and be able to get away with it.

Anyway, this filterlessness makes for entertaining conversations. So, you can imagine what I was expecting to hear the other night when I asked for his opinion about Herman Cain.

His answer — “Well, I have to say that he hasn’t said or done anything really stupid yet” — stuck with me for two reasons

A) The bar for politicians is so low that “Well, at least he’s not an idiot” is a ringing endorsement. Seriously, can you imagine if other industries had the same low expectations? Can you imagine seeing a Chick-fil-A ad that says “Well, at least you won’t get Salmonella“?

B) My dad, a revolutionary who occasionally rocks black berets and still says things like “solid on down,” isn’t turned off by Herman Cain

My mom — who’s not quite as revolutionary as my dad, but possesses the most potent bullshit detector on Earth — entered the room soon after. I asked for her opinion, and she basically said the same thing.

Now, I realize that this could just be some type of mandatory kinship speaking — a mandate from high (or Morgan Freeman perhaps) that when any black person 60 or over is doing anything remotely positive, every other 60+ black person must immediately give them the benefit of the doubt. But, the feelings from my Black Panther-ass parents made me rethink my own thoughts about Cain and why I possess them.

I have to admit, I hadn’t even considered giving dude an honest chance. Part of it has to do with his name (“Herman” is just a silly f*cking name to me. It feels like something someone should name a dog.), but the main reason why he was thrown in the “Don’t even consider this n*gga” pile is that The Tea Party people — you know, those cats who generally seem to abhor us and think the president is from Jupiter — seem to love him, never a good sign. Also, with the exception of Colin Powell and (maybe) Condi Rice, every black republican I can think of just seems to have a general aura of lame around them. It’s like they’re perpetually engulfed in a spiderweb of wackness.

Cain may very well be the Antichrist. But, it’s not fair to him for me to immediately assume that he’s the spawn of Satan just because he’s black and he happens to belong to the 2011 GOP, and it’s not fair to me to be so intellectually apathetic when deciding on a leader. There’s absolutely no chance in hell that I’d actually vote for him (Seriously. If you’re a close friend of mine and you don’t vote for Obama in 2012, you might no longer be a close friend of mine. Yes, it’s that serious.), but I can at least listen to what he has to say.

I mean, he is a 65 year old black man.  That guarantees that he’ll at least be entertaining.

Anyway, people of VSB.com, I’m curious: What are your feelings about Herman Cain? Is he Uncle Ruckus, another republican reactionary, or the realest motherf*cker alive?

Also, did the fact that he’s a black republican influence your opinion about him before you even heard what he had to say?

—The Champ