May 29, 2012

Barney Frank — giving a commencement speech — makes a "hoodie" joke.

At the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, giving an honorary degree to a black man:
“You know, when you get an honorary degree they give these,” Frank said, tugging at the hood on his commencement gown, “and Hubie, I think you now got a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you.”
The crowd did not laugh. They gasped. Later, Frank attempted to explain: “I have used the ‘hoodie’ line to ridicule the notion that a hooded sweatshirt is somehow sinister.”

35 comments:

TWM said...

Liberals are just so cutting edge. And so clueless . . .

ndspinelli said...

Never explain a joke. I guess Barney won't be working the Borscht Belt in his retirement.

Brian Brown said...

HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA
HA HA HA HA HA

Such a gut-buster, that one!

Barney's so charming, isn't he?

I mean, a graduation ceremony is like the totallly appropriate place to push the leftist meme that Martin was gunned down for wearing a hoodie.

Wince said...

Barney Frank lost his pithy, comedic mojo decades ago.

Anonymous said...

Barney Frank is yet another benefactor of identity politics. If he wasn't gay, he certainly would have been voted out years ago. I'd like to think so anyway; after all the death of Mary Jo Kopechne launched Kennedy's career.

But who says the dems aren't a completely corrupt political party?

Chip S. said...

A seltzer bottle would've helped get the point across much better.

All clowns should carry one at all times.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Liberal extremists just never set aside the politics. In Wisconsin, it was the politics of brats. At Dartmouth for Frank, it is hoods on black people.

Big Mike said...

What's new here? Barney has been putting his foot in his mouth
since the day he arrived in Washington over 30 years ago, if not long before then. Now that he's retiring (and not a moment too soon) no one's laughing anymore.

BarryD said...

Barney Frank is a funny guy, actually. Just not when he's trying to be.

Scott M said...

All clowns should carry one at all times.

Actually, isn't that a requirement of their union?

ricpic said...

I wonder whether Barney acknowledges that flash mobs and the knockout game are real? Of course not, because to acknowledge that would endanger the Dem death grip on the black vote, without which the Dems would die. Better that whitey dies.

virgil xenophon said...

ricpic is on to the central defining characteristic of the modern left in America when it comes to blacks and crime: They are ALL "Bagdad Bob": "Tanks? There ARE NO American tanks in Bagdad!"

Anonymous said...

“I have used the ‘hoodie’ line to ridicule ..."

Frank: The UMDartmouth white folks are racist homophobes.

After paying an arm and a leg, all they get is a hoodie. That's why they are not laughing.

lemondog said...

Asssssssss......

Living off taxpayer dole for 40 years!

edutcher said...

They really aren't all "fabulous".

Ken said...

Barney Frank is yet another benefactor of identity politics. If he wasn't gay, he certainly would have been voted out years ago.

No, he was sufficiently Lefty, his seat was "his".

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

It's a white-trash/cracker joke, just not a good one.

This graduation gown has a hoodie so don't you be wearing it in Florida.

A substantial improvement.

Bonus points for working in the fat-white-guy-talking-ebonics angle.

Anonymous said...

AJ

Please don't confuse U Mass at Dartmouth with Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

Poor Barney Frank, before him stands a a man with accomplishments significant enough to be awarded an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts, and all Frank can see is a black boy, suspected of robbery and kicked out of school for drug possession.

Bob_R said...

O.K. Barney. Exactly how would someone dress if they DID want to look "sinister?" What a tool.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Nice to see such an effective illustration that it tends to be the lefties who look at a person and see skin color, first and foremost.

Anonymous said...

edutcher,

No, he was sufficiently Lefty, his seat was "his".

Hence the very next sentence of my comment that you left out when quoting me.

Christopher in MA said...

A little added information, according to WBZ radio this morning:

Frank said he was sorry if anyone was offended, but he'd used the line before at other commencements.

In other words, they got the joke, so why didn't you, you bitter clingers? And you're probably a bunch of homophobes, too!

If there were any justice in this world, Slobbering Barney would spend the rest of his life shackled hand and foot in solitary, living on a starvation diet of saltines and astroglide.

Anonymous said...

No, if there were any justice in this world, Barney Frank would spend eternity "No Exit" style in an Occupy Wall Street camp.

traditionalguy said...

Actually the Black Regalia and hoods is quite sinister.

This would be a better story if the Honorary Doctor wearing ill fitting regalia and a Hood up in the rain was stalked by a volunteer Teaching Assistant who thought that a faux Phd had no right to walk on his holy campus, and when the new Doctor turned on the stalker and hit him with his scepter, the TA volunteer had no choice except to execute him in self defense.

It's The War on Clothes!

caseym54 said...

Pretty racist, actually.

Geoff Matthews said...

They'll forgive him.
And he knows they will.

Fen said...

What a douche.

n.n said...

Very little has been said on the murder, rape, and torture incidents that followed from the "Justice for Trayvon" movement. I guess somethings cannot be reasonably discussed in political company. Some matters of practical concern are overridden by the need for "social justice" and its associated economic and political ventures.

ErnieG said...

At least he didn't say, "Try the veal."

Kensington said...

"No, if there were any justice in this world, Barney Frank would spend eternity "No Exit" style in an Occupy Wall Street camp."

Oh, my!

Cedarford said...

Good thing a "stupid clueless white male Republican" had not said that.
The liberal and progressive jewish media and the race pimping Mau-Mau squads would have been all over that - demanding apologies and Franks resignation from Congress.

Fortunately for Frank, he is the Democrat, progressive jewish, and gay version of the white male...therefore of the non-evil kind that Christian heteronormative breeding and non-Democrats are.
So Barney is safe.

Sometimes just being a Democrat and liberal is enough...you don't even have to be gay or of the progressive jewish community. Witness Biden getting away with calling Obama "unusually clean and articulate (for a black man), or Warren abusing the affirmative action game and getting advanced under quotas as a hokey Indian.

Imagine the shitstorm that would have ensued if DeMint or Haley Barbour had called Obama "unusually clean and articulate (for a black man)....or the crucifixion the media and race-baiters would have had for Indian-American Nikki Haley had she falsely claimed her Indian ancestry had made her eligible for Native American AA quotas she exploited earlier.

Amartel said...

The hoodie thing was a complete fabrication by the media. Trayvon was wearing a hoodie, Zimmerman described it to the "911" operator but did not ascribe "criminal" symbolism to the hoodie. The media did. And all the good little racists, white and black, bought into it to push their victim agenda.

MayBee said...

Have you seen the video of Trayvon at the 7-11, and the three guys that come in immediately after him?
All of them are dressed in a way that keeps their faces hidden from the camera.
That would scare the bejeezus out of me if I were a 7-11 clerk. And yes, some of them were white.

walter said...

It's like he was channeling Biden.

Eric said...

I'm pretty sure even wearing the garment Barney wore for his joke you'd still be shot if you pinned an armed man down and started pounding his head into the pavement.

Carnifex said...

@ eric
In Franks crowd that's known as the "rough trade".

There goes C4 again, twisting reality to fit his own warped sense of the world... Niki Haley is a Indian from India indian, with the red dot on her forehead, not a Indian from cowboys and indians Indian...

Racist.(j/k obviously)

I actually like Bawney for this slip. Who hasn't made an unfortunate choice of words when talking to a person of a different race? It's his politics I find repulsive.(and the image of his underboob sweat...that's pretty repulsive too)