Sarah Palin Makes Racially-Charged Remark About Barack Obama
Sarah Palin is no stranger to controversy, but she's stirred up a new storm with a post on her Facebook page that critics claim contain racially insensitive remarks about President Barack Obama.
Palin, the former governor of Alaska and one of Obama's challengers during the 2008 presidential election, took to her Facebook account to air her feelings about the president's handling of last month's attack in Benghazi, Libya.
The post was titled "Obama's Shuck and Jive Ends With Benghazi Lies," and her use of the phrase "shuck and jive" has gotten many critics into a tizzy over the words' racial undertones.
As Yahoo! News reported, the "shuck and jive" phrase has roots in racism in slavery. The definition as listed on user-submitted slang website Urban Dictionary says the term "originally referred to the intentionally misleading words and actions that African-Americans would employ in order to deceive racist Euro-Americans in power, both during the period of slavery and afterwards."
The controversial phrase raised eyebrows several years ago when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo used it during a rally for Hillary Clinton. At the time, CNN commentator Roland Martin, who is African America, lashed out at Cuomo for using the phrase.
"'Shucking and jiving' have long been words used as a negative assessment of African Americans, along the lines of a 'foot shufflin' Negro.' In fact, I don't recall ever hearing the phrase used in reference to anyone white," Martin said.
Check out Palin's statement in full, which includes the phrase "shuck and jive" near the end, below:
"As I mentioned on "On the Record" last night, there is breaking news that just two hours after the September 11th attacks on our consulate in Benghazi, the White House and State Department knew that an Islamic terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda claimed credit for the attack. We now know that the State Department sent an email to the White House, the Pentagon, the FBI and others in the intelligence community about this Islamist group claiming responsibility. And yet for days afterwards the White House and State Department led everyone to believe that the attack was the result of a spontaneous protest over an obscure YouTube video that had been uploaded months prior. Anywhere from 300 to 400 people from the administration and our intelligence community would have seen that email. Why the lies? Why the cover up? Why the dissembling about the cause of the murder of our ambassador on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil? We deserve answers to this. President Obama's shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end."
