Obama Wrecked Brainy-Black-Guy Cred

Sure, in his first 100 days President Obama made much-publicized strides forward. But he also ruined the game of “black male intellectuals” everywhere, writes G’Ra Asim for Salon: “This dude is destroying our street cred.” Whereas Asim, once “the only African-American male in Advanced Placement US History,” once posed “a credible threat to the social order,” now he stays up nights searching the Internet for ways to be hipper.

“What is a milestone for Obama is a millstone to the coolness of black male intellectualism,” Asim opines. “Being confronted with an unapologetically intellectual, hyper-articulate black dude who is self-assured to the brink of arrogance” used to bring “bewilderment and consternation” from interviewers and parents alike; now the success of Obama—“the first hip president”—renders people like Asim “interminably square.”