Comments on: I’m appalled. No, it is not OK to draw Michelle Obama strung up on a tree.

By: jharrod

jharrod — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:55:29 +0000

Wow, you call the person that posted that pic uneducated. but you are acting like racism doesnt exist any more. You must not make it to the south very often. I live in the south, I am white. And I see racism on a daily basis. And it goes all ways, whites against blacks, blacks against whites, both against hispanic, and hispanic against both. You seriously need to educate yourself on the current state of this country before calling someone else uneducated.

By: David Roland Strong

David Roland Strong — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:33:37 +0000

It is a very good insight. The same kind of error led to the cover of the New Yorker. It’s as if some people just don’t get it. I caused a stir when my father became a pastor in Tyler, Texas, because our Sunday School teacher was talking against “mixed marriages” and I said that without them I would not exist. My father spent that Sunday afternoon answering phone calls and telling people that my mother is mostly Cherokee. But even if she weren’t I can read both history and the news. It is not just a memory of times gone by; after James Bird was killed in Jasper, a hate crimes bill was passed by the ever-conservative Texas Legislature, and Governor B*sh vetoed it, saying that “all crimes are hate crimes.” Like so many others of his race, he just did not get it (or more likely, just did not care). Thankfully, those who “don’t get it” seem to be a minority themselves. As Robert Kennedy said, when announcing Dr King’s assassination, “The vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.” Even a mixed breed person like myself can understand that.

By: Submerge

Submerge — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:48:57 +0000

Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation Anyway … nice blog to visit.

cheers, Submerge

By: Perk

Perk — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:02:33 +0000

Nice blog. I can’t stand when classmates say things like: “race is no longer an issue”…”blacks are just lazy”…”blacks always blame the past without looking at themselves”..etc.

I believe that the future can become alot brighter one day for all races to truly come together. But, with pictures like this, that day is simply a long way away. I think that people have to get rid of their ignorance and actually look around and see that less than 1% of CEOs are black, the average income for an African-American in the U.S. is less than $10,000 per year in a “land of opportunity.” In order to look ahead and move ahead, we must not forget out past (whites and blacks alike), and take significant steps to actually change it. Not half-ass steps like the one who posted the picture. Once people actually reflect on all of the facts and try to do something to change it (such as making us more aware with blogs such as this), then we can try to move ahead and make MLK’s dream a reality. Until then, this is what we’re going to continue to see. Great blog!

By: rafi

rafi — Sun, 25 May 2008 04:36:25 +0000

Great post and it definitely demonstrates insanely questionable judgment that they ran that image. Also, what's with her eroticized naked white back? For a minute I thought I was looking at Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair. This reminded me of two old Oh Word articles which had accompanying art that similarly employed ironic (but far less incendiary) use of loaded racial imagery in a cavalier fashion. This Ice Cube feature and this Devin the Dude one both shifted their rapper subjects into crafty animals of old folk tales: Cube as a fox stealing a bunch of records from a magpie and Devin the Dude hopping along as Brer Rabbit through some master's field. I remember discussing this with Oh Word staff at the time and we were worried about the potential for negative response to these images. We deliberated over them and ultimately decided it was ok to go forward with them because the subjects invited this kind of dissection. Ice Cube's persona based on racial controversy, Devin's song based on a Brer Rabbit tale.. and both rappers very comfortable in their use of irony. If I may remember right, we ended up not getting a single criticism about the images. Which just goes to show you, nobody reads our site anyway so we were just wasting our time on those discussions. Still, I wonder if anyone deliberated over at Daily Kos.