Postracial America?
Race Doesn't Matter?
First Black President?
Sheeeeiitt!!!
Yep, this is indeed the mentality we're dealing with in 08'.[1]
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is considering legal action against a Georgia tavern owner selling T-shirts depicting presidential candidate Barack Obama as the Curious George monkey character.Here's a closer look.
In a statement, the Boston publisher, which owns the book rights to Curious George, said today the firm finds the T-shirt “offensive and utterly out of keeping with the values Curious George represents.”
The statement, issued by Houghton spokesman Richard Blake, added: “We are monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to possible legal action.”
A tavern owner in Georgia has been peddling the shirt with a picture of a happy Curious George eating a banana above the words “Obama in ’08.”
The tavern owner, who some have described as an “ultra-conservative,” has denied to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the T-shirt is racist. But protesters outside his tavern say the comparison of Obama, who is an African- American, to a monkey is an old racist stereotype.
And the obligatory news account, courtesy of Youtube.
In all seriousness, while the imagery of a whimsical black man with a banana is hardly politically correct, I wonder if it's really all that offensive. I've seen the same sorta tastless humor with Curious George Bush. And if you think about it, with the quizzical facial expressions, the dumb and dumberer soundbytes, and of course all that infamous dancing, you could argue that G.W. is far more primate than Barry.
Peep game.
But nobody would call that racist.[2]
I'm just sayin'.
BTW, I see Johnny Boy Edwards finally put down the hair products and endorsed Obama. Does this make a difference in courting that blue-collar vote, or does a guy with a 28,000 sq foot home only add to the elitist tag?
Question: Whaddya' think? Is the Curious Barry shirt merely good, wholesome, All-American fun, or racist as all get-out? Does Edwards' endorsement make any difference?
Curious George publisher mulls legal action over Obama shirt [Boston Herald]
John Edwards Endorsing Obama [HuffingtonPost]
[1] Props to ebonygentleman, my reliable lead generator, for sending this story my way.
[2] Alright, who the hell am I kiddin'? This shit is racist!
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I'm happy Edwards decided to hop on board.
As for the shirt, I won't say anything. I'm just going to read the comments. AB already knows my feelings on this.
How can that shirt be rationalized?
EG
Tasteless, stupid. Racist as well, even if you believe, somehow, that it wasn't intentional.
You know what I really miss? That Red Rose Tea commercial.
That was awesome.
I wonder why it hasn't run in 40 years?
I was pleased to see that Edwards finally endorsed Obama... But I can't help but wonder if it's out of some sort of self-righteous belief that he can, "deliver the vote of the working class white American," and "save the day," so to speak. Well- hey-- if it works, why not?
Either that, or he really is going for the VP spot...
I can't even really get worked up about that silly white man in Georgia. He knew what he was doing..stupid bastid.
What is really sad is that 7 year old who totalled his grandma's truck last week has now been hemmed up for whipping her ass. WTF?
It's racist.
i have been reading about this stupid t-shirt on a number of blogs all day, and there was one comment that stood out to me. someone made the comment "black skin apparently isn't thick skin" (or something to that effect). yes, the shirt is stupid and racist, but the time and effort that we (and the obama camp) spend on this is taking away from other things that are more important (i.e. institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and every other ism in the world). obama is not a monkey -- he knows that and we know that. so jesse "that's my baby daddy" jackson and al "it's all about the conk, baby" sharpton, please don't even lace up your shoes to go marching. people are going to be ignorant no matter how many miles you trek and protests you have.
but i wouldn't mind seeing old dude get a good old fashion beat down for creating the shirt...just for GP and all.
and concerning edwards, he just seems wishy washy to me, so i could care less about his endorsement...this late in the game.
@ tiff in Houston
Did something else happen to Latarian? Pls fwd the URL if you've got it.
There are racist ignorant blacks runnin round this here country. (anyone who points this out is a racist) However, they are a minority (I think). There are racist ignorant whites runnin round this here country. However, they are a minorty. Unfortunately the vast majority in this country that *arent* racists (regardless of cover) dont get covered.
AB, I just read your post about those who drop by daily and never join the convo...and I'm one of them. But I'm changing my ways. To wit, my first comment: That shirt is racist as hell. Mainly b/c of the intent. W is definitely more primate like, but the intent is "buffoonery". With the Barry t-shirt the intent is clearly racial.
@ DUECE
Another convert! Welcome to the crew, homey.
@ daedalus
Man, I have no idea what your point is.
