Freepers make racist attacks on Malia Obama for wearing a peace-sign t-shirt

mswas, I think we just have an honest difference in perception, let’s leave it at that.

Chess, show your coworkers the comments in context with the picture an ask them if it’s racist. What about that picture do you think evokes the word, “ghetto,” other than race?

Fair enough. I am sorry I accused you of being dishonest before.

The assumption that a joke about girl getting pregnant has to imply “sluttiness” says more about your attitude than Letterman’s.

Please let this end.

Oh wow another one who doesn’t comprehend the joke too.

Most people don’t get pregnant by a ballplayer during a 7th inning stretch, but YMMV.

In the end the equivocations are just about trying to justify why it’s ok to talk shit about Palin’s daughters and not Obamas. What makes it scandalous is which party their parents belong to and not that they are young girls. :rolleyes:

Right. And that’s why the insults about Bristol aren’t sexist. They aren’t being made because she’s a woman, they’re being made because she’s a Republican.

lol and jokes about Malia Obama are not sexist because they aren’t being made because she’s a girl, they’re being made because she’s a Democrat?

Nah, those are being made 'cause she’s black.

In another thread Equipoise asked, based on my fondness for Malia (and Sasha), why I haven’t condemned the comments certain posters made on the Free Republic site. The answer is twofold: One, I have been kept quite busy in other threads the last couple of days; and two, I knew that I would post my curiosity as to whether such outrage would follow if similarly insulting comments were made about Sarah Palin’s kids, and that I would then become embroiled in yet another thread that would take up even more of my time. Being a compassionate conservative and all, I feel a certain obligation to hang around and answer all or at least as many posts directed to me as I can, and I just didn’t feel I had the time to devote to it.

Of course the comments made are outrageous. I took extreme umbrage when it appeared that Equipoise was attributing the same attitude toward Malia coming from me. It was infuriating!

Still, I feel compelled to point out (and I know nothing about the Free Republic and have never visited its site prior to tonight) that there are hateful crackpots at every point on the political scale, and I doubt very strongly that the insults aimed at the Obamas are representative of the site itself. I could be wrong and if they are, then the site would certainly be deserving of all the scorn and hate being aimed at it.

And I also can’t help but feel that if equivalent insults had been made toward Palin(and in one sense they have when Letterman referred to Palin’s “slutty stewardess” look - when’s the last time you heard any established entertainer or public figure call any woman a slut in the last thirty years? It seems the sexist gloves are off when it comes to Republican women.) and her children, the same posters who are so outraged now would be laughing and verbally high-fiving each other over them. This based on comments I’ve seen around here about Palin and her children in the wake of the Letterman controversy.

So while I think the comments in the OP are infuriating, I also think a lot of the outrage is parisan and manufactured, and that similar comments would be welcomed if the oxes being gored were the children of someone in the other party.

If it wasn’t for that one Letterman monologue, you guys really wouldn’t have jack shit, would you?

No, the response to it around here is where the asshole gold was to be found.

That’s because they’re not trying hard enough.

You can, however, compare calling a fourteen-year-old a “whore” based on the political affiliations of her mother. That happened right here on this message board - no need to go scouring around other blogs at all.

And yet nobody seems to be starting threads of outrage about it.

Regards,
Shodan

PS - As if it will make any difference, cite.

That was Vinyl Turnip. Have you not read any of his posts before?

This is, I think, a valid point. While most parents would not condone a daughter in her late teens having intimate relations with her boyfriend, and in consequence conceiving a child out of wedlock, nonetheless a parent who loves his/her daughter would stand by the daughter – and relations with one boy do not equate to promiscuity. I’m not sure who and when this gimmick of picking on the faults of children of political figures began – the earliest I know of was FDR’s grown children, then a long gap to whispered rumors about Reagan’s son – it’s reprehensible, no matter the political leanings of the candidate or the age of the child.

There IS a certain point at which the comments of the adult can be called hypocritical – if, for example, a candidate takes a public stance against something he or she, or his or her family member with his or her condoning the behavior, does in private and the fact comes out publicly. But that should (generally) not be held against the child.

One person made a joke in which the intent was to be sarcastic.

So I spent a bit of time poking around on Free Republic. Not a lot of time because I can only take so much of that kind of stupidity. And I realized that it felt familiar. It was like reading 4chan, if it was restricted to just one viewpoint. Free Republic is just like 4chan: it’s outlet for one of the lowest form of web denizen. The kind of person who just want to spout bullshit and hatred and not have to defend any of it, a place where similar people can spout similar hatred and bullshit together. The only real difference is that 4chan is an unrestricted site, and Free Republic is similar bullshit and hatred only.

I don’t even know why we put up with Vinyl Turnip, anyway. All he ever does are drive-by snarky one-liners, which I suppose passes for wit amongst the dirty fucking hippies he hangs out with. Oh, and occassional bursts of flowery prose, like a community college English major, or something. And partisan. Very, very partisan.

Oh, and bad puns. Atrociously bad! Three indictments pending and one before the court in The Hague. And telepathic plagiarism! Can’t tell you how many times I came here to say something, only to find that he had stolen my line before I even posted it!

A nogoodnik.

Your earlier argument was dumb, but this is getting dire. Think carefully: might there be another reason your coworkers were hesitant to mention race in response to your question? What do you think your “poll” proves?

I don’t expect an answer to the question about what was ghetto about the photo either.