And that’s why freedom of speech is so important!
Obama as a chimp doesn’t work very well. He’s more of a Vulcan, if anything. The depictions of him as Satan work because he’s smooth and suave, which lines up with portrayals of the Devil in the 20th century. The watermelon gag on the Whitehouse lawn was pretty decent actually. I haven’t heard much outcry over stations that portray Obama playing basketball though, sometimes with CGI clips. That’s really going low. :eek:
They’re gonna all chip in and get her a real nice white sheet with eye holes and everything 
It’s the hive mind, kind of like the Borg. We all have it.
Bush used to (and for all I know, still does–it’s just his level, humor-wise) poke fun at himself as a chimp. I know I’ve seen footage of him making the “ooh, ooh, eeh!” chimp noises and forming his mouth to resemble a chimp’s.
I really doubt Obama has ever done likewise.
This little Republican lady knows exactly what she was doing. It’s a bit ballsy of her to call herself a Christian, but I’m not surprised that she thinks she is–and she may well be: a racist person who claims she follows the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Yeah. :rolleyes:
This. Either she’s lying through her teeth, in which case she’s insulting the public’s intelligence (granted, the general public’s intelligence isn’t that high), in which case she shouldn’t be a public servant, or she’s so damned stupid herself that she shouldn’t even be in charge of her own life, let alone be in charge of other people’s lives. She’s old enough, or at least she looks old enough, to remember when blacks were openly called chimps and monkeys and worse, so even if SHE didn’t intend for it to be racist, she should have known enough about the public that she claims to represent to know that OTHER people would have seen it as racist.
[QUOTE=Simplicio]
Really? I don’t really have a problem with images of Obama as a clown, or a rat or whatever other unflattering thing people want to use. I certainly don’t find it repugnant People using crazy charactatures of political figures to express their opposition to them is a pretty longstanding tradition, you can see several of them a week in political cartoons. And for the same reason I don’t have a problem with people depicting Bush as a chimp.
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I think if you have to resort to any sort of demeaning imagery (and a chimp is MUCH more demeaning than a clown, regardless of who it’s being applied too) that you have lowered yourself to a similar level, regardless of the color of the person you are trying to demean. The image of a chimp is so powerful because it captures the caricature of being a subhuman. I think it’s demeaning if it’s used on a white person or a black person, or any other type of person. It’s racially charged when used against a black person, obviously, because of the racial baggage associated with it. And for that reason, the folks linked in the OP are going to get blasted for it…and rightfully so. But I don’t find it ok to use that same imagery against a white person just because they are white, and so that makes it ok.
Personally, I think that by the liberals (some on this board) making it ok and acceptable to use that imagery against Bush, it’s going to make the uproar about this same tactic being used against Obama weaker than it might have otherwise have been. It smacks, as I said earlier, as a double standard…even when, as you and others have pointed out, there is a lot of historical baggage about the subject wrt blacks in history and how they have been portrayed. Perhaps it would have been wiser not to start down that path and go for the lowest imagery possible in your collective efforts to discredit Bush? Or, perhaps it will work out, as when exactly the same imagery is used it will be portrayed as completely racist, and this will discredit the Tea Party in the eyes of the moderates who might swing that way?
You are probably right there. And it probably WILL be portrayed that way…and, most likely it WAS racially motivated or had racist components in it. It still smacks of ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’, but then I’ve been watching this continuous partisan bickering for years now, as both sides seem hell bent on one upping each other to see how low they can go, so that might be coloring my own perceptions. When I see 'dopers all in a righteous fury over the same images used against Obama as were used against Bush, the first thing I think of isn’t ‘racist’…it’s ‘another round of partisan politics’. It’s hard for me to see Obama as not just a politician I voted for (and plan on voting for again…it’s ironic to me that I might be one of the few in this thread who actually think he’s doing a great job) and respect, but as a ‘black man’. I see him as just a ‘man’, and only think about the ‘black’ part when I see threads like this.
-XT
Look, if you want to have an argument about the advisability of partisan politics, i’d be happy to do that elsewhere. In my opinion, though, arguing that this is simply a case of both sides engaging in partisan politics is engaging in false equivalency.
Yes, there is partisan politics at play on both sides, and there are many reasonable arguments about why that’s a bad thing. But the point here is not that both sides engage in partisan politics—i agree that they do—but that one side’s partisan politics is currently making significant use of racist imagery.
You say that you understand the historical issues about equating blacks to apes and monkeys; you acknowledge that people portraying a black man as a chimp are communicating something about race; you even acknowledge that race is most likely central to this particular incident. Yet this is still, for you, not really about race, but about how both sides are just as partisan as one another. I just don’t understand how you can draw this conclusion.
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You say that you understand the historical issues about equating blacks to apes and monkeys; you acknowledge that people portraying a black man as a chimp are communicating something about race; you even acknowledge that race is most likely central to this particular incident. Yet this is still, for you, not really about race, but about how both sides are just as partisan as one another. I just don’t understand how you can draw this conclusion.
