He's Not Just Black, He's Skinny!

“Yesterday morning, I woke up to a new world,” writes Colson Whitehead in the New York Times. “America had elected a Skinny Black Guy president. I never thought I’d see the day.” Whitehead says the racial barrier is nothing compared to the marginalization beanpoles like him experience in a country where packing on the pounds is considered patriotic. Until Barack Obama. “I remember telling my wife excitedly, ‘This guy is probably stuffed after a cup of minestrone!”

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal wondered over the summer if overweight America could embrace the svelte Obama. But, Whitehead writes, “I’m confident he’ll reach across the aisle to Skinny White Guys, Haven’t Been Able to Get to the Gym White Guys, and If They Were Women They’d Be Called Zaftig White Guys.” And Obama’s perfect for overdue belt-tightening and “cutting the fat out of the budget in time for beach season.” (More Barack Obama stories.)