If I started off a joke about someone eating ribs, fried chicken and watermelon, who was on food stamps, you would know that I was about to tell an inappropriate ethnic joke about an African American. If you were a decent person, you might tell me to watch my mouth before I said anything. If you were morally upright and I told the joke anyway, you might knock me on my ass. And if I had a conscience, instead of calling the cops, I'd do what was decent and feel ashamed. While I wouldn't want to admit to full-on bigotry, I would feel compelled to say I was sorry--again, if I had a conscience.
On the other hand if I were a jerk who wanted to insult your intelligence, I would try to tell you that I didn't know that eating fried chicken, watermelon and barbecued ribs were a stereotype for black people, or that being on welfare was an unfair and negative sterotype of black people.
Diane Fedele, president of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated of Upland, California, is the lowest form of life that has ever existed in our great country: Diane Fedele is a bigot. That's not playing the race card, that is a statement Diane Fedele invited when she composed such an image. This was not "poor judgement," it wasn't innocent, and her garbage apology "to anyone who was offended" is not accepted, because it isn't sincere. She has allowed her enthusiasm in this historic presidential campaign to sour into something so ugly that we have to go back nearly four decades for a reference on such an overt and mainstream display of hate. In an election plagued by members of people yelling "Kill him," in reference to Senator Obama, after being whipped 
into a violent frenzy by the Republican candidate's running mate, not to mention the Sacramento County Republican's call to "waterboard Obama," there been a clear lack of leadership within the your party, but that does not excuse Diane Fedele's actions. Her portrayal of Barack Obama's face on a food stamp, complete with watermelon, barbecued ribs and KFC fried chicken was a clear and deliberate usage of negative, racist stereotypes directed at African American people. Were there any question that this was anything but a deliberate and vulgar display of ethnic stereotyping, Diane Fedele tipped her hand at symbolism with the Kool-Aid character; your bloggers have stuck to their talking points a little too well.
into a violent frenzy by the Republican candidate's running mate, not to mention the Sacramento County Republican's call to "waterboard Obama," there been a clear lack of leadership within the your party, but that does not excuse Diane Fedele's actions. Her portrayal of Barack Obama's face on a food stamp, complete with watermelon, barbecued ribs and KFC fried chicken was a clear and deliberate usage of negative, racist stereotypes directed at African American people. Were there any question that this was anything but a deliberate and vulgar display of ethnic stereotyping, Diane Fedele tipped her hand at symbolism with the Kool-Aid character; your bloggers have stuck to their talking points a little too well.Drinking the Kool-Aid.
It is a reference to people who followed a white cult leader, Jim Jones, ingesting poisoned punch in Guyana, committing mass suicide. This has been a talking point that Republicans have stuck to religiously, referring to Obama supporters as "drinking the Kool-Aid." Diane Fedele, President of the Chaffey Community Republican Women tipped her hand at symbolism. This was no innocent error. She knowingly and with malice of forethought, in a County that is home over 187,000 African Americans, created such a divisive and hateful image, and in targeting a political campaign, unleashed an unexcuseable attack on, not on 187,000 people, but an entire nation of them.
An entire nation of us--black, brown, red, yellow and white.
Is this who you want leading you, Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated? Are you honestly okay with this? Because it's not Diane Fedele's name on it, it's your name. Do you hate your African American neighbors, as she clearly does? Or your Hispanic neighbors? Or your Asian neighbors? Or your Native American Neighbors? Or your poor, white neighbors? Because this kind of hate rarely stops at one group of people--at least it never has before; not with the Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan or the Neo-Nazis or the Aryan Nations. Those groups never stopped at just one group of people, either. And you can say that you're not racists, but you clearly appear willing to tolerate racism when it suits you. Diane Fedele, as your club president, speaks for you, unless you dencounce this disgusting and racist image--unless you denounce her.
Does Diane Fedele speak for you, Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated?
Are you "drinking the Kool-Aid" of hate for her?
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4 comments:
Dwight,
Good to hear from you on this post. I agree that the negative statements made about Palin are hateful. I hate her--I admit that, and I revel in all bad statements about her.
So I condone hate, right?
That depends: I condone hate on an individual basis, not on a group basis. Group hate was what led to the Night of Broken Glass in 1938 and later, to the Final Solution. Individual hate can lead to violence as well, but on a smaller scale.
