POLITICAL RIDICULE

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

The President's disciples

Miss Thing, you need to get over the religious imagery. It's getting a bit tedious.

@ehBeth,

Oh I suppose so, but its so hard to ignore the religious and Messiah-like adoration the President's fawning constituency heap upon him and the godlike attributes they assign to him. The fire and brimstone 'sermons' he has been preaching lately haven't helped dispel the image either. But it does sorta sting when it's your guy being lampooned doesn't it? (I do imagine he won't start passing the collection plate during his speeches though as he has other ways of taking up an offering.)

http://media.townhall.com/Townhall/Car/b/aria090211_fix20090211051604.jpg

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Now that's hilarious . . . as though Obama were unique in peddling fear (and, of course, it's not even established that he is peddling fear). The Shrub's supporters have been peddling fear for years--claims that the Shrub's dreamed of police state would protect us from terrorists, who were seen as a howling band of millions of Muslims just outside the door.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Back when the campaign was in full swing and I had voiced my concerns about Senator Obama, I was accused of being afraid of a 'black President'. I agreed. I did not want a BLACK president. I didn't however, care one way or another if we had a president who happend to be black.

The difference is illustrated in that cartoon. If President Obama was a blue eyed blond, the cartoonist would have almost certainly used the same drawing with the same caption. The President's disciples, however, would not have related it to a racist image but would have seen it as an insult against a stimulus package obvously designed by a monkey which is almost certainly what the cartoonist intended.

But because the President is a black man and those who claim moral superiority re their attitudes on race will never allow anybody to treat him as anything other than a black man, we are advised that of course the cartoon is racist. And I think we can look forward to having virtually every criticism, complaint, observation, or interpretation for the next four years being evaluated within the prism of racism.

And that is why I didn't want a BLACK president. I want a president that I can treat like any other occupant of that office and not have to carefully measure every word and walk on eggshells to avoid the conversation dissolving into another assertion of racism.

I wish Barack Obama could be a president who just happens to be black.

HOW does that manifest itself
insofar as raising welfare in America,
or as to foreign aid charity to Africa ?

1 Reply

@kickycan,

kickycan wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

kickycan wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

The folks who scream the loudest against ridiculing obama for being african
( cartoons, etc. )
are the same ones that ridiculed W for being stupid.

Probably for the same reason that the folks who defended W when people called him stupid
are the same ones who happily accept Obama being ridiculed for being African.

for all the good it does

Are you saying you agree with me?

Sort of; maybe diagonally.

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@OmSigDAVID,

It shouldn't manifest itself at all. It should have no bearing on anything. That the pigment of the President's skin is dark should have no more bearing on policy or programs or budgets than would a President being red headed and freckled have a bearing on those things.

I think it is fine, even historic, that we have come far enough to get past the color of a man's skin to determine who can be President of the United States. But the color of his skin should not be a determining factor in how he governs nor in how he is perceived by anybody.

In other words, I want the right to treat Barack Obama exactly as I would treat a red-headed, freckled president without being accused of being a racist when I do. And that cartoonist should be able to do that too. It's only when we get to that point that we can say that racism has been essentially defeated in the United States.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:
It shouldn't manifest itself at all. It should have no bearing on anything.
That the pigment of the President's skin is dark should have no
more bearing on policy or programs or budgets than would a
President being red headed and freckled have a bearing on those things.

Is that politically REALISTIC ??
The fanatical devotion he got from the blacks
was not a product of idle chance.

Quote:

In other words, I want the right to treat Barack Obama exactly
as I would treat a red-headed, freckled president without being accused of being a racist when I do.

Is it really so IMPORTANT to u
what u r ACCUSED of in an Internet forum ?

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

David the thread. which you started, is discussion of a cartoon. It has nothing to do with why black people voted for Obama. Both black and white and every hue in between voted for Obama because they believed he was the best choice for President, and why should that be an issue for anybody? Those, black or white or any other color who voted for Obama because he was the black candidate are as racist as much as would be any people who voted for McCain because he was the white candidate.

The cartoonist is being branded racist because he used a chimpanzee in the cartoon and our President happens to be black. If those same people would not have accused the cartoonist of racism if the President happened to be white, then the problem of racist attitudes more likely rests with those who accuse the cartoonist more than it rests with the cartoonist.

All I am saying is people whether cartoonists, pundits, writers, commentators, people writing on message boards, or anybody else should be allowed treat the President the same as they would treat him if he was blond and blue eyed. I don't want to be accused of racism when I do that, and I don't think a cartoonist should be branded racist when he does that.