@ chai
I'm not so sure he's gunning for VP. He also comes with his own set of negatives, and doesn't really add much in the way of the sort of "experience" people want Obama to bring along.
I think Jim Webb if your guy.
@ taltenth
I agree. I'd like to see this dude catch a fair one... or 30.
Oh no the shirt isn't racist at all. *rolls eyes* He might as well say, "oh I love niggras, some of them just moved in next door to me and they don't act like the uppity jigaboos I thought they were. In fact, I invited they invited me over for fried chicken and watermelon the other day."
Um, WTF?
That shop owner is just plain thoughtless! How dare he even insult people's intelligence saying he only thought of Obama's ears?
A. the shirt is racist. It takes my beloved childhood friend (I took my George everywhere with me) and a popular politician and fuses the two into something very sick and disturbing and I'm glad that the publisher's company of Curious George is going to sue "because this is not what Curious George stands for".
and B. I'm sick of people trying to rationalise their racism. I'm sick of people referring to Obama's church as a racist church and thereby justifying their own racism. I'm so fed up with the smallness of some people's minds.
Meanwhile, I wanted to entertain you with this European view of the Deep South and the Katrina aftermath. This is pretty consistent with the way we over here in Europe view the USA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2syY12OPkwI&feature=related
The majority of Europeans is rooting here for a Democrat in November and very excitied about Obama as a candidate.
After living in Ireland for 4 years, I can safely say that people in Europe are even more ignorant about America than people here are.
The majority of Europeans might be rooting for a Democrat, but they sure do seem to be voting for conservatives: Merkel, Sarcozy, and Labour takes a beating too? The leftists aren't doing so hot over there.
Say hi to Red Ken Livingstone for me when you see him in the dole line!
Yes, because Ireland is sooo representative for Western Europe...
Four years of living in Ireland haven't really given you a grasp of European politics because then you would have known that what is left in Europe is not the same as what is left in the US.
Sarkozy, Angela Merkel can't be compared to the right as you know it in the US. If you want to put an American label on them and their parties you would find that they have more in common with the Democratic party than the Republican party and if you would examine their legislation closely you would see that sometimes they're even moving on what would be the left flank of the Democratic party. Our left is socialist, your left is liberal while our liberals can usually be found on our right.Don't compare your Democrats to our left. They're just not in the same league. I live in The Netherlands: the party that's most extreme to the right (VVD) is very liberal on gay rights (marriage, adoption), abortion, euthanasia, soft-drugs but populist when it comes to immigration. The same goes for the party that's most extreme to the left (SP), they're liberal on abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, soft-drugs, but again populist on immigration (though less so than our most right party). The center parties always hold the most seats in the house of representatives. One of them is a Christian party (CDA) that leans to the right. They're still liberal on euthanasia, abortion and gay rights and immigration, but less so on soft drugs. The other centrist party (PvdA) leans to the left and only differs from our most leftfield party in their approaches to socialism and immigration. We have ten political parties with seats in the house of representatives.
I am a student of history, specializing in modern American history. I may be a great many things, but ignorant I am not.
I read British, French and German papers and I can safely say that the major European countries are rooting for a Democrat and Obama in particular. Not because our politicians are ignorant about the US, but because what happens in the US and the decisions the POTUS makes have a great impact on us. The fate of our economies is intertwined.
Why do you think Labour is taking a beating? It has a lot to do with following the US to war in Iraq and the motivations for that. Gordon Brown was expected to restore the party's moral standing, but hopelessly failed to do so.
It is important to Europe who gets to be elected POTUS and given European politics it's no more than logical that the Democrats are favored. Obama has great appeal here for a lot of reasons. He's intelligent, he does not speak in slogans, but with great nuance and depth. He's cosmopolitan, we tend to have a soft spot for cosmopolitans. He wants more diplomacy, well, so do we!
Don't call Europeans ignorant about the US. We're not.
After reading your response to email from your supervisor on the the slolen laptops, and this post, I'm left wondering where your head is. To suggest the t-shirt is on the same level as the other images you mentioned, is beyond belief. Averaage bro? hmm.
MJ
Edwards wants the veep job.
Yes, the shirt is racist, but we also don't want to give it too much attention because he'll benefit from any publicity.
@bigj972
After reading your response to email from your supervisor on the the slolen laptops, and this post, I'm left wondering where your head is. To suggest the t-shirt is on the same level as the other images you mentioned, is beyond belief. Averaage bro? hmm
Bruh, you clearly missed footnote [2]. Read it again.
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