It isn’t the first racial slur directed at Barack and Michelle

Sen. Barack Obama has weathered his share of racially insensitive remarks over the past several months, but when a Georgia congressman referred to him and his wife as “uppity” last week it was a throwback to whole different era. Find out exactly what Rep. Lynn Whitmore said about Michelle and Barack Obama at BET.com/News.

His acceptance speech attracted more viewers than ever

It seems that everything that Barack Obama does these days makes history. Turns out that when Obama, the first Black major-party nominee, gave his acceptance speech last Thursday before the largest live convention audience ever – 84,000 people – there were more than 40 million people tuning in, making it the most popular TV event in political convention history. As Nielsen Media Research put it, “More people watched Obama speak from a packed stadium in Denver on Thursday than watched the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing , the final ‘American Idol’ or the Academy Awards this year said Friday. (Four playoff football games, including the Super Bowl between the Giants and Patriots, were seen by more than 40 million people.)” Nielsen data showed that together CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, Univision, Telemundo, BET and TV One accounted for a 24.5 national household rating in the 10 p.m. hour. That translates into about 38.4 million people who watched Obama address the Democratic National Convention at Denver ’s Invesco Field. That doesn’t even include those who tuned in from C-SPAN or PBS, according to Nielsen. About 7.5 million of the viewers in the 10 p.m. hour were Blacks, Nielsen estimated. In Obama’s speech was the fifth-highest-rated, non-sports event watched by Blacks in more than a decade. Michael Jackson’s 2001 30th anniversary CBS special is No. 1. No other convention in history even comes close. The next largest TV audience was when 27.6 million watched Bush deliver his acceptance speech after defeating John Kerry four years ago.

Barack Obama made history in more ways than one.   Besides being the first Black American to win the nomination of a major political party, the Illinois senator accepted the Democratic Party nomination in front of a cheering crowd of about 80, 0000 people. Get the details at BET.com/News.

History in the making at the Democratic National Convention

There is no way one can ignore the historic event today, as the Democratic National Convention prepares to nominate its first Black party nominee.  Do you think Obama will become the first Black president? More at Pamela On Politics.

The Ohio Democratic lawmaker was revered by her constituents

Colleagues, friends and family of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) are mourning her death. As a avid supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Cleveland-based congresswoman seemed to have lost considerable clout among her Barack Obama-loving constituents. But she will be remembered as loyal, progressive and productive. Read more about what her fellow Congress members had to say at Pamela On Politics. More about how brain aneurysms affect Blacks and women more at Vital Signs. Send your condolences below.

In June he said Barack was “talking White.” Now he says the Democrat is not a good Black candidate.
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who a couple months ago chided Sen. Barack Obama for “talking White,” said Wednesday that Obama would not make the kind of Black president he was hoping for. “People who have fought the civil rights battle – politically, economically, legally – as we have since the ’50s would often talk about, ‘Look what would happen if we had an African-American president or chairpersons of major congressional committees,’” said Nader. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to be what we all thought it would be. … I lost respect for him when I saw him over a year ago on C-SPAN vigorously opposed to the impeachment of Bush and Cheney – vigorously opposed. He said it would be ‘divisive’. That is a cop-out word. We have the most multiple impeachable presidency in American history.” Nader was speaking to the media during a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. In June, Nader blamed Obama with assuaging “White guilt” by ignoring issues of race and poverty. Nader, who enjoyed a long reign as nation’s most respected consumer advocate – that was until he lost favor among many Democratic voters by drawing just enough votes in the 2000 election to knock Al Gore out of presidential contention – has been outspoken about Obama’s new stance on drilling for offshore oil.

It appears as though the Clinton-Obama rift is all but over in Beantown

Boston ’s big ballers broke out their checkbooks Monday night and turned Sen. Barack Obama’s 47th birthday bash into a big-time fundraiser. There was no sign of the division between the Democratic camps of Sen. Hillary Clinton and Obama, which generated so much intra-party angst during the primaries. In fact, former Clinton supporters accounted for $700,000 all by themselves. The total pot was expected to exceed $5 million, The Boston Globe reported. About 850 people showed up for the event at the posh State Room near Faneuil Hall. Some 250 of them paid $15,000 each – $28,500 per couple – to break bread with the senator following the initial meet and greet. The private birthday-campaign party was Obama’s first appearance in Beantown since clinching the Democratic nomination in June. Although he landed the endorsement of New England’s most popular politician – Sen. Edward Kennedy – Clinton won the most votes in the primary. “We all wanted to make a dramatic statement that we’re with him every step of the way,” said Steven Grossman, a leading Clinton fund-raiser and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Michelle Obama covers Ebony.

While the ladies seem to love to accessorize their outfits with diamonds and pearls, Michelle Obama says her best accessory is her husband. She tells Ebony magazine, “The best thing I love having on me is Barack on my arm and vice versa, whether it’s having him standing there smiling at me or watching him mesmerize a crowd or talk to some seniors in a senior center.” Michelle Obama told the magazine, which hits newsstands Aug. 12, that should she become first lady, her primary focus will continue to be “mom-in-chief,” to their two daughters – Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7. Michelle Obama also discussed her marriage, how she balances motherhood and work and her fashion sense. Michelle Obama officially graced her way into the international spotlight as a fashion icon, making it onto Vanity Fair magazine’s International Best-Dressed List the last month. The couple also grace the cover of next month’s Essence magazine.

Is the term racist or misunderstood?Fox News isn’t the only media outlet hurling racial stuff at Sen. Barack Obama these days. Check out what the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung published about the Democratic nominee: a photo of the White House under the headline “Uncle Barack’s Cabin.” The headline is a play on the 1852 book by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which talked about the brutality of slavery. It also stereotyped Blacks and provided the source of “Uncle Tom” as the term for an African-American who is ashamed of his race. Surprisingly, the Berlin-based daily, founded 20 years ago, is best known for its unwillingness to offend. But, the day after Fox News ran a graphic of Michelle Obama (with the racially offensive caption, “Outraged Liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s baby mama,” the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung, called Taz for short, had German readers scratching their heads. Gary Smith, who heads the private American Academy in Berlin , told SPIEGEL ONLINE Thursday that the cover left him “speechless.” He said, “Uncle Tom’ is a racial slur, and the Taz editors clearly sacrificed substance and principle for an unreflected laugh,” he said. “A journalism that prides itself on treating stereotypes with irreverence needs to think harder about its own deployment of stereotypes and racial allusions. There are countless ways to address the issue of race in this year’s election more intelligently.” But the editors of Taz defended their decision. “The headline is intended to be satirical,” deputy editor-in-chief Reiner Metzger told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a book that all Germans know and which they associate with issues of racism. The headline is supposed to make people think about these stereotypes. It works on many levels.”