(And I have been accused of being racist, prejudiced, a bigot and worse here on A2K way more than I have been accused of that all the rest of my life put together. It hasn't happened yet in this thread, but if this discussion continues, it probably will.)

1 Reply

Foxfyre- Your point is well taken. You are, of course, aware that there is such a thing as racism on the part of blacks. Jesse Jackson, at one time, said racism on the part of blacks was impossible because they did not have any power. Of course, he could not say that anymore. The Reverend Farrakhan has an atrocious record of blatant racism against whites but he is protected by Political Correctness.

I do not think too many people are influenced by color--I think more of them are influenced by ideology.

Personally, I view Dr.Thomas Sowell or Mr. Michael Steele or Mr. Shelby Steele or Judge Clarence Thomas or Mr.Bill Cosby as intelligent African-American citizens who would advance the cause of African-Americans in the USA.

I also view dregs like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond,Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lee as "race-carders supreme"

I am certain that evidence and documentation would show that I amcorrect.

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Re: OmSigDAVID (Post 3577893)
Om Sig David--There is data available to show that George W.Bush had an IQ of about 120,notwithstanding the smarmy comments by the left who regularly make fun of Bush's pronunciation of Nuclear but never comment of a similar pronounciation of Nuclear by the revered Jimmy Carter.

And, unlike the far left, who I am certain understood every word uttered by the lst whoremonger president,Jack Kennedy,I had difficulty deciphering his Bostonian accent when he intoned--I left the Cah by the Pak by the Yad.

You know, of course, OmSig,that a 120 IQ is a score which exceeds 80% of the population.

But, I am sure that Obama's IQ is much higher than Bush's. I have, however, been unable to discover anything about Obama's scholastic record at Occidental College in California and his scholastic record at Columbia.

Strangely, he does not mention grades or scholastic honors in either of his two books.

Some wags mention that he did not want to reveal his reliance on Affirmative Action, but, of course, that is probably just gossip!

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@OmSigDAVID,

No one is calling for govt. censorship. However, anyone may call it racist and stupid.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

No one is calling for govt. censorship.
However, anyone may call it racist and stupid.

Anyone can call anything or any person racist and stupid; obvious.
When something is called "racist" I smell a vague n subtle hint
that there shoud be government censorship (hate crime maybe, to express an unpopular opinion ?)

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

In other words, I want the right to treat Barack Obama exactly as I would treat a red-headed, freckled president without being accused of being a racist when I do. And that cartoonist should be able to do that too. It's only when we get to that point that we can say that racism has been essentially defeated in the United States.

I knew it wouldn't be long before this **** was trotted out, although i'd have sooner thought it would have been voiced by some rightwing pea-wit, rather than someone with some claim to intelligence.

There have been pages and pages of criticism of Obama in the press and at this site, and no one has accused the critics of being racist. This cartoon is getting raked over the coals for the simple reason that it has strong racist overtones, and those overtones go back a long way, a century and more. Anti-Lincoln propaganda in the 1860 campaign showed him with n*ggers in his wood pile, and showed him consorting with black men who looked like monkeys, and Lincoln himself was commonly referred to as "the original gorilla," with lots of snide references to Darwin thrown in for good meansure, to stir up the religious nut cases.

No one is putting you in the position of being unable to criticize the President for fear that you will be labelled racist. At the same time, when overtly racist imagery is used, people have a perfect right to call the author for it.

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The front page news that week was a crazed chimpanzee being shot to death by the police and a highly controversial and highly criticized economic stimulus package.

There is no reason to believe the cartoonist would not have combined that very same dead chimpanzee with that very same stimulus package if the President was blond and blue eyed or somebody else.

The cartoonist is being branded racist because he used a chimpanzee in the cartoon and our President happens to be black. If the same same people accusing the cartoonist of racism would not have seen racism if the President happened to be white, then the problem of racist attitudes more likely rests with those who accuse the cartoonist more than it rests with the cartoonist.

And I don't care how much the issue of race has been raised since Barack Obama has come upon the scene. In my opinion, to assume that he must be treated differently or different imagery or different language must be used re him than would be used for anybody else perpetuates racism.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:

David the thread. which you started, is discussion of a cartoon.

The thread which I started is not limited to a cartoon.
It more broadly addresses political ridicule.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

In other words, I want the right to treat Barack Obama exactly as I would treat a red-headed, freckled president without being accused of being a racist when I do. And that cartoonist should be able to do that too. It's only when we get to that point that we can say that racism has been essentially defeated in the United States.

I agree with Fox on this one. I looked at the cartoon in question and completely understood what the cartoonist was going for. It was a critisism of a stimulus package that looked like it was written by an out of control ape. The ape in question was all over the news right before the cartoon came out; it was current and made perfect sense. If there were no news items about out of control apes, I might wonder where it was coming from, but this wasn't the case.

