Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children

The Vancouver Sun ^ | July 11, 2009 | Chris Parry

[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

[Brad’s Gramma]

You’ll have to ask Mr. Thompson ...

[SolidWood]

Where was the outrage when the Palin kids were attacked?

Mocking a special needs baby is ok... but mocking the Commie-chic of the Obama family is a big NO NO!

Bite me lefties! They have NO credibility or high-ground.

[Arizona Carolyn]

So the guy from Kos who first sent the complaint to JR also mailed it around to other publications? While I disagree with using anything racial in the discussion we had about Malia's shirt, the shirt and her wearing it were a legitimate concern and, frankly, I find being chastised by someone from KOS that put out the horrible Trig Palin stories last year more than a little bit of pot meet kettle. When KOS cleans up it's house then come over here and talk about FR...

That said, racial comments were not appropriate. Is is possible the sterotype comments came into play when the pics of her and her 15-year-old cousin were posted?

[hope]

It doesn't matter if we play nice...Just opposing the Marxist agenda will label us racist..

[umgud]

The liberal Vancouver Tabloid mis-reports;

Conservative Free Republic blog in free speech flap after racial slurs directed at Obama children

[SECURE AMERICA]

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.”

So this is racist speech according to this reporter because what? Only blacks are street whores? Only blacks live in ghettoes? Only blacks get abortions? Me thinks the racist is the reporter because he assumes all these things refer only to black people...

[Stentor]

I do cringe at some of my fellow FReepers comments, though. They make us all look bad in the public eye, and if we want to take this country back, we do need to be the good guys.

Utter nadless twaddle.

[humblegunner]

Just yesterday I was Michelle’s grand pappy.

No matter where you go.. there you are.

[RedStateGuyTrappedinCT]

Well if one of the kids had downs syndrome then it would be OK I guess. I agree the kids should be off limits but I seem to recall the Bush twins getting ridiculed pretty regularly and not just by bloggers either by the press and the late night “comedians”

[libh8er]

I do cringe at some of my fellow FReepers comments, though. They make us all look bad in the public eye,

I will guarantee you that the vast vast majority of FR posts have no basis in racism. You are falling prey to a common liberal trick. And that is, if you harshly criticize minorities and criticize them enough using much the same language as you would criticize any other, then there has to be a racist element to your criticism. I mean if you are criticizing a minority so severely, it has to be because the person is a minority, right ? Because you wouldn't dare openly make the person's race an issue.

When liberals attack conservatives, DO NOT accept their premise -- which is almost always false. When you accept their premise, it's a tantamount admission that that their accusation is basically correct, but wrong only in some of the specifics.

[Allegra]

Is this a blog now?

Well, cha...the media said it is. And they're never wrong. Never ever.

;-)

[Jim Robinson]

Not only can’t they get the name right, they don’t have their facts straight. And they have no idea about Free Republic and the FReepers!

The FReepers are the absolute best posters on the Internet, bar none!

And the FReepers have made Free Republic the number one conservative site on the Internet and in the world for 13 years running!

Thirteen years! Three hundred thousand members! Thirty million posts!!

And all of this on a shoestring budget! No star glittered IPOs or stock offerings! No commercial sponsors or advertising contracts of any kind! No sugar daddies! No BIG Bucks donors! No advertising of any kind!

We operate on a shoestring budget with funding provided solely by our readers and participants. All those $10, $20, $50 dollar donations made by our FReepers and Lurkers are all we need to maintain and keep Free Republic on the air and kicking liberal butt! We strive to meet our costs but make no attempt to profit otherwise.

FReepers are the GReatest!!

I’ll put you guys up post for post, dollar per dollar, man to man, brain cell to brain cell against any other political forum on the Internet and you will shine through magnificently! No other political forum, no other group of citizen patriots can hold a candle to the FReepers!!

Our members have exposed more fraud, uncovered more hoaxes, shined the light on more corruption, impeached more horn dog presidents than any other political Internet forum in the world!

And that’s a fact, Jack!

DailyKOs, MoveOn, DU, HuffingtonPost, et al, simply pump smoke, hump rumps and wish they could be as effective as FR!

FReepers Rock!!

[Question_Assumptions]

One final note: I have seen some threads where people go off on one minority characteristic or another here on FR, and sometimes we are pushing it, but I think it comes from the frustration that many white people, especially men, feel after years of being told that, despite the fact that they are generally the solid citizen taxpayer backbone of this country, they are still the bad guys simply by virtue of their skin color.

I'm sure that's true in many cases, but frustration is rarely a good motivation for acting. It makes people careless and reckless. It explains the problem but doesn't justify everything people do out of frustration nor make it a good idea.

[libh8er]

See post # 150.

[Yaelle]

I’m a little stunned that the good people of Free Republic have as their first response (I’ve only read one page of comments) to slap back at this criticism or to say that other people do it too. How utterly childish.

No one here should engage in racist slurs just because a political opponent happens to be black. I have shame when I read this because as a FReeper I have been personally APPALLED at some of the racially tinged insults on this site. Some of these comments have to come from people who must think like racists, if they are not actual racists.

And, as a FReeper, I have never been happy with the occasional slams here against political opponents’ underaged children. I know I am not alone.

I don’t personally happen to be a Christian but I know this site was born to uphold a traditional Christian kindness and morality and I support it wholeheartedly. This criticism of us has truth in it. If we are who we say we are, we need to hang our heads here. Little racist jokes and little putdowns of young children do not belong here.

We can do better than this.

I’ve been on humor threads that have made me delirious with laughter, scrolling down, enjoying the spoofs and hilarity, and lately (since Obama’s arrival on the scene) there is usually one post somewhere in there that is racist and it brings me up short and stops my laughter. I am certainly not alone. Sadly I try to just forget about it, so I am complicit by not speaking up. I deserve criticism for that as well.

Please let us try to be better than this.

[sausageseller]

I think the so called reporter (Chris Parry) is a reader of KOS.

There is just to much in the article pointing to him being a leftist KOS sycophant.

[jakerobins]

Then allow FR mods or fellow Freepers say what is “Allowed”.....Chastise people or remove threads that are deamed inappropriate...But this is ALL about the libs stiring up problems where there are none.

I don’t want FR to become like hate filled blogs of the left, but we should decide what is decent not them. I have read the worst most disgusting threads and posts at places like DU...they don’t care as long as it’s about Bush or Sarah Palin or even her children. I don’t remember articles critisizing their speach. They didn’t admonish the poster for saying these things....

FR should admonish posters who say things that are beyond the pale. However we shouldn’t just do it because the LEFT has written an article about something said on FR. Allow us to Regulate ourselves.....We can do a fine job of upholding the “Community” standards. I don’t want to become like DU but I don’t want to put limits on what you can say based on a libs interpretation of what was said on the board. They will always paint conservatives as Racist Bigots and Homophobes..NO MATTER WHAT!

[DoughtyOne]

Buckaroo...

[sausageseller]

FR is that way because YOU have set the standard!

[Question_Assumptions]

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.

I think that's a poor analogy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that that the MAD doctrine is about mutual assured destruction. That is, it's a suicide tactic designed to make the idea of a nuclear exchange unthinkable, not a great strategy for fighting a war you want to win.