To consider a point from another discussion: Without further ado: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Obama Jemima? ca. 2008 (via BlackPoliticalThought.com) Janet Shan offers an analysis: The latest comes to us courtesy of Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tennessee, who created boxes of a waffle mix depicting Barack Obama as a racial stereotype on its front and wearing an Arab-like headdress on its top flap. These men sold the mix for $10 a box from a rented booth at the summit sponsored by the Values Voter Summit, a lobbying arm of the Family Research Council. The organizers cut off sales of the Obama Waffles on Saturday, saying that they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material." What is amazing is that the summit and exhibit hall where the boxes were being sold had been open since Thursday afternoon. So, they chose to do nothing until someone complained. According to David Nammo, the executive director of the FRC Action, the summit organizers had been told that the boxes were a parody of Obama's policy positions, but they had not examined them closely .... .... The biggest problem I have with this is the fact that it plays of the old image of Aunt Jemima, which has been widely criticized as a demeaning stereotype. Obama is portrayed with popping eyes and big, thick lips as he stares as a plate of waffles and smiles broadly. The Arab headdress is an insult because they are trying to perpetuate a false rumor that he is a follower of Islam and they know it is false because guy is a Christian. In their own defense, Mark Whitlock explained, "We have had some people mention it to us, but you think of Newman's Own or Emeril's, there are tons and tons of personality-branded food products on the market. So we've taken that model and, using political satire, have highlighted his policies, his position changes." Of course, that doesn't necessarily hold up. To the one, Paul Newman and Emeril Lagasse endorsed those products. To the other, though, do you really need a president's approval for political satire? Obviously not. To yet a third, though, neither Newman nor Lagasse approved racist stereotypes for their product packaging. ____________________ Notes: Shan, Janet. "Obama Waffles, Throwback to Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Big Hit at Conservative Values Voter Summit". Black Political Thought. September, 2008. BlackPoliticalThought.com. September 23, 2009. http://blackpoliticalthought.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-waffles-throwback-to-aunt-jemima.html
Exhibit #2 To reiterate the response: Ideas and policies, circa 9/12: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's not about race. 9/12 protesters speak their minds. (via Flickr) One wonders what the ideas behind the policies these people advocate really are.
Exhibit #3 Let's have some fun with racism ideas and polices. Or maybe not. See, the thing is that while the Photoshop jobs are kind of juvenile, what are we to say about the people who made and carried the original signs? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Stating the obvious. It's almost too easy to pick on these folks. (via The Daily Dish) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Because it can't be about race. I mean, really. What? (via BuzzFeed) If the ideas and policies are important, why not argue those instead? See, the problem is that the fire was lit by racists. And, naturally, that sort of sensational bullshit got a lot of attention. So more and more Republicans have been hopping on board. And they, while echoing racists, are offended by the implication of racism. Dan Savage notes: ... politically Obama has to avoid the angry-black-man label—which is why he's being baited with racist images and slurs and will go on being baited until sometime after 2012—because it would hurt him with middle-of-the-road white independents who don't want to believe that America has a race problem still. So our first black president can't call clearly racist insults or acts or motives racist. He needs a crazy ol' cracker like Jimmy Carter to do that for him—and then he needs to go on TV and dismiss and downplay Carter's comments. And Americans are simultaneously upset with Carter because he's right and grateful to the president for letting them—and the country—off the hook._____________________ Notes: Savage, Dan. "Obama to Letterman: I Was Black Before the Election". Slog. September 22, 2009. Slog.TheStranger.com. September 23, 2009. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/ar...-to-letterman-i-was-black-before-the-election
To be honest this racial backlash started with Hillary Clintons campaign. Once she lost the Black vote after her defeat in Iowa she switched to the southern strategy. That's when Barack's racial heritage became the centerpiece of his opposition. The only thing the Republicans did was mirror the strategy of the Clinton campaign. The only problem with that strategy is it's only effective in encapsulating a certain demographic, the same demographic who didn't vote for him in the first place. So far the only political strategy that's been effective against Obama was to paint him into the "Black candidate". As much as the GOP hates the Clintons it's amusing that they're banking their entire future on a strategy that was devised by their arch enemy, Hillary Clinton.
