So cold:

BP announced Tuesday that Robert Dudley, an American, will become the company’s first non-British CEO on Oct. 1, when he replaces Tony Hayward, widely criticized for his handling of the Gulf oil spill.

They should have gone all the way and replaced Dudley with a black American. That way would have made the corporation’s propinquity with the black American president impossible to contest. That way would have made it even more difficult for the black American president to do his terribly popular tough talk thing.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

8 replies on “BP’s New CEO Is An American”

  3. Feel sorry for Hayward. He’s being put out to pasture on a mere $1 million annual pension. Fortunately he is also gettting several millions in payouts as well, to salve the pain.

  4. Well, you certianly got the part of “the black American president to do his terribly popular tough talk thing” correct; it’s just that, talk. I certianly wish we had elected someone who could back his/her words with action.

  5. I’ve never heard this president use ‘tough talk.’ He always has this vacant formula of pointing out the problem, saying it won’t work, and then saying his administration has done or will do something historic (by selling out and doing something mediocre) to abate this problem…because, you, the little guy trickled up that hopey/change-iness.
    Also, I think you’ve got it just the opposite. Obama really likes to lecture black Americans on “personal responsibility.”

  6. Colbert predicted this. They’d keep Hayward in as the asshole frontman everyone hated until the problem was fixed, and then they’d fire him and hire someone new so everyone could think that Hayward was the real problem, not a systemic lack of care for their world that permeates the entire company (and our personal addiction to fossil fuels).

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