I have never seen a "dap" before, and I've never heard of one until this Obama and Michelle incident. The media attention seems somewhat deserved, given that this is new and different to the majority of Americans.

(The "baby mama" reference, on the other hand, was totally offensive and inappropriate.)

Maybe, maybe not... I'm 35, so still aware of what is going on younger generation wise. I watch no sports know anything about sports, so perhaps that is to do with it. Regardless, I am pretty sure Barack and Michelle aren't generation Y!

I'm only 25 and white and have greeted friends with the "pound" since I can remember. At least more than 10 years. This isn't new.

Incidentally, the racism meme is definitely one to pay attention to, re: Obama.

But, equally, it really distresses me to see people freely attack McCain for being "too old". It's sad to see ageism such as this, from DailyKos, on display so prominently without any complaint.

I don't want a McCain presidency, but if that requires disparaging older generations... jeez. Ugly business.

Karol, thank you so much for calling out the inanity of the media. I don't know if anybody saw this gem from Fox News, but geez, it doesn't get much more ridiculous.

And Peter, while I think it's absolutely fine that you didn't know what this was before Barack and Michelle Obama started doing it, be cautious when you assume that "the majority of Americans" don't know what it is, just because you didn't.

OK, Peter Bray has now officially entered troll territory (either that, or he's been living somewhere in a pop-culture-free zone for the last decade.)

Huh?

You display two sports-related references to this handshake as proof of its universality, even after I say that I never watch sports?

I'll just point out for Kari Chisholm, too, that the Bud Light commercial plays on the temporality of the "fist bump" by saying it is now "out" and something new is in. Sorry if I am following the teen beat scene as Chisholm apparently is (or apparently he is mad that I call him a capitalist who attacks other Democrats... easy to get rid of villains like me, right?)

Look, jeez... I dare say that the majority of Americans ARE unfamiliar with this. It's unique, and it's not necessarily bad for the media to focus on it.

I suppose we could criticize the media for focusing on "hatless Senator Kennedy" a generation ago?

Look, I wear a leak on my chest some days of the year... if a Presidential candidate started to do that, it would gather attention as it is not in the mainstream. Bumping fists is not something typically done by politicians to their wives, and so attention to it isn't exactly unusual. (Remember the "Gore kiss" and the media attention?)

It isn't the age, it's the incuriosity, crankiness, and complacency.

Fair enough. But I don't know if that is the purpose of that post, or the other memes floating around (such as this one).

More photos of terrorist fist jabs.

Also, is "Ask a Black Person" going to be a recurring feature on BlueOregon?

Also, Peter, anybody who has watched an episode of Deal or No Deal is familiar with daps. I'm not really into the frat-tastic dap, but casual ones, or in the Obamas' case, cute romantic ones, are cool.

i gotta give props to the dap. back in 2001 i had crippling tendinitis; it was so bad a solid hand shake would have one of two results:

1) me giving the weakest dead fish handshake in the world, and the other person losing respect 2) me giving a real handshake if the previous scenario was not acceptable and then being in excruciating pain for days.

so i switched to the the dap for quite a while. even people who obviously did't know what it was played along, but most people seem to get it. i honestly never even knew it was a black thing until this who media circus.

Well, maybe I spend too much time in Asia, but it is totally new to me. (Sorry, I have never seen Deal Not Deal.)

But, again, this slang handshake IS new to presidential politics, and therefore it probably isn't unusual for the media to focus on it.

While some may chastise me for assuming that most Americans are not familiar with it, it is perhaps equally silly to assume, as this original post and many posters do, that Americans ARE familiar with it, and that the media's focus on it is due to some racism, bias, or misunderstanding of their audience.

My nephew and I have been greeting each other with "knuckles" since about the time he first started to walk.

He doesn't watch sports either, Peter.

This is pretty high on the silly meter, but I fear things are just getting started in what Andrew Sullivan calls "the freak show" that we'll see against Obama through November.

OF COURSE it is NOT legitimate to refer to it as a "terrorist fist jab" (or whatever they said). That is TOTALLY out of line! And it is perhaps out of line of you to suggest that I suggested that!

