What story do you think the Romneys meant to convey when they sent the photo out to the media?
And this wasn’t a news segment; it was a potentially-humorous “add a caption to this photo” segment.
I’ve already agreed that what occurred was stupid; I disagree that anything offensive was done or said. In fact, I’ll stand by what I said in my last post:
All she admitted was that people were offended and she was sorry they were offended. I’m comfortable enough in my political leanings not to have a side at all except the side against stupidity and connecting dots that aren’t there. There’s no dots here, but plenty of stupidity.
Is the baby black? Then why is it wrong to mention it? Surely it’s quite an extraordinary thing for a large white family to adopt a black child? Can that not be mentioned at all?
If someone had made fun of the baby, or even made fun of the Romney family for the adoption, you’d have a point. As it is, people are outraged by a statement of fact that someone tried to make a bit of whimsy with.
This was a fluff piece on a fluff show, and it deserves to be treated according to what happened, not according to inferences and conclusions drawn without evidence.
Ya know why people would conclude that Rush was racist if he said those things? Because he has already done and said so many other things that are racist.
Your analogy is off-the-mark, as is nearly all of the rest of your post.
A friend of mine has a picture like that that she finds hilarious and so do I. She’s biracial but she mostly looks white. She was adopted into an all-black family. She has an old photo of herself looking just like a blonde white toddler with her older cousins, and they happen to all be in a group in a kiddie pool and she’s standing outside of the pool all by herself and it looks like they won’t let her in the pool. We probably HAVE said “one of these things is not like the other” about it.
Also, let’s not kid ourselves. A black lady poking fun about a black baby in a rich white family is nowhere near the same thing as a white man poking fun about black anything.
I know that may offend some people’s sensibilities but that’s the way it is. Last time I checked, white people never had to deal with oppression or stupid shit like Jim Crow laws, or the current ration of shit lower income minorities have to put up with.
Since Rush thinks that all composite photos of wanted criminals look like Jesse Jackson, Rush would likely sing that about anyone in a picture with Jesse Jackson who wasn’t Jesse Jackson himself, or a wanted criminal. I have no idea if he also thinks all white people look alike, so I can’t speak to your example.
Kids these days. They don’t appreciate the classics.
The film begins with Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin), a befuddled homeless simpleton, directly addressing the camera and telling his story. He is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his obvious adoption.
If this is the worst thing she has ever said or done considering her lifelong investment in racial equality I think she’s up for sainthood. If you look harder you might be able to find something in her past that is evidence of ugly character but this ain’t it. It’s an incredibly weak pitting.
I don’t really disagree with the main thrust of your post, but “white people never had to deal with oppression”? That’s a really dumb, and, to me, rather offensive, statement. Most white people - Jeez, most white Americans - are oppressed right now. Oppression is not all (not even mostly) race-based, and the fact that black people, on the whole, have it and, have had it, worse than white people on the whole, does not make it non-existent or non-awful.
I think your talking about the ever widening economic divide between the have and the have nots. Which you’re right, has nothing to do with race.
The topic of this thread has more to do with race, which is what I was speaking to. I’ll never know the feeling of being pulled over by the cops for no apparent reason.
Should the Romneys NOT send out holiday cards that include a photograph of one of their grandchildren because he’s not the right color? What the hell did they do wrong here?
Personally, I saw that photo of Mitt Romney and his grandchildren and wondered why the heck he wanted to be president. I think it would be far more fun and interesting to be the full-time grandfather to all of those kids, to spoil them and play with them. And wouldn’t it be better to hear “Grandpa” from a child who sincerely loves you than “Mr President” from a bunch of people?
Yes, I know that most people would chose to be president, but I watched my parents dote on my brother’s kids, and watch how my brother’s kids enjoy their grandparents.
Let me state, first, that the whole original offense of showing the picture in a caption-making contest kind of thing and the subsequent (pretty mild) mockery was just plain stupid and short-sighted, both just in an overall moral sense and in a “Do we really need to hand them ammunition?” sense. I’m very happy that MHP apologized (and it was a real apology, not an “If anyone was offended, I’m sorry” nonpology). I do think that this Caleb Howe person (whom I’ve never heard of before this, and I’m pretty plugged into the lefty blogs, including the ones that critique the righty ones) has committed the usual right-wing sin of overreach in stating that this demonstrates that progressives are the real racists. The right’s been saying that for years and it’s just as much of a desperate fantasy on their part as it’s always been.
Now that you mention it, that is a really sweet-looking Christmas card. Why do politicians always have to be so much nicer once they stop being politicians?
Because they don’t have to spend all their time pandering to people and can just be humans. I mean, Barack Obama’s been President for five years and he looks like he’s aged 15. One wonders who really “won” in 2012.
In “Double Down,” Mark Halperin’s account of the 2012 race, Romney is described as something along the lines of “the most ambivalent candidate” to seek the Presidency in recent memory. He seemed to accept the results with disappointment but no small amount of relief. Frankly, one wonders why on earth the man wanted the job.
The book is quite interesting in its analysis of the two men’s strengths and weaknesses.
Reading the text in the linked article, I think MHP erred in focusing the discussion on the race of the baby in the picture in any way. There’s some humor to be made of the Stepford esque nature of the picture without commenting on the baby at all.
It’s also worth commenting on the fact that the Romneys named the baby using the Gaelic word for black (Kieran), according to the article. That seems like a questionable choice, given the circumstances.
But joking about the baby being different? That’s not especially funny.
