Posted on 07/11/2009 12:01:08 PM PDT by buccaneer81
Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children
By Chris Parry, Vancouver SunJuly 11, 2009 11:01 AM
This photo of U.S. President Barrack Obama's daughter Malia, wearing a peace-symbol t-shirt touched off a storm of epithet-laced comments on the conservative 'Free Republic' blog
"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."
Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.
Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.
"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.
"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.
Such was the onslaught of derision on the site that the person who originally complained about the slurs, a Kristin N., claims only one comment in the first hundred posted actually criticized the remarks as inappropriate.
A note on the front of the blog reads, "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government," but one comment on the thread read, "This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution," while another read, "I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."
After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender's email address intact.
"The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Thompson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig."
"I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight. But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife."
"Poor kids. I hope they're not 'punished with a baby'," wrote another. "Hopefully they won't deal cocaine like the Kenyan."
"DIRTBAGS! All of them. Our [White House] is now a joke to the rest of the world. We have no respect and this is not going to turn out well, mark my words. We will be hit, and much worse than last time. We are now seen as weak and vulnerable. Ghetto and Chicago thugs have taken over."
Only after significant negative attention from a host of left wing political blogs did the maintainers of the Free Republic site place the thread under review for a second time, before finally pulling it.
In the wake of the controversy, some Free Republic posters complained about the vitriol.
One poster by the name of "fullchroma" wrote, "To Jim Thompson: The recent uptick here in racist vitriol, aimed at Barrack, Michelle and their children has made me wonder if I belong. My objection to Obama has nothing to do with skin tone. Is the ugly stereotype of Conservative racism true?"
Another, going by the name of TChris, wrote, "Free Republic is a political discussion forum. It SHOULD be beneath us as a group to stoop to such juvenile tactics as I see increasing here lately. Do we REALLY have to insult Mrs. Obama's appearance like a clique of nasty 14-year-old girls?"
But such opinions were not shared by all. Said Roses of Sharon, "Poor libs .... Too late, the battle has been joined." © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
I’m sure you will agree that we need to be self-policing here on FR. And we are, for the most part. “We” means all of us.
The success of FR has made it into the “go to site” for reporters (so-called journalists) looking for a quick soundbite from what they view as the “right wing kooks”. Let’s not do their bidding by stooping to the level of DU or Kos and making it easy for them to find the kind of dirt they found in this case. We’re better than that.
Our mission should be to get rid of Obama and the Democrat controlled congress and start taking this country back in the right direction. We need to attract Independents and others who can help to do that in the 2010 elections - not turn them off with derogatory racial comments about Obama’s kids.
I wonder how many of the slurs were from trolls and DU plants.
So he couldn’t have meant you, could he?
Unless it is the Palin kids or the Bush twins, they can cry me a river because it is too late to worry about only some kids
There was at least one ZOT on the thread.
Vancouver, like Portland, sucks.
Offensive posts were removed,as they should be.
“If being the good guy means standing still while someone punches your lights out..NO THANKS.”
It doesn’t mean “standing still”, it means standing up, even if it is among your own peers when something is wrong.
I don’t see anything wrong with the commwnts, anyone displaying the peace symbol is total garbage!
Exactly. And that should have been the end of the story.
Another great post. Yes, we at Free Republic are better than that. MSM will ignore 99 of our respectful posts to zero in on the one disrespectful post. We need to be a place where that one lost sheep doesn’t stick our head in MSM’s noose. There are a million and counting faults of Obama we can criticize honestly and respectfully without punishing his innocent children.
LoL. I always get a kick out of reading "critical" pieces on FR in the lib media.
I think we can all agree that nuclear weapons are best not used but when they are used on us then let the hounds of hell loose. To answer your question, YES.
**1 - Democrats, commies, Palin Haters and other leftoids can do and say anything they like. Any vileness at all is acceptable because their motives are pure.
2 - Conservatives and Republicans must drive within the lines, be nice to their tormentors, help democrats destroy America, keep quiet when they see the press praising another racist hack, pretend they like Obama and swear that Michelle is beautiful or they will be sternly warned that people might not like them.**
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PREcisely.
**1 - Democrats, commies, Palin Haters and other leftoids can do and say anything they like. Any vileness at all is acceptable because their motives are pure.
2 - Conservatives and Republicans must drive within the lines, be nice to their tormentors, help democrats destroy America, keep quiet when they see the press praising another racist hack, pretend they like Obama and swear that Michelle is beautiful or they will be sternly warned that people might not like them.**
____
PREcisely.
I don't think you are giving Jim Robinson the credit he deserves. In the original thread, he said that he gets a lot of emails like that every day and it sounds like he ignores plenty of them when he doesn't feel they have merit. He felt this one had merit and I agree with him on that. Just because a liberal blogger raised the thread doesn't mean that they can't make a good point and when they do, it' shouldn't be ignored just because of the source. If it's a valid point it's a valid point and that was a valid point. It's not about the left controlling what we say but about doing what's right.
Remember, the term "politically correct" was originally coined by Marxists because they'd just whether facts were correct or not based on their political utility. Conservatives are better than that. If it's right it's right and if it's wrong it's wrong, regardless of whether we get political brownie points from it or not.
I think this “journalist” probably hangs out at the blatantly hateful Kos site
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