I mean, rather, that it IS appropriate to comment on their style and interaction with each other, particularly in how it differs from previous nominees, etc. That is the role of the media. Andrew Jackson went around kissing babies and the media focused on that. These simple things reveal things about people, and they are often important.

Heck, I am backwards. Even in Utah this slang handshake is well-known:

For a growing number of Utahns, the fist bump may be becoming as common as a handshake.

Especially for teenagers and kids.

The fist bump is also called “bones” by some and is now a common greeting.

Apologies to President Jackson:

Jackson experienced the first known case of a President being handed a baby to kiss. However, Jackson declined, and handed the baby to Secretary of War John H. Eaton to do the honors.

While researching Jackson, boy, things are pretty darn different nowadays:

Jackson's political opponents convinced Dickinson to insult Jackson's wife, assuming Jackson would not survive. At a party near Hillsboro, Maryland at the Daffin House plantation, Dickinson met Jackson and struck up a conversation about horse racing. Later the two would meet again after Dickinson had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. A duel was set up between the two. Jackson waited, planning for Dickinson to shoot first. Dickinson took his shot, and Jackson took one ball in the ribs.[1] Without wavering, Jackson then fatally wounded his opponent with a .70-caliber bullet to Dickenson's middle, severing an artery. This was not, however, a violation of the rules of a duel. Jackson still got his shot as his gun at first did not fire at all. A few hours later Dickenson died, the only man Jackson killed in any of his thirteen duels.

Karol, thanks for your commentary. I always appreciate reading another smart woman's insights.

I've done the "dap" or "pound" with various people for a few years. I don't personally keep up much with "pop" culture, but I do work with teen girls. Fortunately, they get a kick out of helping my 57 y.o. self to keep current with certain things. Although one of the girls taught me the "dap" a few years ago, she neglected to tell me what it is officially named.

So, for this middle aged woman the current controversy was enlightening. Not only because I finally learned the name of the gesture I'd been using for awhile, but because I have been once again reminded about how awful FOX news is. I admit, I've only watched brief clips of the controversial news commentary on the web, for that is all I can stand of that network.

Perhaps we should start referring to FOX news as a "terrorist" network?

I fail to see any relevance to any of this. How does asking a black person figure in w/a dap, fist bump, knuckles or whatever? So Obama and Michelle did one. Who really cares?

Certainly not most American voters regardless their partisanship or their beliefs. This is a non-story move along please!

Karol, thank you so much for starting my day with a good laugh! If Barack can generate this amount of publicity just by getting 'pound' with his wife, cranky ol' McSame has NO chance.

It's unfortunate it reverberates so loudly off of the ignorant redneck mass facing Barack, but it's just too good!

I, too, have been doing this for years, and had no idea it was a black thing. I assumed that the silly Fox coverage treating it as a "black" gesture was the result of insularity, living in a bubble, etc, but apparently not. You learn something new every day.

Gosh, Karol, we just got you, now we need to find another cool black friend?

okay, i live under a rock, and i have seen this on tv. (thank you, "the wire").

i have never done the gesture myself because, being one of the whitest people in america, i would feel silly.

my 2yo son & i have, however, modified it into a greeting of our own, one that we have aptly named "elbow bump".

The Obamas' fist jab (or whatever you want to call it) was patently offensive because neither of them had the US flag tattooed on their hand, and because Ms. Obama was not wearing a flag pin. Also, neither or them was wearing a baseball uniform at the time, or even wearing a baseball cap. Clearly the Obamas are trying to subvert what little remains of our Authentic American Culture.

But forget the terrorist fist jabs, start worrying about the terrorist enablers on the Supreme Court and their absurd blathering about weird concepts like habeas corpus.

James X- If you met my husband you could kill multiple birds with 1 stone. Gay, korean, divorced and re-married, adopted by midwesterners of Finish (Dad) and swedish (mom) decent.He also has some fairly conservative views and would probably register republican if it weren't so overtaken by religious bigots. I love it when he hears people having a "who is the most opressed" debate. He almost always wins.

