Today a video message was posted on Islamist websites, a video supposedly featuring al-Qaeda’s Number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri calling President-Elect Barack Obama a “house negro,” implying him a disappointing black man in comparison to Malcolm X, and speaking of him as a religious and racial sellout.

CNN International reports:

In the video, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2, castigated Obama's foreign policy stances on Afghanistan and Israel and ridiculed the president-elect's worldview. Al-Zawahiri compared Obama unfavorably to the late Malcolm X, an African-American militant who adopted Islam.

Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden are believed to be hiding in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Al-Zawahiri can be heard saying, "In you and in Colin Powell, [Condoleezza] Rice and your likes, the words of Malcolm X (may Allah have mercy on him) concerning 'house Negroes' are confirmed."

"House Negroes" is the English translation of the Arabic term "house slaves."

… The message said Obama appears "to be captive to the same criminal American mentality towards the world and towards the Muslims." The speaker cited Muslims' ire toward Obama's support of Israel.

The message said Obama represents the "direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X.

The message also made reference to Obama's Muslim father and his Christian religion.

"You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America.”

Al-Zawahiri can try to spank Obama’s reputation as a black man all he wants, but Obama never ran his campaign around any sort of assumption that he fit black paradigms but rather on the assumption that he could reform the status quo. It was always a campaign which revolved around the premise that in defying the expectations of what a black man is, he embodied the idealism of the American Dream, a Dream contingent on the concept that in a democracy we are always engaged in the discursive formation of our society. Obama is not a “captive to the same… American mentality,” he is an architect of the new American mentality.