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I guess, for me, that racism doesn’t trump everything else. It’s not ok to me that the same imagery was used for non-racial purposes and used for racist purposes. One doesn’t trump the other…they are both bad. I disliked when this stuff was used against Bush, even though (contrary to popular believe) I didn’t like Bush very much and found him a boob. I don’t like it when it’s used against Obama, not because chimp used to equal black person, but for the same reason…because it’s being used to demean a man and try and paint him as a subhuman, and so attempt to win some sort of victory by association. Or whatever the fuck these sorts of things are supposed to prove or show…mostly, that instead of trying to debate the issues and demonstrate through logic or reason that the person in question is right or wrong on the issues, instead to just jump to insulting caricatures.
I don’t know…maybe gonzo was right and I need to shut the fuck up and take a nap or something. I’m not saying any of this very well, and I can practically feel the hostility I’m getting from all of this. Plus, I DO think that the images were racially motivated, and while I don’t think that trumps everything, I think it’s uncalled for in America today, and should be stomped on with both feet…then kicked in the nuts driven over several times, buried in an ant-hill and liberally doused with honey. I want us to be beyond all this racist bullshit, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen in my lifetime.
-XT
Just classic. Almost, but not quite as good as the claim in a recent Dope thread that saying bigoted things does not make you a bigot unless you act on them.
Another classic. It’s amazing how these people wind up with so many adoring ethnic friends who are willing to ignore or defend the flagrant racist shit they get into.
The following on the other hand is just bizarre.
In most coastal areas, aren’t they concerned about keeping enough sand at the beach? Sheesh.
Sorry xtisme, there is a "double standard’ when it comes to crude insults with obvious racial/bigoted overtones directed against historically threatened and abused ethnic minorities, as opposed to crude insults against members of other groups.
The reason the Bush cartoons were not racist is because he was white. That does make a difference XT.
The fact that Obama is black, means they are racist. If you don’t believe showing Obama as a chimp is not, you are lost.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42656911/ns/politics-more_politics/ The Republican county seat asked the woman who sent the cartoon to resign. He said it is well known and historically racist to show blacks as chimps. No Bush would not be the same thing.
Shame on her for assuming that any e-mail will remain private.
In the mean time, call the thought police, someone needs re-education.
Also I predict this thread will be 6 pages by the time I wake up in the morning. Get all good and outraged guys because this is the most important thing ever.
I guess that’s where we’ll have to disagree, because for me, even if they are both bad, one is distinctly worse than the other.
To draw an analogy, i think it’s sort of like a white guy and a black guy arguing with one another. Both of them might be assholes, and you might be able to say that each one is as big an asshole as the other as long as they’re calling each other “asshole” and “dick” and “motherfucker” and “douchebag.”
But if the white guy calls the black guy a nigger, that fundamentally changes things, in my opinion. And there’s no real equivalency even possible in the other direction, for the historical reasons that we’ve been discussing in this thread.
Maybe in the morning after you slog through all the posts you can tell us what this means.
If the Pres was a Hispanic and you posted him in a sombrero , laying on the ground eating a taco, you would be going in the right direction. It would not get you there though.
Do you really not get it?
I guess this confounds me on some level, because racists don’t feel they can be racist anymore. Seriously, this bat’s contortioning to claim that she, in fact, thought this was satire in good fun, and is gobsmacked to find that the PC police are calling her a Klanswoman! It’s just not fair, etc.
I’m trying to think of the legal, economic, and social consequences of being a racist. If you don’t hire, or injure people because of their race, you get into trouble. In some fields, people won’t want you to work for them, or might fire you. You might lose friends as well…
But to me, this applies to only a sliver of the American populace (like people in Hollywood). I have no doubt that this woman, given where she lives, her socioeconomic status, and her political affiliation (granted, this is all assumed, but I feel safe in making these assumptions) will not suffer in the slightest being outed as a racist. The opprobrium headed her way she’ll no doubt filter as “PC leftist socialists,” and she’s played the God card - and by standing her ground she will gain the admiration of red-blooded 'Merkuns who think it’s great that she had the courage to criticize our foreign-born, Muslim, Nazi-influenced president. Who is also a negro.
So why is she trying so hard to deny it?
Racism doesn’t bother me so much anymore, it’s the pathetic lengths idiots go to pretending they’re not racist.
The subtext for Bush as Monkey is “this is guy is an idiot, he makes poor decisions, he’s an imbecile with power like a monkey with a gun”
The subtext for Obama as Monkey is generally “this guy is a black subhuman”
Similarly, the intent behind opposing the Iraq war or hating Bush over the Patriot act is a reaction to his decisions, the huge wave of vitriolic “he’s a secret muslim” type stuff that appeared in 2007 before anyone even knew what Obama stood for is because of what he is.
Ironically the same defense is given to both types of dichotomies “Oh, it’s alright when you guys do it, right!?!?” as if Iraq war protesting and birtherism have the same validity.
Edit: FTR I thought Bush as chimp was stupid and distasteful and the worst crime of all: not even funny.
I always thought that the Bush as a monkey caricature merely had to do with the size of his ears - even when he wasn’t drawn as a chimp in most cartoons his ears would be accentuated.
Because while violating the law can have some trivial repercussions, violating custom can be devastating socially. There are almost no racists who claim the badge with pride; even people like David Duke strongly deny that they’ve got a racist bone in their bodies. Being a racist is ugly, and society doesn’t accept racists anymore. That’s why all the racists we do see, have to use some sort of dodge or set of dodges in order to avoid stating the pure, obvious truth.