It is amazing the things I am learning during this campaign. I thought the fist-bump thing was a ritual specific to high school girls' basketball teams in the Portland area, because as each girl is introduced she goes and bumps fists with the officials. Now it turns out some huge number of people have (a) never heard of it or (b) confused it with the Black Power fist salute, apparently.

Kari: That's just Peter's personality. It pre-dates BO.

Oops sorry, when I said that some people had confused it with the Black Power fist salute, I meant some WHITE people. I didn't realize until recently that this fist-bumping is associated with anyone's traditions or cultures. Why did I post.

Pfft. As if anything appearing on a Gawker property is worth a nanosecond of brain time.

"Dude, what's up?" "Please, ask a black person."

<h1>Doesn't work for me, Pat.</h1>

As long as we are being racist, it doesn't work for me either.

But what does work for me was that black dude (man? student? guy?) in Corvallis doing his "Meet a black guy" booth at the farmers market. People could even get a picture taken with him. The best quote in the article came from some white couple who did not like what he was doing, and were insulted. Their quote: "Some of our friends are black".

Do you think we could get him to come to Central Oregon? There are not that many blacks east of the mountains (or south of Eugene, for that matter).

Just what in the heck is going on at Fox News with that "terrorist fist bump" and their stupid "baby mama" comments? I mean C'MON! How racially divisive can one "news" channel be? And why would they label Barack Obama's United Church of Christ, one of the country’s most racially diverse Protestant denominations as a black separatist organization? After all, back in 2005, didn't Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman publicly state "It's not healthy for the country for our political parties to be so racially polarized" and apologize for their destructive tactics known historically and collectively as their "Southern Strategy"? SOURCE

DOES FOX= GOP?

About the RNC's "Southern Strategy", there's a certain connection between FoxNews and the GOP which most folks are likely unaware: "Fox's founder and president, Roger Ailes, was for decades one of the savviest and most pugnacious Republican political operatives in Washington, a veteran of the Nixon and Reagan campaigns. Ailes is most famous for his role in crafting the elder Bush's media strategy in the bruising 1988 presidential race. With Ailes' help, Bush turned a double-digit deficit in the polls into a resounding win by targeting the GOP's base of white male voters in the South and West, using red-meat themes like Michael Dukakis' "card-carrying" membership in the ACLU, his laissez-faire attitude toward flag-burning, his alleged indifference to the pledge of allegiance--and, of course, paroled felon Willie Horton.

"Described by fellow Bush aide Lee Atwater as having "two speeds--attack and destroy," Ailes once jocularly told a Time reporter (8/22/88): "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it." Later, as a producer for Rush Limbaugh's short-lived TV show, he was fond of calling Bill Clinton the "hippie president" and lashing out at "liberal bigots" (Washington Times, 5/11/93). It is these two sensibilities above all--right-wing talk radio and below-the-belt political campaigning--that Ailes brought with him to Fox, and his stamp is evident in all aspects of the network's programming."

SOURCE

AILES' NEW SOUTHERN STRATEGY TAG TEAM

Recently Fox pundit Sean Hannity has publicly admitted that he's a McCain surrogate, and anyone who has watched his show in the last month should have pretty much figured out exactly why he's so dead-set against Obama. And there's that other Fox bully. Bill O'Reilley's history of racist slurs stretches far earlier than his visit to Sylvia's restaurant in New York City when he was apparently astounded to learn recently that some black people use silverware just like grown-ups. And when on his tv show he stated he wasn't quite ready to "go on a lynch party" against Michelle Obama, he was't even slapped on the wrist.

AILES CLAIMES THAT HIS TEAM "LIKES AMERICA", but...

In a CSPAN interview on Dec. 20, 2004, Fox News chief Roger Ailes said, "We like America. (The other media) don't hate it, they just are constantly telling you what's wrong. There's never a good story about America. We don't promote something that isn't true".

REALLY? So if Ailes and his team "like" America all that much, then perhaps he should explain so many of his staff have taken up his old-but-not-quite-forgotten racially divisive Southern Strategy!?

And by the way, isn't it high time the rest of the media to call for the GOP to denounce and disown Roger Ailes and his FoxNoose Channel?

One Citizen Charleston, WV

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