Rex W. Huppke, Chicago Tribune
- Mike Terry is black, and he knows that a black man giving someone a fist bump is not news. He also knows that calling a man’s wife his “baby mama” is derogatory, and that no self-respecting black person he has ever met would use the term “whitey,” even if they wanted to insult a white person.
That’s why he rolls his eyes at the news media’s recent coverage of Barack and Michelle Obama. He calls it “typical,” emblematic of the gap in understanding between black and non-black America.
“The brother is black, and he can’t throw up a fist?” asked Terry, a West Side bill collector. “That’s what we do.”
Though Obama has tried to make his skin color an ancillary element of the campaign, the issue of race continually swings front and center, with the predominantly white news media taking on the often-awkward role of interpreting black culture for the masses.
