Obama Impersonator Cracks Racist Jokes at Republican Event

This is from the New York Times:

NEW ORLEANS — A comedian impersonating President Obama who was hired to perform here on Saturday at the Republican Leadership Conference delivered racially tinged remarks about Mr. Obama’s heritage and offered a mocking assessment of the Republican presidential candidates.

The impersonator, Reggie Brown of Chicago, opened his act by joking about Mr. Obama’s family history, referring to his white mother from Kansas and his black father from Kenya. He said that he was born in Hawaii, adding, “or as the Tea Partiers like to call it, Kenya.”

He said that Michelle Obama, the first lady, enjoys celebrating all of February, Black History Month. He said the president celebrates only half the month.

“My mother loved a black man and, no, she was not a Kardashian,” Mr. Brown said later, referring to the family that stars in reality shows. Khloe Kardashian, who is white, is married to Lamar Odom, who is black and plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The audience, which was nearly entirely white, watched with befuddlement as the impersonator told them to look into the future to see what the Obamas will look like when they are retired. An image of a feuding husband and wife, from the TV show “Sanford and Son,” was flashed on screens in the ballroom.

Republican strategist Doug Heye wrote a message on Twitter, "Wonder why many minorities have problems with the G.O.P? Our own fault." What were the Republicans thinking of, when they hired this guy for entertainment at a political event? What is even more ironic is that Brown then made "derogatory jokes about Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty and Newt Gingrich before his hosts cut him off with loud music and escorted him from the stage before his act was over." So while Brown was cracking jokes on both Obama and the starting lineup for the Republican presidential candidates, the Louisiana Republican Party, who hired Brown, apparently did not like the jokes against their party's candidates and cut him off.

Here is some of the YouTube video of Reggie Brown's performance:



Watching it, the "Republican" audience laughs when Brown makes fun of Obama, but then the crowd gets real silent as Brown turns towards their own politicians--you'll even hear a collective groan when Brown talks about Mitt Romney's multiple first, second and third ladies. Of course, the audience really laughed at Brown's Sanford and Son joke. There certainly was not much befuddlement on the audiences' part, as they were laughing at Brown's jokes against the president. The "befuddlement" came when Brown started making fun of the GOP politicians. It is almost like the Republicans can't laugh at themselves.