[Editor's note: Russ wrote this several days ago, then decided maybe the timing wasn't just right for it and asked me to sit on it a while. After I sent him enough links to a barrage of "news" pieces like this one he finally consented to let me add a link or two to it and post it.]

Has anyone noticed that Barack Obama and his wife seemingly have no compunction about performing an African-American solidarity hand ritual [video here, for instance] when they are on stage and in the public eye? What I’m referring to is the Dap, a ritual handshake that I came to know as an Army NCO back in the 60’s as a sign of black solidarity and defiance of the military system.

Wikipedia’s entry claims the symbolic exchange was adopted by the white mainstream in the 60’s. I think whoever wrote that may have been less than objective in their desire to make the Dap seem societally and racially inconsequential. The only place I’ve ever seen the Dap being used by whites is among young white and Hispanic males who seem to think that every in-your-face aspect of black gangsterism and contempt for society is worthy of emulation. Unfortunately, that includes many clueless young white males who follow professional sports and worship too many of the less than worthy examples who populate that scene.

Think of the baseball cap worn with the bill in back or cocked at a defiant angle. In either case the bill is incapable of performing the function for which a baseball cap was designed: to keep the sun out of your eyes. Therefore the only purpose of such wearing of a baseball cap is to signify, “Screw you, I ain’t wearin’ my cap the way you say, or, in other words, militant defiance of the rules of society. You have to pity the clueless white boys who do this thinking it’s cool because the black dudes do it. It might be of interest to cultural anthropologists that a significant percentage of the same individuals who now wear their baseball caps askew or reversed also tend to display an unusually high number of unskilled tattoos and multiple body piercings, generally numbered in inverse proportion to their demonstrable intelligence and academic achievements.

But back in the days before lip rings and wraparound tattoos, when defiance of rules had limited forms of expression, I can’t begin to remember how many young black paratroopers I went through angry confrontations with over this cap issue. I always won because Army regulations concerning dress codes and the authority of rank backed me up. Of course the young black soldiers considered me a racist but, in truth, I was nothing more than a good but strict NCO, who believed that when you wore the uniform, you respected that uniform and what it represented; you wore it properly as described by regulations formulated through hundreds of years of consideration and deliberation regarding decorum. You wore your hat straight, period; Staff Sergeant Vaughn had no tolerance for racial or political demonstrations.

But what I had no ability to deal with was the Dap; Army regulations failed to address this African ritual which young black soldiers used openly and defiantly to demonstrate their solidarity with other “brothers” and their contempt for their superiors and the system. I might be able to chew a young black private’s ass out hard for any number of legitimate reasons, but when I was finished, he’d turn to other black soldiers and do the Dap, saying silently but very clearly, “Screw you, and screw the Army, Sarge.”

Perhaps it is my past head-on experience with this very unsubtle display of racism that makes the hair rise on my neck when I see a potential American president and first lady openly performing this ritual on stage and before the world. Most whites don’t have a clue as to the racist undertones of this seemingly harmless exchange of closed fists and knuckles, but you’d better believe that every black who sees it understands completely the message of racial solidarity it is meant to convey. And make no mistake about it; misguided wannabee white boys aside, it is a deliberate, racially exclusionary ritual.

Were there an equivalent form of Klan or white solidarity handshake and John McCain employed it, can you imagine the media outrage? Obama, clueless as he seems to be about so many things, probably has no idea that there are millions of white military veterans who see his Dapping his wife onstage as a reminder of ugly racial issues in their past. It cannot help him.

[Draw your own conclusions, but as far as this old dog is concerned that "cute little fist bump" had its origins in a different place and time and tells me all I need to know about our "post-racial" candidate, as if I didn't already have enough other reasons to vote against him. I spent 2 years on a university campus before joining the Air Force and two more after I was discharged and the only place I ever encountered The Dap was in Viet Nam. ]

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on June 11, 2008 at 12:23 AM in Obamanation, Russ Vaughn | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Hawkeye

Hahahahaha!

Posted by: Hawkeye | Jul 14, 2008 1:19:04 PM