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I Am Curious (George)
By Jeff Fecke | May 13, 2008
Frankly, what can one say about these t-shirts? Staggeringly offensive? Blatantly racist? Complete douchebaggery at its lowest? Yes, yes, and yes.
It has been tremendously dispiriting to watch the way that race and gender have been wielded by all sides in this campaign. The Clinton campaign has made racist appeals, the Obama campaign misogynist ones; the GOP and tools like this guy are willing to use both (happily with hilarious results). Maybe we could chalk it up to blindness to privilege or internalized bigotry, but to do so is to forget that there’s a whole lot of open, proud bigotry still at large in this country.
I have long ago given up waiting for Clinton to renounce not-so-coded appeals to race by her campaign, or for Obama to forswear his supporters’ often sickeningly blatant misogyny. I would love to be proven wrong by either of them at some point, would love to see either of them step forward and state what I used to believe was the obvious truth: that it does the Democratic Party and this nation no good to win an election based on bigotry. For what does it profit one to gain the world and lose one’s soul?
Related posts:
- Barack Obama Ain’t Never Been Called a Bitch
- Fire George W. Bush
- Fuck You, George W. Bush
- Michele and George, Sittin’ in a Tree
- Michele’s Note to George–Revealed!
Topics: Barack Obama, Feminism, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Horribly Wrong, Race | 4 Comments »
May 14th, 2008 at 4:05 am
I generally like what you have to say, but your “misogyny”-fixation reminds me of a Paul Simon lyric:
“He’s a one-trick pony,
One trick is all that horse can do.
He does one trick only,
It’s the principle source of his revenue.”
Okay, we get the glib “Erudite American (TM)” take on things. It’s easy and self-congratulatory in an ersatz “transgressive” manner. But now for the sophisticated nuance….
May 14th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Our current president looks quite like a monkey – does that mean this site below is racist as well?
http://www.bushorchimp.com/
Or this story of the 2000 elections?
http://home.nyc.rr.com/jadedem/gw1.html
Sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.
Not that it can’t be racist sometimes.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
What’s wrong with being a racist?
If obammy can be racist, why can’t I?
May 14th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Our current president looks quite like a monkey – does that mean this site below is racist as well?
There’s a difference, insofar as African-Americans have long been compared to simians as a way to “other” them, and make them out to be subordinate to the more evolved White Race. In that cultural context, comparing Obama to a monkey is plugging into long-held stereotypes that have been used to subjugate minorities in this country for generations.
George W. Bush is just a guy who looks like a monkey, and is not quite as smart as one.