It's a sketchy narrative, though I've heard the thing about Hillary Clinton's campaign before, but the narrative on that has always been sketchy. To the other, though, I think that if one develops the thesis that it all started with Hillary Clinton, the idea that "The only thing the Republicans did was mirror the strategy of the Clinton campaign" won't hold up unless we're using an array of mirrors from the fun house. What we've seen—especially since Obama's inauguration—has been way beyond the pale, and exponentially greater than anything one might hope to crucify Hillary Clinton for. One of the curious things that emerges in the whole race debate surrounding candidate and then President Obama is that, apparently, the only clean hands in this are conservative hands.
Uh, the "southern strategy" was old news before Hilary married Bill. The modern "southern strategy" in national politics was developed in 1968 by the Nixon campaign and perfected by the Republican Party political attack arm in the 1980 Reagan campaign. The "southern strategy" was used on the Clintons, for many years. Teh "southern strategy" has been the mainstay of grassroots national Republican campaigning for forty years. You can't reasonably say the "only thing" the Republicans did was "mirror" the Clintons. Obama, in the campaign, polled and market researched obsessively, and the primary findings were: he had to avoid looking angry, and he had to avoid most humor. Both were threats. Republican white candidates are allowed to get angry, and speak to crowds waving "edgy" signs with racially loaded stuff about blacks - similar signs from the black perspective about whites are nowhere to be seen at Obama crowds. Had they been, he loses. If Obama had lost his temper even once, in the manner characteristic of McCain every three weeks, he would have lost. If he had behaved toward McCain personally as McCain behaved toward him, refusing to look at him when he spoke etc, he would have lost. McCain was a lousy candidate, with a demeanor, legislative record, and personal history that should have sunk him long before he nominated Palin and the entire economy collapsed under policies he had advocated. But he had the "southern strategy" on his side. That alone is almost enough, in the US. The biggest question facing the Democratic Party in its choice of candidate last year was: would enough Americans vote for a black man? Hilary's negatives were known and measured - they were very great, and that was known from years of experience and polls and actual trial. Obama was a new figure, and very charismatic - but his negatives were very great as well. How did everyone know that? By looking at the color of his face. The asymmetries of the situation are obvious - so universal and blatant they are taken for granted. The US is awash in racism - it permeates the entire society, and watching people claim these spittle-spewers are opposed to Obama's "policies" is a bizarre experience. They none of them have the slightest idea what Obama's "policies" are. And their spokesmen are not allowed to claim some kind of status above it all - the Limbaughs and Becks are dominating this scene, and joining it is joining them and their audience of many years now.
Exhibit #4 — Even when they say it's about race Exhibit #4 We must remember that it's about ideas and policies, and not about race, even when they say it's about race: Hey, look, folks, the white kid on that bus in Belleville, Illinois, he deserved to be beat up. You don't know about this story? Oh, there's video of this. The school bus filled with mostly black students beat up a white student a couple of times with all the black students cheering. Of course the white student on the bus deserved the beating. He was born a racist. That's what Newsweek magazine told us in its most recent cover. It's Obama's America, is it not? Obama's America, white kids getting beat up on school buses now. You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety but in Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, "Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on," and, of course, everybody says the white kid deserved it, he was born a racist, he's white. Newsweek magazine told us this. We know that white students are destroying civility on buses, white students destroying civility in classrooms all over America, white congressmen destroying civility in the House of Representatives. (Limbaugh) Because, you know, it's only about ideas and policies. Whatever else is going on in the Belleville case—which could be either an issue of race or social status in the school popularity hierarchy—what is the connection between Obama being president and school violence? "I was black before the election," the president reminded David Letterman the other night. And guess what? There was violence in the schools, along both racial and social lines, well before the 2008 election, as well. "I wonder if Obama is going to come to the defense [of] the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard," Limbaugh said in his September 15, 2009 broadcast. Personally, I wonder at the radio host's logic. • Sgt. Crowley described his own conduct in the Gates incident in a way that suggests the underlying problem. Treating a homeowner as a suspect and then identifying yourself and explaining why you're there only after the "suspect" becomes angry is problematic. I've been arrested for what an officer thought was extremely dangerous conduct. The