SERIOUSLY? "BABY MAMA?"

First posted on Attackerman on June 12, 2008.

I’m home sick today, depleting my already meager vacation time to nurse myself. But ever the albeit neophyte political news junkie I blame Spencer and Megan and Jezebel and Jack and Jill Politics and Matthew Yglesias and Ta-Nehisi Coates and The Field Negro, Baldilocks (yeah, I know, but I like the way if not what she writes) The Corsair and Too Sense among many others, for making me (ah for the days of ignorant bliss), I spent my sleepless night lurking the internet.

A lot has been made of Fox News’ captioning of Michelle Obama with the term “baby mama.” Counterpoint by several sources says that Mrs. Obama referred to her husband as her “baby daddy.”

I say all arguments are irrelevant to what should be the issue. In my sleepless haze, I’ve written to both Fox News (yeah, that’ll be heard) and NYT with my point, which I hope is as cogent in the clear light of day as it seemed last night.

News, real news, or what I remember as real news, has an obligation to uphold at least minimum standards and judgment. The term “baby mama,” while seemingly acceptable in colloquial conversations or in reference to entertainment or gossip – and I question even the wisdom of that – has no place in THE NEWS!

Oh, and as an aside, though it would be equally wrong, where is Fox News’ blaring of the picture of Mrs. McCain captioned with that awful invective (or approximation thereof) cavalierly ascribed to her by her husband?

It irritates me that African-American colloquialisms, mannerisms, dress, music, physical attributes, the list goes on, have been co-opted by America in such haphazard fashions. By that I mean parts of the culture are understood and claimed piecemeal (“baby mama”) but the whole (among which, church and history) is somehow “other.” Many ethnic cultures are co-opted, this is a multi-ethnic country, but my guess is that if Fox News were an individual, he/she would stress less if she/he woke up one morning Scots-Irish than if they woke up Black Like Me.

But on topic: IT’S THE NEWS!

I have to lie down.