I Hate Slate, vol. 254

Ah, Slate. Those wonderful people. They’ve once again managed to piss me off in that heated/slightly ashamed, I’m-not-sure-this-is-worth-my time-oh-what-the-hell-fuck-you sort of way that I find so frustrating and yet so enjoyable...

Today’s topic is a snippet of snark by David Barreby called “Only in America: The Wrongheaded American belief that Barack Obama Could Only Happen Here.”

Before we get started, I’d like to note that the author has taken the admirable route of trumpeting his disdain with a typically Slatean “Americans are totally full of themselves” title. That's their bread and butter—and they particularly love articles that paint liberal, educated Americans as self-obsessed and full of themselves. Exhibit A:

Barreby begins with the tried and true rhetorical flourish of describing somebody we think we know (Obama) and suddenly, woah! The joke's really on us when we learn that Obama's not the only national historical leader who’s ethnic, has a foreign sounding name, a non-Christian father, was a bestselling author, had an outsider’s detachment and clear ambition—Benjamin Disraeli was too! Can we Americans, Barreby asks piously, please stop patting ourselves on the back about the supposed uniqueness of electing Barack Obama president?

First of all, the phrase “patting ourselves on the back,” with all its elitist condescension, does not remotely describe the feelings and attitudes of the millions of Americans who are happy Obama won. We are joyful, ecstatic, amazed, relieved, and proud of our country. But there is nothing that smacks of American exceptionalism in our celebration. This is about joining the rest of the world. This is about celebrating with the Kenyans and Hawaiians and Indonesians and Iranians and Indo-Europeans all over the world who are delighted that we have thrown off our suicidal impulses of the last 8 years. Reading Slate, of course, you'd think Obama supporters spend all their time hiding our heads in the sand and mouthing insipid platitudes about our inherent greatness while that greatness crumbles.

There is nothing unique, Barreby insists, a black man getting elected in a country tarred by slavery and institutionalized racism, in which whites who publicly murdered blacks could get away scot free until less than 50 years ago (and more recently if you're a NYC police officer with probable cause). No, says Barreby; don’t you see, Napoleon conquered Europe! And he was from Corsica! Also, the president of Peru is Japanese. And Sonia Gandhi was born in Italy. And while there are hundreds of different tribes in Kenya, a guy who was president there once wasn’t from the biggest tribe. And all sorts of Roman emperors were Arab and what have you.

Next comes my favorite moment, when Barreby says that “Instead of expecting, against the evidence, that people only want a leader who is ethnically, religiously, or culturally "like us,'' Americans ought to be examining how and why people decide that "like us'' can be based on criteria other than race or religion.”

Good lord. Does he really believe that the people who voted for Barack Obama are people who expected “against the evidence,” that Americans would only elect a leader like them? How many twisted hoops of irony has he jumped through to convince himself that the people who celebrate what Barack Obama means to this country and the world are the ones who are blind to history? Also, what the hell, dude? Every president in American history has been a white man. Alongside the fact of Napoleon’s climb to the top of the French army, every French president/prime minister/emperor/dictator has been a white man; every British prime minister has been white; every fucking leader of every majority white country since before modern race relations became a factor 500 fucking years ago has been white. You want white Americans to begin to broaden their conception of acceptable leaders to be based on criteria other than race or religion? WE JUST DID THAT 2 WEEKS AGO YOU NUMBSKULL!!!

Before I make too big a deal of this (ok, it's probably too late), let’s close with a little perspective. In Barreby’s defense, he does make some mildy interesting points about how these historical figures exhibit similarities. And it’s surely good to know history and to use it to inform our understanding of today. But to claim that Obama’s election is somehow less revolutionary because the Emperor of Rome was once an Arab is retarded. While there are similarities between Obama and Disraeli and others, there is no precedent for what has been accomplished here. Ignoring or diminishing the amazing and beautiful things around us with flimsy reasoning to suit one’s ironic, laconic, hipsteresque repose, on the other hand, is nothing new at Slate.com.