Samuel L. Jackson's 'racist' reason for voting Obama: 'Because he was black'

The Week, Monday, February 13, 2012, 8:24am (PST)

By The Week

• Amid grumbling from some black intellectuals and media personalities about Obama's record on tackling poverty, says Newsweek's Allison Samuels, Black Hollywood is weighing how much to support President Obama's reelection campaign.

  Related at The Week: Obama is not the most polarizing president ever

  When Ebony asked actor Samuel L. Jackson where he stood, his answer raised some eyebrows. Obama's "message didn't mean sh*t to me," Jackson said, according to the New York Post. "I just hoped he would do some of what he said he was gonna do." Implying that Obama has not yet been able to behave like a "scary" "n*gga," Jackson said he hopes Obama will be more "scary" in his second term, "cuz he ain't gotta worry about getting re-elected." "I voted for Barack because he was black," Jackson said. "Cuz that’s why other folks vote for other people — because they look like them." Is this an honest insight, or gross intolerance?

  Give him points for honesty: Well, "leave it to Samuel L. Jackson to keep it real," says ReBecca Theodore-Vachon in The Urban Daily. Agree with him or not, he "has no shame in his game that he voted for President Obama because of his race."

  Related at The Week: Obama is the Reagan of 2012

  Jackson's an "ignorant buffoon": The Pulp Fiction star "clearly is proud that he never lets politics get in the way of his bigotry," but he's also empirically wrong, says Selwyn Duke in American Thinker. After all, Obama won 43 percent of the white vote in 2008, including 54 percent of young whites, proving that at least "whites can be colorblind." On the other hand, 96 percent of blacks supported Obama. Make of that what you will.

  This is insulting... to Obama: All this interview tells us is that Jackson is so worried about his career he feels the need to "make some ridiculous, racist, disgusting comments about President Obama," says Mikel Alger in Impre. People voted for Obama because they wanted change, and "one of these changes was better relations between the races and cultures of the United States." And calling the president a "n***er"? No way, Jackson. "Hopefully these statements are the end of his career."

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