Pounded

Now that Michelle and Barack Obama have introduced millions of Americans to the concept of the "pound"—also known as a "bump" or, to a hip few, "some dap"—it's time for the bad news: you can't do it ever again. The victory pound was a great moment of political theater, and the Obamas executed it with much more élan than, say, Mitt Romney's use of the word "bling" at a campaign stop on Martin Luther King Day. But politicians appropriate urban youth culture at their peril, and even if they pull it off, they kill it for the kids forever. So, please, we beg of you, whether you're black or white, young or old, if the first attempted pound of your life occurred in the last three weeks, you get one freebie and that's it. Otherwise you're the guy who was still saying "fo' shizzle" in 2007. And you don't wanna be that guy.

© 2008