Dave, in answer to your original question, my opinion matches others. Obama's skin color is completely irrelevant to his performance. It's what he was born with. Bush's performance in office is what gave his critics the ammo to question his intelligence. I've always thought it was an act, an effort to seem more down to earth. Still, he's in rarified company as President and the standards are higher.

I also think you are looking at things through partisan lenses. Clinton was heavily ridiculed while in office and was the butt of late night jokes for years. Kennedy was hammered for his religion. I never saw Reagan "ridiculed" for his age although it was certainly a topic of discussion. Of course the most famous Reagan age joke was told by the man himself in one of the debates. I think just about all Presidents have taken a beating, not just the Republican ones.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

There is no reason to believe the cartoonist would not have combined that very same dead chimpanzee with that very same stimulus package if the President was blond and blue eyed or somebody else.

There is very good reason to assume that, given that there is a subtext about apes and black men, while there is no equivalent subtext about apes and white men. So your claim that the cartoonist would have produced the same image if the President were white is founded on nothing more than your desire to argue a point about which you would be uncomfortable if it were not made.

There is no call here to treat the President differently because of his race, there is an objection when he is treated differently because of his race, as when he is compared to an ape. To claim that "the problem" lies with those who accuse the cartoonist of racism rather than the cartoonist is the equivalent so stating that the cartoonist would have produced the same image if the President were white, something you cannot possibly know. What perpetuates racism if the failure to recognize and to loudly deplore racism when it is encountered either in overt form or subtle form.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre is correct---We have tossed the word _Racism - around so much that we have forgotten its meaning-
note
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
" rac·ist \-sist also -shist\ noun or adjective

Key terms---PRIMARY DETERMINANT

INHERENT SUPERIORITY

No one believes that anymore.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

Quote:

David the thread. which you started, is discussion of a cartoon.

The thread which I started is not limited to a cartoon.
It more broadly addresses political ridicule.

The title perhaps more broadly addresses political ridicule, but your opening post was this:

Quote:
The folks who scream the loudest against ridiculing obama for being african
( cartoons, etc. )
are the same ones that ridiculed W for being stupid.

I wonder what the reasoning of that is ?

Does the First Amendment apply in one case,
but not the other ?

You seemed to be addressing the double standard that exists; i.e. its okay to say anything or characterize anybody any way you want if he or she is white, Republican, and/or conservative, but it is not okay to do that if he or she is black, Democrat, and/or liberal. And to take that a step further, any possible excuse, no matter how far one much stretch to do it, to accuse President Obama's critics of racism will be employed.

You are right that you didn't specifically mention the cartoon and I incorrectly assumed that it was the focus of your opening post. So I committed the same error as those who assume that because the cartoonist used a crazed chimpanzee that had been shot dead by the police in his cartoon, it is a racist cartoon.

My error was based on the prominance of the debate over the cartoon and assumed that was intended here.

Those who accuse the cartoonist of racism is based on the fact that THEY connect apes with black people and assume that everybody else does too.

I was obviously wrong in my reason. And so are those who accuse the cartoonist in their reason.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

kickycan wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

The folks who scream the loudest against ridiculing obama for being african
( cartoons, etc. )
are the same ones that ridiculed W for being stupid.

Probably for the same reason that the folks who defended W when people called him stupid
are the same ones who happily accept Obama being ridiculed for being African.

for all the good it does

Yeah, no matter what you do, some people are still going to be complete phony hypocrites. For example, here's Foxfyre, the queen of phony outrage, saying one thing when it's a democrat in question, and another when it's a republican.

while defending Sarah Palin's honor back on the campaign trail, Foxfyre wrote:

You say

Quote:
Watching the video it is impossible to think the phrase was directed at Palin in such a way that he was calling Palin a pig.

Not impossible at all since the same video very clearly shows that the audience absolutely took it as a shot at Palin. And they liked it. Obama could not have missed that and he should have corrected the misperception on the spot in no uncertain terms. He didn't. He allowed them to cheer and whoop and holler at the implication and while they were still doing that he finished the thought with the eight-year old stinky fish. And that makes him guilty despite no evidence of original intent.

But now she's defending the NY Post like they were her family members.

This is exactly what you're talking about, isn't it David? Totaly hypocrisy. And the fact that the poster who said this can't see that it's hypocrisy tells you a little bit more, doesn't it? It tells you that these phonies either A) can't see their own hypocrisy even when it's staring them in the face, or B) they won't ADMIT their own hypocrisy. I'm not sure which it is, but maybe this can help you answer your original question.

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