Y'know we keep getting told that there's no racial component to the dislike of President Obama coming from the Hard Right. You literally can't get anyone on that side to openly admit they have any racial animus. The entire fight between Shirley Sherrod and the late Andrew Breitbart was in large part an attempt by the right to redirect and deflect accusations by the NAACP of Racist Imagery by the Tea Party.
These are not the pictures of Obama the Witchdoctor with a bone through his nose, Watermelon on the White House Lawn, or Michelle and Barack at the PIMP BALL you were looking for - nothing to see here - move along. Move along.
Yeah, and then you have this latest example from a Right Wing facebook page with the extremely not imaginative name of "America the next generation".
Sure, I can understand that when you're River-Dancing on the line between Free Speech and Hate Speech, sometimes you take a wrong step. Or two. Or a dozen. But of course
it's not Racial, right? How could it be?
It's fair to note, according to RawStory.com, that this particular picture has already been removed - albiet not because it violates the Facebook Terms of Service because apparently, it doesn't - but because members of this group objected, not because it was too harsh, or too extreme, but because it might turn President Obama into a Martyr.
So let's not suggest celebrating the murder of a Sitting American President because it might be - kinda illegal incitement or something - no instead, let's not do it because, people might feel sorry for and identify with him. And, y'know, we can't have that now can we?
After some discussion between members of the “America the next generation” group and criticism from other Facebook users, the photo was eventually taken down. Some group members feared that lynching the president could make him into a “martyr.”
“OK by are own choice out of respect of our regular followers that requested us to remove the post with the noose around Obamas head,” the group wrote on New Year’s Eve. “[W]e did so out of Respect to them and we will take the high road!”
I am of course ever so glad they decided to take the "High Road" and not martry-fy our 44th President. Who knows exactly where that might lead?
The cluelessness here is truly staggering. I mean, monumental.
They apparently didn't for second consider the racial overtones of such an image. Not one second. Not for a nano-second. It's like these people didn't grow up in the America that the rest of did. The America were all of the following occurred.
[Note this is a graphic i put together myself in conjuction with a So-Cal Slavery/Jim Crow Reparations Group to highlight the issue of American Lynching]
If you're thinking these are all cases from long ago, notice the image in the upper right hand corner. That is the Lynching of Michael Donald, perpetrated by members of the KKK, which took place in 1981 in Alabama. Here's a video from National Geographic on the case.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/...
Clearly this is not ancient history, it's within Most of our Lifetimes. As was the lynching of James Byrd, who was dragged behind a car by the neck until his head came off in 1998. Or the Fort Bragg soldiers who decided to strike a blow for White Supremacy in 1995 by randomly murdering a black couple.
One would think in the current atmosphere of Racial Profiling, Stop-N-Frisk, Racial Sentencing Disparities, the police killings of unarmed black men such as Oscar Grant, Patrick Dorismond, Jonny Gammage and Jonathon Farrell, or with You-can-Stand-Your-Ground-Unless-You're-Black cases such a Marisa Alexander (originally sentenced to 20 years for shooting a wall) or Trevor Dooley (sentenced to 5 years despite invoking SYD) you would think some people might think twice before posting an image such as that, of the creation of a National Holiday to Celebrate the Lynching of the First Black American President.
But apparently not.
Apparently none of the above even occurred to these people. They think, well, if the left could get away with it with Bush, then of course, we should be able to do it too as they argue in this later post.
from Tomraworth.com
In a follow-up post, the group included a photo of former President George W. Bush with a noose around his neck “for you winey liberals that said it didn’t exist… like I said your double standards are pathetic!”
I'm not exactly sure how one person being an total
asshole with photoshop justifies someone else doing the same exact thing.
But here's the truly interesting thing. I actually went to the site with the BushNoose pic, and it's not exactly a Liberal or Progressive site at all. In fact, it's a really pathetic and sad parody of what someone thinks some Anti-Bush people might say. Styling itself as if it were the BBC News the page is rife with tells.
http://tomraworth.com/...
In a statement U.S. President O'Bama said the execution had closed a dark chapter in U.S. history.
"Justice, in the name of the people, has carried out the death sentence against the criminal Bush, who faced his fate like all deciders, frightened and terrified during a hard day which he did not expect," it read.
President "O'Bama"? Whose that?
A small group of gays witnessed the execution inside a building at a U.S. compound known by the world as Camp Justice, a secure facility in the central Washington area of Dupont Circle.
G.W.Bush's body in a shroud as shown by MTV. We took him to the gallows and he was saying some few malapropisms. He was very, very, very, drunk Mumia Abu-Jamal U.S. National Security Adviser.
They watched as a judge read out a sentence to G.W.Bush. The former U.S. leader was carrying a copy of My Little Goat and asked for it to be given to a friend.
it was shown on "MTV? What, right after re-runs of Jersey Shore and Teen-Mom? "A small group of gays"? "Mumia Abu-Jamal" as National Security Adviser? "My Little Goat"?
Double-U. Tee. EFF?!
I'm not at all sure what to make of this site, which includes among a lot of other random trivia - a picture of Santa Clause on a Crucifixion Cross - but I'm not entirely certain you can make any links between that person and Moveon.Org or for that matter Code Pink.
Sorry, but this is not equal time. There is NOT a long history of the extra-judicial (or pseudo judicial) murders of Texan White Guys who are really from Connecticut who are Dry-Drunks who never finished their national guard service, had a Senator for a Grand Father, a Vice-President and President for a father, became President themselves due to the decision by the Supreme Court, failed to heed warnings about 9/11, failed to listen to the Joe Wilson, the State Dept, the Energy Dept,, Iraq's own head of Intelligence (Habbush), and the Iraqi Presentation to the UN when they all said Saddam didn't have any WMD's, Nuclear Materials or any connections to al Qaeda, implemented a regime of international kidnapping, torture and illegal surveillance that we're still struggling with, managed to Ignore Bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the next 7 years, then - due to his general ineptitude and cluelessness - crashed the economy nearly as badly as the original Great Depression.
Yeah, sure I can see how that guy and President Obama's attempts to bring Health Care to 20 Million Americans, Save the U.S. Auto Industry, Scrap DADT, End Iran's Nuclear Ambitions and implement a Jobs Bill, while cutting the Deficit in Half are completely inter-changeable. I mean, what's the difference beside skin tone? Next thing you know we'll be hearing Right-Wing Reality Stars spout off about how there was Nothing Racist or sad-face-making About Jim Crow and Segregation or from Right-Wing Supreme Court Judges that the Federal Act to ensure fair voting for all is some kind of "Racial Entitlement".
And who thinks anything like that would ever happen, I mean really?
Look, if there's was a century long History of People who looked like, and had some common heritage to George W. Bush or Connecticut/Texans being Hung by the Neck Until Dead for Crimes they Didn't Commit then you might be able to draw an equal comparison.
But there isn't. Not even close.
Not that we'll ever get anyone on the other side of the partisan aisle to admit - of even fully comprehend - the difference.
Vyan
Fri Jan 03, 2014 at 1:02 PM PT: As quite a few in the comments have pointed out, the "Patriot" page has been hacked by Goat Lovers. And much hilarious snark did ensue.