MEDIA'S GUIDE TO RACIAL SENSITIVITY

From the very moment Barack Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States, the media has somehow been under some awkward belief that any jokes regarding him being black would be brilliantly funny.  So time and time again these blowhards in business suits took gigantic risks, ventured out onto the edge, and if they weren't connecting him to a muslim extremist terrorist they were connecting him to a monkey, ape, or gorilla.  Since these types of connections have been historically negative, divisive, and near riotous, having long been used to portray black people as something less than human, these media moguls have been either unbelievably racist or unbelievably dumb!  Now it's the New York Post's turn, which published a cartoon on their editorial page depicting President Obama as the dangerously out of control chimpanzee killed last week for mauling a neighbor.  Funny, right?  WRONG!

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A Georgia businessman sold t-shirts

showing Obama as a monkey

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This mailer from Republicans in California depict Obama 

on a Food Stamp, as a mule, with fried chicken, ribs, watermelon, 

and red Kool-Aid...all black stereotypes.

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The mayor of Los Alamitos, CA distributed the photo via email

claiming that instead of the traditional easter egg hunt, 

the Obama's will turn the south lawn of the White House 

into a watermelon patch

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 The New York Post cartoon

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The election of Barack Obama to the presidency was the moment in American history where we could all collectively move beyond our national racist past and progress toward a future of unity.  So why then are so many clinging to the very stereotypes that have long sought to divide us?  And since when did we all collectively decide that these reminders of racism were funny?  EVERY SINGLE TIME these editors or politicians have cluelessly fooled themselves into thinking putting this sort of trash out to the public was an excellent idea, only to have to retract and apologize later for being insensitive, claiming they didn't realize it would cause such a stir.  BALDERDASH!  Would it be right to poke fun at the jews regarding the Holocaust?  Or make jokes about those who perished in the 9/11 attacks?  Or what about a funny little story or cartoon regarding an abducted, raped, or killed child?  OF COURSE NOT!  Some things are just not funny, and are off limits to the apparent armchair comics out there who are making the decisions to publicize this sort of nonsense.
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So to the NEW YORKER magazine, the NEW YORK POST, and all those out there who keep presenting the general public with these assinine and outdated racial stereotypes, claiming you had no idea you were doing something wrong, here is your guide that should help prevent any future "mistakes" of racial insensitivity:
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✓DO NOT DISCUSS, PUBLISH, OR PRESENT PRESIDENT OBAMA, HIS WIFE MICHELLE,  THEIR CHILDREN, OR ANY AFRICAN-AMERICAN CITIZEN AS: an Ape, Gorilla, Monkey, Primate, or anything less than human; 
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✓DO NOT PORTRAY AFRICAN-AMERICANS:  as extremists; terrorists; in black face or as a sambo; with overly large lips, nose, or other body parts;
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✓STAY AWAY FROM CONNECTING AFRICAN-AMERICANS AS STEREOTYPICAL CONNOISSEURS OF:  fried chicken, ribs, watermelon, kool-aid, or the like;
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The above suggestions are only a start.  And for anyone who sees the above listings as harmless good old fashioned humor you probably have a long way to go in racial education anyway.  So if you are truly sincere that your motives are not to incite racial insensitivity and that your goal is to present pure and fair politics and journalism, you will best serve yourselves and your constituents by avoiding the above at all costs.  Racism is still very much alive and well in our society.  It is not funny.  Never was.  The only way past it is to collectively turn our backs from it.  And that means YOU!

MIND YOUR BUSINESS

Former Bush White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card nearly had a conniption fit over recent photos of President Obama not wearing his suit jacket while in the Oval Office.  Apparently a cardinal sin during the Bush years, Mr. Card considered President Obama's behavior a disrespectful shame, saying: "The Oval Office symbolizes...the Constitution, the hopes and dreams, and I'm going to say democracy. And when you have a dress code in the Supreme Court and a dress code on the floor of the Senate, floor of the House, I think it's appropriate to have an expectation that there will be a dress code that respects the office of the President."

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Well it seems Mr. Card --- ahem --- misspoke.  Because although former President Bush "claimed" to have such a dress code in place in his Oval Office, the photos below prove a different story.  Not only did Bush go without a suit jacket in the Oval Office, so did members of his cabinet.  In fact it appears to be a time-honored tradition among president's.  Gerald Ford did it.  Jimmy Carter did it.  Even Clinton did it...a lot.  Perhaps the best thing a past official like Andrew Card can do now is realize his opinion is irrelevant, mind his own business, and allow PRESIDENT Obama to decide how HE wants things done in HIS Presidential office.

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THE PROOF IS IN THE PICTURES:
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MORE LIPSTICK ON A PIG?

Last week, the GOP elected its first African-American as Chairman of the Republican National Committee.  Immediately, news journalists and political pundits hailed the historical election of Michael Steele as ground breaking and the reinvention of the Republican party.  Oh really?
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Just in case anyone forgot, the Republican party membership has a long history of racial hatred and inequality.  Former Alabama Gov. George Wallace personally blocked the doorway to prevent school desegregation in his state back in 1963, and he was a Republican.  White Supremacist and former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate from Louisiana in 1996, and he too is a Republican.  And just try picking out at least five black faces in the crowd at any Republican event.  The Republican party has long been a landing pad for racists, anti-abortionists, gay rights opponents, christian conservatives, and just about anyone who takes a passionately strong stance against any way of thinking that is different from their own.  It's been that way in the GOP for many decades now (which should explain why the party has been losing steam --- and elections).  So why does the arrival of Michael Steele at the helm suddenly change everything?  It doesn't!
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Just because a hotel meeting room full of delegates chooses a leader doesn't instantly make him one.  And that one afternoon of balloting simply does not turn back or erase decades of racial thinking. In spite of his newly acquired title of "Chairman," Michael Steele is still a black man going against a party of some who absolutely will not play follow the leader.  Already David Duke has gone on record in calling Chairman Steele a "black racist," "Obama Jr." and a "servile dog of Israel."  So put whatever lipstick on that pig you want, but the true Republican party and all its ways of thinking are still right there behind it.  With cutesy slogans like "Family Values" and "Pro Marriage", the reality is the Christian Coalition and the social and racial conservatives are the REAL Chairman of the Republican party.  They have the numbers, they have the strength, and they wield the true power.  They've worked too many years, donated too many dollars, and they're not about to relinquish their party simply because a lone African-American man said so.  Truth be told, this unique group of GOPer's simply have no place else to go if they don't hold their ground.  "Change" and "Obama-mania" have swept the Democratic party, attracting multiculturalists, youth, and 21st Century free thinkers.  So the older, conservative, race conscious, gun toting, value-themed voter has no choice but to hunker down and hold on to the only place they know as home.
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Since becoming Chairman, Michael Steele has appeared on numerous talk shows touting it's a "new day" in the Republican party.  But then he followed up all that contemporary talk with the same old outdated and hard lined Republican positions that already has the party on the brink of irrelevancy.  If the messenger is going to be spewing the same old rhetoric, what difference does it make if he's black, white, hispanic, or martian?  So the question remains: what exactly is going to be new?  Apparently not much.  It seems Michael Steele is just a darker shade of lipstick being applied to the same old pig!

THE "O" TEAM

FAMED PHOTOGRAPHER ANNIE LEIBOVITZ CAPTURES THE NEW

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IN STYLE!

See the entire photo display HERE

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