DeWAYNE WICKHAM: Racism Minus The White Robes.
Racism minus the white robes
By DeWAYNE WICKHAM
When you get right down to it, Diane Fedele and David Duke are kindred souls.
Fedele, president of a California conservative Republican women's group, resigned Wednesday after being harshly criticized for sending a racist depiction of Barack Obama to the organization's members.
Duke is the former Louisiana state legislator and Ku Klux Klan leader who makes little effort to disguise his racist contempt for the black presidential candidate.
The offensive image Fedele circulated appeared in a recent newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated organization. It showed Obama's face on a fake $10 food stamp surrounded by a slice of watermelon, a bucket of fried chicken, a rack of barbecued ribs and a pitcher of Kool-Aid.
"I do not think like a bigot, and because of that fact, I did not view this as racial, because I do not have a racially discriminating point of view," Fedele wrote in her resignation letter, the Inland Valley (Calif.) Daily Bulletin reported.
Then why link Obama to food stamps and the welfare imagery invoked by government handouts? Why tie him to watermelon, fried chicken and ribs? Was it because Obama has promised to give federal subsidies to hog and chicken farmers, and watermelon growers? Or did the newsletter's depiction have a more odious connection?
In his 1986 book, "Sambo: the Rise & Demise of an American Jester," Joseph Boskin talked of how such imagery has been used to ridicule blacks, whose meals during slavery often consisted of pork scraps, chicken and watermelon.
One early 20th Century postcard carried the picture of a black man with a watermelon tucked under each arm, looking longingly at a chicken, as if struggling to choose.
"Dis am de wurst perdickermunt ob mah life!" read the caption.
In 1997, golfer Fuzzy Zoeller tripped over his tongue after Tiger Woods became the first black to win the Masters golf tournament.
Winners of this prestigious sporting event get to pick the menu for the Champions Dinner the following year. Tell him not to serve fried chicken, Zoeller said of Woods. Zoeller apologized the next day, saying his comments were not meant to be racist.
Like Zoeller, Fedele should have known better. That she thought she could get away with branding Obama with racially offensive imagery puts her in the company of Duke, who now heads a group he calls the European American Unity and Rights Organization.
Shortly after Obama wrapped up the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Duke posted a commentary on his Web site in which he said the Illinois senator's victory should be a warning sign to white Americans.
"Now the dreams of our forefathers have morphed into our own living nightmares in which anti-white racism and white self-hate dominate the political and media landscape," Duke wrote. "Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don't get it yet that we have lost control of our country and unless we get it back, we are heading for complete annihilation as a people."
That warning differs only in degree from the image Fedele circulated. Fedele pulled back -- though not far -- from what she'd done, thanks only to loud public outcry. She said she had tried to make an "ideological statement, not a racist one." But only the most naive would believe that.
Fedele may lack Duke's shrillness, but there's no mistaking she shares his concern that Barack Obama will be our next president.
DeWayne Wickham is a columnist with Gannett News Service. His e-mail address is DeWayneWickham@aol.com.
By DeWAYNE WICKHAM
When you get right down to it, Diane Fedele and David Duke are kindred souls.
Fedele, president of a California conservative Republican women's group, resigned Wednesday after being harshly criticized for sending a racist depiction of Barack Obama to the organization's members.
Duke is the former Louisiana state legislator and Ku Klux Klan leader who makes little effort to disguise his racist contempt for the black presidential candidate.
The offensive image Fedele circulated appeared in a recent newsletter of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated organization. It showed Obama's face on a fake $10 food stamp surrounded by a slice of watermelon, a bucket of fried chicken, a rack of barbecued ribs and a pitcher of Kool-Aid.
"I do not think like a bigot, and because of that fact, I did not view this as racial, because I do not have a racially discriminating point of view," Fedele wrote in her resignation letter, the Inland Valley (Calif.) Daily Bulletin reported.
Then why link Obama to food stamps and the welfare imagery invoked by government handouts? Why tie him to watermelon, fried chicken and ribs? Was it because Obama has promised to give federal subsidies to hog and chicken farmers, and watermelon growers? Or did the newsletter's depiction have a more odious connection?
In his 1986 book, "Sambo: the Rise & Demise of an American Jester," Joseph Boskin talked of how such imagery has been used to ridicule blacks, whose meals during slavery often consisted of pork scraps, chicken and watermelon.
One early 20th Century postcard carried the picture of a black man with a watermelon tucked under each arm, looking longingly at a chicken, as if struggling to choose.
"Dis am de wurst perdickermunt ob mah life!" read the caption.
In 1997, golfer Fuzzy Zoeller tripped over his tongue after Tiger Woods became the first black to win the Masters golf tournament.
Winners of this prestigious sporting event get to pick the menu for the Champions Dinner the following year. Tell him not to serve fried chicken, Zoeller said of Woods. Zoeller apologized the next day, saying his comments were not meant to be racist.
Like Zoeller, Fedele should have known better. That she thought she could get away with branding Obama with racially offensive imagery puts her in the company of Duke, who now heads a group he calls the European American Unity and Rights Organization.
Shortly after Obama wrapped up the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Duke posted a commentary on his Web site in which he said the Illinois senator's victory should be a warning sign to white Americans.
"Now the dreams of our forefathers have morphed into our own living nightmares in which anti-white racism and white self-hate dominate the political and media landscape," Duke wrote. "Obama is a visual aid for white Americans who just don't get it yet that we have lost control of our country and unless we get it back, we are heading for complete annihilation as a people."
That warning differs only in degree from the image Fedele circulated. Fedele pulled back -- though not far -- from what she'd done, thanks only to loud public outcry. She said she had tried to make an "ideological statement, not a racist one." But only the most naive would believe that.
Fedele may lack Duke's shrillness, but there's no mistaking she shares his concern that Barack Obama will be our next president.
DeWayne Wickham is a columnist with Gannett News Service. His e-mail address is DeWayneWickham@aol.com.
Labels: General information
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 5:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home