The Washington Post had an op/ed piece titled “Obama as the Joker: Racial Fear’s Ugly Face” by Philip Kennicott. The man is certainly entitled to his opinion.
Where my train of thought keeps jumping the tracks is the assumption by many liberal writers that any disagreement, dislike, or criticism with regards to a black/minority man/woman has to be racially motivated. He questions the creator of the sign:
So why the anonymity? Perhaps because the poster is ultimately a racially charged image. By using the “urban” makeup of the Heath Ledger Joker, instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can’t openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city, a source of political instability in the 1960s and ’70s, and a lingering bogeyman in political consciousness despite falling crime rates.
The Joker’s makeup in “Dark Knight” — the latest film in a long franchise that dramatizes fear of the urban world — emphasized the wounded nature of the villain, the sense that he was both a product and source of violence. Although Ledger was white, and the Joker is white, this equation of the wounded and the wounding mirrors basic racial typology in America. Urban blacks — the thinking goes — don’t just live in dangerous neighborhoods, they carry that danger with them like a virus. Scientific studies, which demonstrate the social consequences of living in neighborhoods with high rates of crime, get processed and misinterpreted in the popular unconscious, underscoring the idea. Violence breeds violence.
It is an ugly idea, operating covertly in that gray area that is always supposed to be opened up to honest examination whenever America has one of its “we need to talk this through” episodes. But it lingers, unspoken but powerful, leaving all too many people with the sense that exposure to crime creates an ineluctable propensity to crime.
Superimpose that idea, through the Joker’s makeup, onto Obama’s face, and you have subtly coded, highly effective racial and political argument. Forget socialism, this poster is another attempt to accomplish an association between Obama and the unpredictable, seeming danger of urban life. It is another effort to establish what failed to jell in the debate about Obama’s association with Chicago radical William Ayers and the controversy over the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time. The charge of socialism is secondary to the basic message that Obama can’t be trusted, not because he is a politician, but because he’s black.
Huh. Weird because I didn’t think anything of it other than:
- The Joker was malevolent
- The Joker was entirely unpredictable
- The Joker did not have your best interests at heart
- The Joker was a liberal (like Ayers, he blew up things)
But no, because I’m white and the President is black, the fact that I see both sinister and funny aspects to that sign… it must mean I am a racist.
Oh, horse patooties.
When I read “instead of the urbane makeup of the Jack Nicholson character, the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can’t openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city” … the last thing I think about is Obama and urban roots. The man lives on a much higher class scale than I, and he pitches like a girl.
“Urban” makeup? What the hell is he talking about? He’s high on crack.
I never saw the joker and said “Why, there is a shining example of urban violence”. What I think now is “Why there is an author with his head so far up his ass that he can sniff his own farts all day long.”
No, my reasons for disliking Obama have nothing to do with race and everything to do with the facts that he’s not transparent like he swore he’d be, he’s a socialist, and when the rubber meets the road, he’s dangerously short in the details department.
****
Saaaay… speaking of health care!
The Big Lie: “First of all, nobody is talking about some government takeover of health care. I’m tired of hearing that. I have been as clear as I can be. Under the reform I’ve proposed, if you like your doctor you keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you keep your health care plan. These folks need to stop scaring everybody, you know?” –Barack Obama And we’re tired of you and your lies.
… and speaking of more…
“I promise you, we will pass reform by the end of this year because the American people need it,” Obama said in Wakarusa, Indiana, where he traveled to tout his economic initiatives. “We’re going to have to make it happen.” –Barack Obama
We need it? Really? Glad you told me.
****
The democrats are whinging – they feel that there can only be (and this is similar to the race card above) dissenting voices if they were paid by the republicans to do so, because surely there are no thinking people who would disagree with Health Care Reform or even dare to raise their voice. It can’t be people… it is organizations that disagree, right?
So they whine, bluster, blame others, moan, and engage in drama-queen theatrics. Neal Boortz has a nice posting on this. Blame it on others because there’s no way we could be getting this response as a legitimate criticism of our magnitudinessness.
Well, we should just stomp on dissent, because it irritates us.
The left has always loved community organizing—when it’s their interest. Heck, they are being lead by an expert in the field. But when regular folks gather to express unhappiness in the form of a dissenting opinion to their progressive agenda, they despise it, delegitimize it and seek to stop it all costs. Grassroots are bad when the roots aren’t firmly planted in the liberal ground. -Andrea Tantaros
On another publication, Errol Louis actually has some things to say that I can agree with, but then he, too… slobbers and drools all over himself to point out that there is an element of violent protestors that do the bidding of Evil Corporations.
Some of the disrupters are genuinely ticked-off citizens upset at President Obama‘s policies on health care, the environment and the economy.
More power to such protesters, I say – provided they allow others at these town halls to hear and be heard.
But a darker, more violent strand of nut jobs is mixed in with anti-reform protesters. And some of the outrage is coming from “rent-a-mobs” hired by Capitol Hill lobbyists and PR firms doing the bidding of insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and other vested interests.
What the congress-critters and hardline libs cannot seem to recognize is that these people who are getting angry and yelling at these meetings are doing so because they feel like the people they elected are not listening and will do whatever they want regardless of the people’s wishes. Those people would also be right. They are pissed off at bailouts that buy favors, a gov’t that seems to want to own companies (like GM), and doesn’t see a whole lot wrong with raising deficits through the roof to the tune of trillions, lies about where the money will come from to close the gap (taxes on everyone), and a governing body that thinks very little is wrong with shelling out money for cars, more money for Fannie Mae, and more supplemental “stimulus” money (no, it is not off the table yet).
The lies about health care are peripheral annoyances though, right? No way it’s only going to be $1T over ten years. Try ten times that amount.
Oh, and people don’t want to spend $500M on new jets to fly officials around in comfort, away from the unwashed masses on regular airlines. (The fallout has politicians doing a mad dash to distance themselves from this.)
****
Great! Now you can bring in your old fridge – Cold Cash for Clunky Freezers!
Yeah, I’m sure they’ll think this is racist too.
http://cbullitt.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/charter-member-of-the-angry-mob/
I call BS on that article in the WaPo too!