But it undermines the idea of this peaceful transition of power when Governor Palin whips her crowds into an extremist frenzy. Violence--whether against an individual or a group--is the enemy of democracy. McKinley was not a good President, but that was not for one person to decide. Individuals have the right to decide in the polling booth only.
Else we shall meet the fate of the Roman Republic, which fell to the greed and corruption of the violent few.
I’ll admit the Obama-bucks thing was racist. I did find it funny in an appalling way, but it was inappropriate:
1. The fried chicken/watermelon was clearly playing on racist stereotypes.
2. I’m OK with the funny picture of Obama; it’s nothing pols don’t do to each other all the time.
3. I’m OK with the Kool-Aid pitcher too. “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has become a generic phrase in our culture which simply means someone has swallowed an ideological viewpoint without questioning its validity. IMO there’s no racial implication at all.
4. I’m OK with the welfare reference. I agree that when condemning welfare, it’s “code” for anti-black sentiments (even though there are more whites than blacks on welfare, we do tend to think of it as a black phenomena). However, I think Obama’s income redistribution plan truly is welfare by another name. It’s not just giving a tax cut to some in the middle class…it’s giving a govt check to people who paid ZERO income taxes during the year (through child tax credit, etc). It’s using the income tax system/process to redistribute income and cynically calling it a tax cut.
BTW, I don’t accept their rationalization that they didn’t know what they were doing. These are smart people and we’ve all become adept at speaking in code about things racial…another wonderful benefit of Political Correctness. We can’t say what we really think so we still say the vile stuff by cleverly disguise it in euphemisms so we have plausible deniability.
And finally, I’m still upset by the double standard. Sure, there’s hate language and extremism from some on the Right. Hey, here’s an idea! Let’s condemn it! But let’s also condemn the same activity on the Left. Assholes wearing T-Shirts saying “kill Bush” and “Palin is a cunt”. Where was the outrage from the Left? Sure didn’t hear much from the media about those, did we? But we did hear 24/7 about the guy that yelled “kill him” at a Palin rally. How ironic that it now appears it never happened. None of the 17 Secret Service agents present at the event heard it, and journalist’s efforts to find some people who were at the rally to confirm the story have proved fruitless. This doesn’t mean there aren’t haters on the Right…it just means the media is incredibly biased towards Obama.
Hi John,
Let me be clear: I hate Sarah Palin. But a t-shirt that calls her the c-word isn't just directed at her, it's directed at all women, whether it means to be or not.
I follow the alternative media rather closely, so I don't get much of the mainstream media's bias, unless I want it. I have heard such populist reports, such as the ones you're talking about and I have to tell you, there have been no such reports. You'll have to correct me if the right-wing media is reporting that such things are going on, and please feel free to post video or links those reports.
A google search did turn up video of people wearing these t-shirts. However, I find it curious that none of the links in my google search took me to any of the right-wing, mainstream media, such as Fox News or the Washington Post. I was not able to find any such posts on the Obama/Biden website, either.
I can tell you that I personally know an individual on the Obama campaign, who received a mandate from Obama, personally, when all of the negative press was going around about the Palin children: anyone who engaged in such attacks would be terminated from the campaign. I will ask her if they have received a similar mandate about the C-word and have her report it.
That's the official story. The unofficial story is--well, who knows?
The allegation that Obama supporters have chanted "kill McCain" also yielded some hits on Google. Unfortunately, none of them referred to activity at Obama rallies, but Obama supporter responses, such as "What would the press say if we chanted kill McCain at an Obama rally?"
To be sure, the media is biased, John. I'm just not so sure that after eight years of George W. Bush and in the face of a declining economy that anyone really cares.
It's really getting distressing. I've been seeing a lot of videos and reports out there in my own state of Pennsylvania of McCain supporters, and what truly, honestly scares me is that there are people, a lot of people, not just a "fringe" minority as McCain put it that who are going to the polls and voting with hate as their primary motivator.
I think this election has brought a lot of closet supremacists and bigots out into the open, and if Obama wins I bet we'll see a continuation of that. There's a big difference between tolerance and respect, and now they're even dropping the whole tolerance facade all together now that a black man with a funny name threatens to lead the free world.
It really burns me, when Obama first started his bid for president it seemed like the "because he's black" issue wasn't going to come up at least not with this level of furor. Unfortunately the closer he got to the white house, the more apparent it became that this wasn't going to be the case.
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