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  Barack Obama Doesn’t Have White Hands

  Posted Monday, January 19, 2009 11:11 AM | By Dayo Olopade

  Hanna, I rather disagree with your minor inferiority complex regarding the District. Yes, our malls leave much to be desired (except for this one). But my own 'hood, U Street, is suddenly hip—the New York Times profiled trendy restaurant Marvin just days before this cool wheatpasted image of an Obama/Lincoln hybrid (on which more later) hit its outer wall. Street cred, indeed!
  
  Among the other madnesses of Washington this weekend: the spectacle of literally thousands of life-sized cardboard cutout Barack Obamas, which grace every venue, from house parties to liquor stores. I appreciate the universal fixation on being photographed with “Barack”—as well as the undesirability of dropping the cash and braving the lines at Madame Tussaud’s for a taste of the three-dimensional thing—but I am taking issue with the ubiquity of what’s in fact a flagrant misrepresentation of our president-elect.
  
  Take a good look at the image making the rounds of the district and, for $32.99, no doubt the nation.

  

  Note that Obama’s hands are not the color of his head. As in, they are white. Note also that the white hands are holding glasses that Barack Obama does not wear. The crowning insult? The glasses bear a striking resemblance to those worn by Obama mentor and Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Tom Daschle. Which are not at all stylish and Obama would never wear even if he did wear glasses.
  
  I will not parse the ironies of Obama’s head being grafted onto the body of a white man. Not on MLK Day, at least. But what do you gals think?
  

About Dayo Olopade

• Dayo Olopade is the Washington Reporter for the Root.

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