Wednesday, September 07, 2011

YUP, THAT'S AIMED AT THE BIGOT PLEASURE CENTER

I think Jamelle Bouie is basically right about this:

This, from the front page of the Drudge Report, is just unambiguously racist:


Get it? Because black people are lazy, shiftless moochers, they are naturally ecstatic about President Obama's forthcoming push for renewed payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance....

I know, I know -- I'm the guy who always says you can't reduce anti-Obama anger to simple racism. Yes, but at the same time I'm absolutely not denying that right-wing propagandists make ample use of racism (just as they use sexism against Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, or anti-Semitism against George Soros and Chuck Schumer). It's definitely a weapon in the arsenal. I'm certain it's being used here -- why that picture otherwise?

And unlike Jamelle, I'm a white guy, so I think I see one more thing about the photo that Drudge hopes will resonate with white-guy prejudices. The woman greeting Obama fits a white bigot's stereotype of black women, in that she looks to be fuller-figured and not shy. Trust me -- you get certain white people going and you realize they're almost physically repulsed by black women who aren't thin and aren't demure.

That's basically where Andrew Breitbart house cartoonists James Hudnall and Batton Lash were going with this earlier in the year:


If that's what Michelle Obama looks like to you, I'm afraid there's not much help for you.