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
Wondering what has been written on blogs in the past about the Bush girls. Oh,, and lets not forget the Palin children. How convenient to have overlooked those stories.
I wasn’t quoted? Get me my agent!!!
I understand the rage at Obama but it doesn’t help our cause to look like unhinged kooks or bigots. It’s like the kid to provokes another kid to hit him or kick him and when the other kid hits or kicks him, that kid gets in trouble for hitting or kicking. You can claim we’re provoked all you want but unless you can bring that case to the public, it doesn’t help.
Sounds like a typical lefty set up to me...they send their paid goons to sign on here, spew crap just to complain later.
LIEberal rags must be having subscription problems and pull a stunt just to draw themselves attention.
In case they’re lurking: Carefull what you wish for, jacka$$es.
You said — President Obama has a problem as he was caught inappropriately staring at a 16 yr. old’s backside.
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I take a lot of photos, being a photo enthusiast... :-)
And, when I saw that photo, I could tell that the “look” was not right for what it was described as being. It didn’t have the appearance of Obama looking at that girl. That was my first impression, and that from several years of experience in taking pictures. But, still, I couldn’t be 100% sure at that point. That’s because many types of “looks” appear to be different than what they really are, when snapped at a particular instant.
HOWEVER..., there was a video shot of the very same scene — exactly the same shot. And the video definitely showed that Obama wasn’t looking at that girl. But, the French President *sure was* — so obviously so, it was hilarious. Obama wasn’t though.
Obama has a sort of “down-look” (at the steps, sort of...) and then a backward look. What you don’t see in the photo is that Obama was looking back slightly for helping his wife (at least I believe that was his wife he held out his arm for, and helped down the steps).
So, the whole thing isn’t what it might seem to be. And if you take a lot of photos, most likely you would recognize that it wasn’t that in the first place.
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The *key* here with Obama is to bring forward discussions about *real problems* concerning Obama (and there are plenty of those). If one dilutes the problems with Obama, with things that really aren’t there — but a lot of people like to “make hay” out of it — then that’s a dilution of the real problems having to do with Obama, because it’s knocked down so easily. And in this case, this picture is easily dismissed as not being what some say that it is.
If you really want a laugh about this picture, you gotta get a good look at the French President. Boy! With him, it’s so, so obvious... LOL...
Yup. And we need to stop handing them the ammunition in a belt so they can fire it back at us on full automatic.
These people have no class and it shows over and over.
No, but he successfully distanced himself from them and got the press to roll over for him, which is just as good. When the mainstream press covers for us the way it covers for Obama and other Democrats, we'll be able to get away with what they get away with, too.
And there’s always the chance that the worst actors are working in tandem with FR “personas” and seminar posters.
Exactly,that’s why we have to watch what we do on every thread and we really need the help of the mods to get rid of the trolls. Hopefully they will start sometime.
If you’re the idiot who trolls the birth cert threads, you have no cred. i dont care if you were born with a camera shoved up your ass, your opinion of this photo or anything else has absolutely no significance to me.
Agreed!
Might help a little. But I've been suspicious of some FReepers with lots of seniority when you pass the cursor over their name--then I do a posting history search and discover that they do very little posting, some not for years.
Is it too paranoid to wonder if the opposition has a nice library of long-time "personas" to make use of when the opportunity strikes?
We could disallow photos of Obama children, period.
But I'm not going to give up the fashion critiques of Michelle. They just ran on too long about Jackie Obama, and she's no Jackie.
You said — Go ahead and complain it’s not fair and tell me how you aren’t going to let the left control what you say, and they’ll be laughing all the way to the White House in 2012 because they’ll happily control our image and message if we can’t.
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Agreed. I think there are plenty of legitimate political issues to argue about and fight about, without getting into a mud-slinging contest about Obama. I know that people seem to get real emotional about Obama, but what they need to do is get real analytical about him, instead and work from a political basis and not an emotional and venting basis.
Just being emotional and venting really doesn’t help anyone. I doubt it even helps the person doing the venting... LOL...
So, just get analytical and fight on policies and legislation and fundamental governmental viewpoints. That’s where the real action is at.
I do wonder sometimes, though, what those Freepers who post such things are thinking. Do they think FR would be better off w/o people of color? Are they trying to run us out of here? I'd really like to know.
I've been posting on internet forums for nearly 10 years, many of which are frequented by liberals also. And I've been called every vile, racist name you could imagine. Until recently, those doing the name-calling have, w/o exception, been liberals. They absolutely hate conservatoive black men. But, as I'm sure you are aware, Obama has brought the worst out of some and they seem proud to attack any black man they can. I'd never want to see FR censored, but if things continue like they are there will be fewer of us here. That's just a fact.
Thanks again.
If the Colorado potato bug is in your yard, fine. But the one you are referring to is in Jim Robinson's yard, and you need to respect how much extra burden you put on him and the rest of the organization when you fail to observe his ever-present warnings, "Loose Lips Sink Ships" and "Please: NO profanity, NO personal attacks, NO racism or violence in posts."
No use arguing that you can personally take on the Left's hate spew and win -- you can't. So keep your tough talk in perspective and do what you can do -- keep a lid on pushing the envelope. Don't waste bandwidth on venting. Contribute to solutions, not spite.
"Whom the gods would destroy, first they anger."
You said — Five or six ding-a-ling comments out of 160+ doesn’t indict all of us.
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Ummm..., actually it does..., because that kind of stuff tends to “stick” with those others and they use it as examples of how people “really think”...
It doesn’t help anyone in the conservative cause, at all. It doesn’t help with the politics of legislation being put through or making your case for the conservative cause in government. That kind of stuff only detracts from it.
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