No Such Whitey Tape

Why am I having a George Jefferson moment? Truthfully, other than television, I'm not sure I know too many black folks who even use the term "whitey" when referring to "the man" ... certainly not anyone Michelle's age. This whole lie was a figment of whitey's imagination.

Democrat Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday that Michelle Obama never used the word "whitey" in a speech from the church pulpit as he launched a Web site to debunk rumors about himself and his wife.

The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against "whitey" in a diatribe at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama's candidacy this fall.

"No such tape exists," the campaign responds on the site, www.fightthesmears.com. "Michelle Obama has not spoken from the pulpit at Trinity and has not used that word."

The site is a response to the realities of a brave new world, where information travels 24 hours a day on blogs and voters are increasingly turning to the Internet for information. It's a particular problem for Obama, a relative newcomer to national politics who is still unknown to many voters and has been the target of persistent misinformation campaigns online.

In another sign of the campaign moving into the general election race, the Democratic National Committee's spokeswoman said Thursday its political and field operations are relocating to Chicago, where Obama's campaign is based. While other departments will remain in Washington, it's an effort to streamline the campaign and party efforts in one strategy instead of the overlapping efforts of past presidential elections.

E-mails about Obama rank No. 2 on the list of "Hottest Urban Legends" on snopes.com, an Internet rumor-debunking site, behind e-mail greeting cards that could expose computers to viruses.

Like most of us, who knows what she's said in private. The minute she stepped into an integrated environment, she probably had to come up with all kinds of euphemisms to label the folks who worked her nerves from a racial standpoint. I know I did. I've been spewing sarcasm on a daily basis ever since I can remember so Lord knows what kind of lunatic I'd look like if all of my YouTube moments were captured.