first thing I heard was, "Good evening, sir. May I see your license and registration?" A black friend of mine was arrested for running a yellow light, fearing his car was on fire because of the smoke billowing out of it, trying to keep the thing from stalling out in the middle of one of the city's biggest intersections. He made it into the parking lot, was hit by the lights, and heard, "Driver, step out of the car." How the police initiate an encounter makes all the difference in the world to a citizen of any ethnicity. Where, I wonder, is the equivalent consideration that makes the connection for Mr. Limbaugh? • Should President Obama involve himself in every incident of school violence involving participants of differing ethnic backgrounds? At what point would the same factions of the right wing begin criticizing the federal executive for meddling in local affairs? I was arrested in King County, delivered to a police station in the city of Tukwila, just south of Seattle. The case in court was the People of the State of Washington versus me. Not the county, not the municipality, but the state. So if President Obama involves himself in every one of these school violence incidents, would there not be an issue of states' rights to consider? • What reporter is going to solicit the president's opinion about the Belleville incident in a press conference about, say, health care, or Afghanistan? Mr. Limbaugh overlooks the facts of the case, the legal boundaries involved, the regularity of school violence, and the way in which President Obama came to comment on the Gates incident in the first place. Of course, none of these things matter, do they? After all, the opposition to Obama is due to his policies, not his ancestry. Nobody gives a rat's ass about his ancestry. ____________________ Notes: Limbaugh, Rush. "From Kids on Bus to Kanye West: Race Rules All in Obama's America". The Rush Limbaugh Show. September 15, 2009. RushLimbaugh.com. September 23, 2009. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_091509/content/01125106.guest.html
...and some Obamaphilia can be attributed to race, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIOePg4K0vI&feature=related
I met Obama when he was running for CONgress in 2000. He gave me the creeps. I don't care what color he is. I must admit he was kind of charming on Letterman but I still don't like him.
Yes, Obama said some people voted for him because of his race, as well as voted against him because of his race.
Is Tiassa considering all examples of opposition to Obama as "Obamanoia", or merely the more extreme cases?
This and that Indeed. And thank you. I was waiting for one of you to pop off with that one. • • • Well, take a look at that waffle box. And the white slavery sign. Would you consider that normal, or more extreme? Another way to look at it, albeit a little more complicated—sorry 'bout that—is the number of times recently I've made a point like, "The thing is that even when there are legitimate issues ... the conservative talking points skip right past those and leap into the kind of histrionics reminiscent of Griffith's Birth of a Nation"? In truth, I've made that point more than I should have to, lately; it's fine with me if someone disagrees, but I'm not surprised that certain people—especially some of those I've made the point directly to—have been so low as to simply ignore it. So I'll leave the answer to you: If you think the examples given representative of all opposition to Obama, then that's the answer. If you consider them extraordinary, that is the answer.
I do consider them out of the normal. Regardless of my opinion, they cannot be both. I see you've metamorphosed from holding your knees and weeping to the other mods that Geoff is being mean back to insulting everyone who doesn't agree with you. Kudos on your courageous transformation.
"Obamanoia" is a crock. We don't fear him personally. We despise his government-control plans for the USA and want them to fail. Many fear what his plans/ideas/ legislation will do to us.
You're so quick to play the race card...you're not Tiassa's sock-puppet, are you? Or maybe he is yours (I didn't bother to check who joined SciForums first). And no, I'm not the "ladder". I didn't even vote in this election. The best candidate on the ballot was probably Alan Keyes (who I'm sure gets all the Stormfronter support Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!), but third parties are pretty much shut out of the system, so why bother?
obviously more white people voted for obama than black people. this is the first person with his descent to be a world leader outside of africa in the whole world. give him a break already and dont be so obsessed. of course you can.
Now he seems to be accusing anyone who posts something he dislikes of being a racist. Now THAT is change we can believe in! Maybe Tiassa can use this as his new avatar: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
There are undoubtedly people who dislike Obama because of his racial background (and it's naive to believe otherwise), but I think that it's intellectually dishonest to accuse everyone who dislikes Obama of being racist. I wouldn't support Obama's policies no matter what he looked like or where his ancestors came from.
well that goes across the board and crosses all color boundaries. personally, i was upset when i heard he was running but only because i wanted hillary to win. i know that i really want a female president.
