Jive turkey

1 March 2009

At Thursday night’s banquet for the Conservative Political Action Conference, Representative Michele Bachman (R-Minn.), the emcee, was so moved by Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele that she told him: “You be da man!”

(Steele, of course, is da the man who was chosen for party chairmanship solely for his qualifications, and not at all because of his African-American-ness, because Republicans are all staunchly colorblind and would never demean a black man by making him think he might owe his job to affirmative action.)

I’m glad to see that the Grand Old Party may give up on this whole politics thing and rebrand itself as a comedy troupe. But someone really ought to give Rep. Bachman better lines. The proper idiom is “you da man”, not “you be da man”. If you’re going to speak African American Vernacular English, then for the love of God and Langston Hughes, speak it properly.

• Later: Self-promotion dept.
• Earlier: Self-determination, where “self” means “other”