I didn’t say it wasn’t directed at Obama. I asked what the political statement was that was separate from “don’t elect a nigger.”
Vote Obama out in 2012.
Great Old Ones, one Black President and you guys just fall apart, don’t you?
I’m not a lawyer, and I will take this back if a lawyer shows up and disagrees (Bricker??) but political speech is not protected because belonging to a political party (or being a racist) is not a protected class. A private business can fire you for political (or racist; personally I don’t think they are the same) speech, unless there is something in your contract that forbids it. Which, if this guy is working at a fast food restaurant, he doesn’t have anything like that, and if this is a right-to- work state, he’s completely screwed. As I mentioned earlier, during the Bush/Kerry election, a woman was fired simply for having a pro-Kerry sticker on her car.
(bolding mine)
Just to clarify, I agree that they are not the same thing. Though I think that the particular message we’re talking about is both racist and political.
Agreed. If the sticker said “Anybody But Obama in 2012” we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
I agree. What I was really trying to do was make sure I wasn’t accidentally giving the impression that Republican=racist. In this particular instance the message is both pro-Republican (sort of) and pro-racist, but even if that weren’t the case I believe he could be fired.
Or your state has created an additional protection beyond the federal one, which at least California has.
OK, but only in the sense that all racism, when directed at a public figure, is political. It seems pretty clear to me that since the only connection to Obama is via his race, the only message of any significance in there is a racist one. If you think somehow there’s an actual political principle being espoused, fair enough, but it doesn’t have any content anybody can interpret, so why bring it up? Burning a cross on the White House lawn would be a political message by this standard; that doesn’t mean it’s “more” than racism.
Actually, all we know for sure is that it is 1) racist and 2) anti-Obama. We can then make a fairly good assumption that is is anti-demcocrat, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to pro-republican. Likely? Yes. But since we’re being careful…
I don’t really see why the political aspect should protect the message from its racist aspect.
Vote Obama out = okay
Fuck niggers = not okay
Vote the nigger out = still not okay
I see your point and I think you are drawing a valid distinction between the bumper sticker and Dahmer, but I still don’t think the OP has a point. I see all kinds of bumper stickers all the time that I think are stupid as hell, but I don’t say anything about them. I think it’s unreasonable to assume that everyone who disagrees with a bumper sticker will say something about it, and that someone with such a bumper sticker will take the bumper sticker off if other people say something to them about it.
Well, first, I’m not sure why you think that my viewpoint on racism has anything to do with conservatives. My thoughts are mine alone–I didn’t get this viewpoint from anyone else, and others sure as hell aren’t clamoring to climb on board the RR-train.
Second, you have (of course, as per usual around here) mischaracterized my position. I don’t deny the existence of racism. I very simply believe that (i) it is not the case that racism is involved just because something bad happens to a black person and (ii) it is not the case that everyone agrees with a stupid racist bumper sticker just because one guy puts it on his car.
Ended that post a little too early . . .
I also believe that fiscal liberals have a vested interest in characterizing as much activity as possible as showing that racism is still extremely prevalent (because it supports their arguments for social programs). So, they will take any little thing as evidence that racism is still everywhere.
A good recent example of this was the IMHO thread about a black girl who was at first informed she would be the valedictorian (the first black val that school has had for a while) only to be later told the school had decided that a white student would be a co-val with her. Totally racist, right? Turns out it was just because of how the math worked on the two co-vals scores–each had a decent claim to having the highest score depending on how you looked at it.
Where’s the mischaracterization, exactly? As much as I hate to tell you you’re not like some kind of personal bogeyman to me, I’m not trying to misrepresent what anybody’s saying.
Are you saying you haven’t often complained that some liberal was crying racist about something that wasn’t really racist, so they could be outraged about pervasive racism that doesn’t actually exist? If you haven’t done that, I have you confused with someone else, and I’m not talking about you. There are plenty of other people who do that. It’s just that since you did that in post 89 in this thread, I used you as an example.
Damn, I* hate* agreeing with you.
The mischaracterization was where you said that I say that “nothing is racially motivated.” I’ve never said that and don’t believe it. This thread is a good example–I see no reasonable interpretation of the actions described in the OP except that the truck driving dude is a racist. Also, I didn’t reallt like how you said I “deny the existence of pervasive racism”–I’m perfectly willing to believe such a thing exists (assuming you define what “pervasive racism” means exactly) if anyone shows me some evidence for it, but things like the co-val story and one guy with a bumper sticker do nothing to prove its existence.
The bumper sticker mentioned in the OP is ugly mean and racist.
I’ve never heard of an aboriginal American , Asian or black redneck, have you ?
You have to be white to qualify.
You could say the same thing about watching Glee. That doesn’t make it a racial slur.
Living in Mississippi I have met a number of people who either self identify as rednecks or are called rednecks who are Black, Asian, or Hispanic. Never with a Native American, true. You are correct that in a strictly literal interpretation, it would be mostly white people who got red necks from being outside farming all day and were sunburned, but as a cultural group I assure you; they come in all colors.
Although I’m all for educating the ignorant masses, the fact that Obama is a well-dressed, well-spoken black man is a bit of a mark against SA’s argument.