In Defense of Racism
May 14th 2008ZacharyBarack Obama & Election 2008 & George Dubbya & News & Paddy Mac & Those Kooky Conservatives!
Leave it to Patrick McIlheran to come to the defense of an almost indefensible position. Earlier today, Paddy Mac blogged about a recent controversy that’s come to light in Georgia, where a bar owner thought his idea to make t-shirts comparing Barack Obama to Curious George would be good for a few laughs. First Paddy Mac starts off his blog by saying:
Jerks: If the bar owner either didn’t know that it’s widely regarded as an insult to call someone a monkey, that it’s considered still more insulting to say it of a black person, or that Obama is black and so you really should avoid the monkey imagery, he’s an idiot.
Or he’s just being provocative.
So according to Paddy Mac, the bar owner’s just a jerk or an idiot, or perhaps he’s just being provocative. It couldn’t be the bar owner’s really just a racist showing his racist stripes. After all, we’re talking about a bar owner in Georgia, so it’s not as if this guy’s oblivious to the fact that comparing an African-American person - and in this case an African-American who just happens to be running for President of the United States - to a monkey might be just a tad bit racist.
McIlheran goes on to attempt to rationalize the t-shirts as a little “tit for tat,” pointing out that President Bush himself has been the target of unflattering comparisons to a chimpanzee:
Then again, this would be more obvious if we weren’t just wrapping up eight years in which comparisons of national leaders to chimpanzees were just ordinary political dialog from many of the same people all enthused over Obama. What goes around…
What seems lost on Paddy Mac is the fact that all comparisons of Bush to a chimp have to do with the fact that Bush doesn’t seem to be much smarter than the average trained chimpanzee, while conversely having nothing to do with Bush’s race or ethnicity.
H/T to Dan Cody over at Left on the Lake
