Posted on 07/10/2009 9:53:00 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Yesterday, theHalfrican posted a link to the Free Republic Website where several of its regular members were bashing Malia Obama for wearing a peace symbol t-shirt. The thread had several derogotary, racist, and sexual remarks about Malia. It also included a picture of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that was accompanied with a racist caption.
I wrote the media contact at Free Republic yesterday, kristinn@bellatlantic.net, questioning the nature of the posters and the site:
Hello. I am an independent writer developing a book about the grassroots conservative movement online, of which your site, Free Republic, is included as a primary online gathering place for conservatives.
Could you please tell me how the owner of the site feels about posts like this one:
http://www.freerepublic.com/...
...in which conservatives who post regularly at the site make several racist statements about the 11-year-old daughter of President Obama for wearing a t-shirt adorned with a peace symbol? Remarks included the following:
"We’re being represented by a family of ghetto trash." "Looks like a bunch of ghetto thugs. A stain on America."
"Looks like a typical street whore."
"What we now are sending the ghetto over to represent us. and if so who the hell is that flea bag who looks to be dragged from the trash dumpster."
"you could go down any ghetto right now and see exactly the same."
"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"
"the world must be laughing like mad right now at that we have this kind of street trash in our white house."
"Wonder when she will have her first abortion."
"sad isn’t it that we now have ghetto street trash over there representing us in Europe."
"This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution.
"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."
In addition, the thread includes a picture of Michelle Obama speaking to her daughter with the caption, "To Entertain Her Daughter, Michelle Obama Likes to Make Monkey Sounds."
Before you dismiss this as only a minority of posters at the site, out of 100 posts on that thread I found only 1 that criticized such remarks. This is not the first time I have seen such an exhibition of blatant racism at Free Republic by members who regularly post there.
Here are my questions:
Does Free Republic condone this type of exercise in free speech?
Are these the type of participants Free Republic is happy to have posting at its site?
What is Free Republic's policy about posting racially offensive comments?
What is Free Republic's policy about making sexual insinuations about minors (particularly relevant in light of the David Letterman/Sarah Palin brouhaha)?
Does Free Republic believe its membership accurately represents the conservative movement?
Does the owner of Free Republic believe this kind of discourse is helpful to rebuilding the Republican Party and furthering its goals?
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your responses.
went back to the site today and saw that the offending thread has been pulled "pending review."
http://www.freerepublic.com/...
I do note that Free Republic has a disclaimer on the first page that claims it does not condone this type of post; however, I am not sure when the disclaimer was added. Does anyone know?
From the disclaimer:
Opinions expressed on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Free Republic or its operators.
Please enjoy our forum, but also please remember to use common courtesy when posting and refrain from posting personal attacks, profanity, vulgarity, threats, racial or religious bigotry, or any other materials offensive or otherwise inappropriate for a conservative family audience.
Free Republic is a site dedicated to the concerns of traditional grassroots conservative activists. We're here to discuss and advance our conservative causes in a more or less liberal-free environment. We're not here to debate liberals. We do not want our pages filled with their arrogant, obnoxious, repugnant bile. Liberals, usurpers, and other assorted malcontents are considered unwelcome trolls on FR and their accounts and or posts will be summarily dismissed at the convenience of the site administrators.
Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government.
So, the site will readily delete posts from liberals just because they are liberals and therefore everything they say is automatically considered "arrogant, obnoxious, repugant bile."
But comments calling an 11-year-old black girl "ghetto trash" and a "whore" are pulled "pending review." What is to review? Your site either supports that kind of rhetoric or it does not. Which is it?
If the Free Republic's "conservative family audience" consists of people who say such things as they often do (like yesterday), how conservative are they? And how family-oriented are they? Where were all the posts from other Free Republic regulars or from the owner of the site decrying this kind of racism directed at a child for no apparent reason than the fact that a peace symbol t-shirt inflamed their hatred to disgusting depths, like a red handkerchief in front of a mad bull?
Conservatives continually reinforce the fact that the only families they care about are conservative ones; the only troops they support are ones that do not vote democratic; the only children whose lives they value are the children of conservatives or unborn. How many of those aborted fetuses they claim to hold so dear would they trash had they been born and grown into a pre-teen who wore a t-shirt with a peace symbol or supported a liberal president? Or was gay?
The truth is that conservatives do not know the meaning of Jesus' words despite how much they love to use them when it suits their inner hatred of all those who are different. Worse, they lack basic human decency, as they demonstrate time and again.
That is SOOOOOOOOOOOO sweet and kind and, and, TOLERANT!!!!
Bless his heart!
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Yes, but if I recall correctly, Jim's concern was in regard to criticism of the Obama children.
A far cry from KKK.
He looked fine and so did she. They were dressed the way typical American teenagers dress. There was nothing wrong with the hair, or the sun glasses or the nail polish. Many of the posts were hateful and ugly, and they were directed at Malia and her cousin. We should leave the kids alone.
Her hair looked just fine
____________
I guess your idea and my idea of hair looking *fine* wildly differ. Black Panthers and ghetto gangs come to mind when I see that and she does NOT wear her hair like that. It was a statement. We will agree to disagree. I will never agree with you on this.
Oh please. Sarah could be sitting at home with her family watching TV at night, curtains drawn...and the media would portray it as wrong.
Hardy. By associating me with Sandra Lee, you gave up a rational argument. Though it was a wise decision on your part.
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I agree that the children should not be targeted. Beyond that, I have no comment.
Yeah, you're so intimidating. /s
Sanctimonious is more like it.
Bump! Leave the children OUT OF IT!
Let me provide a counter-example. During the campaign, there was a skit on Saturday Night Live about reporters from New York being ignorant of Alaska and being asked to go up there and report on Sarah Palin. During that skit, there was a comment about one of the reporters wanting to see if Todd Palin was molesting his daughters. That’s been repeated as an example of the horrible insults made against the Palins during the election.
I saw that skit and interpreted it very differently. I saw it as making fun of the reporters and the ignorant over-the-top things they were believing about the Palins and it was a comment, along with the rest of that skit, about how ignorant they were about anything outside of their cushy big-city left-wing environment. In other words, I think one could make a rational case that that joke wasn’t as awful as convervatives have made it out to be. But the target and intent don’t matter because conservatives saw it in the much larger context of the unreasonable attacks on Palin and it looked a lot like those other attacks, thus it was interpreted as yet another over-the-top attack on the Palins.
While these sorts of things may make perfect sense to the people making the jokes, the larger context matters and unfortunately there is a larger context here, not only in the form of untrue left-wing stereotypes of conservatives as racist but also the over-the-line comments that show up when I open up a thread about Mrs. Obama and see a half-dozen or more messages deleted by the moderator or actually see them before they are deleted. Aunt Esther alone? Maybe entirely justifiable and perhaps even funny. Combined with monkeys, Aunt Jemimah, and screeds about how ugly she is? Not so good in that light.
On an official state visit to a summit site?
Sure...
The issue is not that the media portrays anything that Sarah Palin or conservatives do as wrong but whether or not people believe them. The more absurd the claim, the more people doubt them. The more supported the claim, the more people believe them. When you can show real live racists at a Sarah Palin rally, that’s supporting evidence for the claim that Sarah Palin’s supporters are racist. Similarly, when you can show real live racist things being said on Free Republic, or even things that look like they might be racist to the average person, it’s supporting evidence that this site is racist.
The right has had this disinterest in image and perception for a while and it’s killing us because it’s let the left control the message. Too many people believe all of those stereotypes about conservatives because we can’t be bothered with how we look and play right into those steroetypes. And so long as we live in a country with elections, what people think matters, whether conservatives like it or not.
Agreed. They also deserve parents who know better than to let them parade around like that on an official state visit to a foreign country.
Absolutely. We will disagree because I thought her hair looked fine and she was just as cute as can be. I still want to know what “statement” her hair made. Please
Why do you admit it. You chose Sandra Dee as an insult.
Are you such a weenie you won't even back your words?
She does wear her hair like that. There are many pictures of her hair like that. There is nothing about her hair that is associated with Black Panthers and ghetto gangs. It is a typical african-american hairstyle, and not a statement.
Here are pictures of the hairstyle from 2008
www.flickr.com/photos/31581086@N02/3002020512/
www.flickr.com/photos/26645163@N02/2508482883/
Here is one from several years ago.
www.flickr.com/photos/27690295@N04/2582656544/
Of course she does..and black panthers? ghetto?? I did not even see that coming. What a sheltered world I live in I guess. Thank you for posting the links to the pictures.
An example of being sanctimonious.
BTW, be careful if you watch TV Land. See, there's this old sitcom called All In The Family that they air. No doubt it will offend you.
This site is NOT racist. What is up with all of this today? Two talk shows are taking callers, discussing, yada yada yada...the huge racial issues in America.
Did someone send out talking points?
Anyway. There are a group of people who LOOK for racism where it doesn't exist. Those people make things up no matter what you say or don't say.
They're again throwing white guilt at the country. I won't buy it into it.
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