Tea Party member and virulent birther, Marilyn Davenport of Orange County, California, had no idea that emailing a photo shopped picture depicting President Obama as an ape to her fellow Tea Partiers was racist. Noooooooo. The thought never crossed what passes as her mind. This woman is apparently so bereft of any common sense that she is clueless about the insulting dehumanization that African Americans have endured throughout our sorry racial history, and that one of the ways to humiliate this group was to compare them to subhumans.
Pointing out that George W. Bush was referred to as "Chimpy" isn't in any way, shape or form an equivalency. George W. Bush's race was never demonized and dehumanized to the point where people felt torturning and lynching a white citizen was justified because he dared speak to or look at a black woman. Members of George Bush's race never were told to sit at the back of the bus, or drink from separate fountains, nor were white children of tax-paying parents denied entrance into a tax supported state college because their skin was lily white. Referring to Dubya as Chimpy had nothing to do with his race, and everything to do with his incompetence. If Tea Party members don't understand the difference, then they need to read up on the history of racism in this country, pull their heads out of their collective anuses, and face their bigotry head on.
But back to this Orange County woman who defended her stupid email:
"This afternoon, Marilyn Davenport sent an email to fellow Orange County Republican elected officials, apologizing if anyone was offended by her depicting President Barack Obama as an ape--while also blasting the "liberal media" for reporting the story."
Notice that this contemptible woman didn't really apologize. Nowhere does she say she's sorry for acting like a foul-hearted asshat. No. she apologizes IF anyone was offended by her depiction of President Obama as an ape--an image that white racists have used to demean and demoralize African Americans through our history. She's too lamebrained to understand this simple fact. And then, like all cowards, she blames the messenger for her atrocious idiocy.
"I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth," Davenport wrote. "In no way did I even consider the fact he's half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people [Scott Baugh, Orange County GOP boss, and this writer] tried to make this about race. . . . I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them."
She never considered the fact that President Obama is an African American when she sent out her humiliating email. This is because she is a stupid woman, too ignorant of this country's history to know when she is committing an egregious insult to a group of people who have had to endure the likes of her for centuries.
I'm sick of it all, but most assuredly sick of the jackasses--people like Davenport--who populate the Tea Party. I'm sick of them denying that this racism is a part of who they are and what they believe. It's part of what the Tea Party is, and it's blatant.
Finally, I'm sick of those who become indignant when they are confronted with the reality that the Tea Party has a HUGE streak of racism running down its spine.
It's wide, it's yellow, and it stinks.
I've become so disgusted with the backward ignorance and vile mean spiritedness that I am blanking it out.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I see shit like this it feels like a pnch in the gut and I'm tired of the stomache ache.
My only hope is the hard core crazies become so offensive they lose their base.
Shaw,
ReplyDeleteMost Tea-arguments are so stupid that they fall apart like a crumbly cheese the minute you apply any intellectual pressure to them, so it's hard to understand what else but racial animosity (self-acknowledged or otherwise) could lie behind so much passion against one brown-skinned man named Barack Obama.
I think their strength is greatly overrated, by the way -- a hundred teahoos gather in a public place somewhere and make noise, and the press labels it an ominous portent. Most of what they say is "sound and fury, signifying nothing" -- or at least nothing more than whining about having to pay taxes like everybody else.
These Teahoos, an apt coinage minted by our resident Saurischean, seem to have a common tactic pioneered no doubt by their screechy fingernails on backboard spokesperson, the Palindrone. It is a rhetorical counter offensive in four parts: 1- Immediate denial, 2 - Bully the liberal media, 3 - Up the accusation ante, 4 - Repeat often. Subliminal racism, covert anti-Semitism, overt anti-Islamism, resurgent sexism, … their cup of bigotry runneth over.
ReplyDeleteA few comments on wedge politics: "Atomization." Think in terms of an aerosol spray representing public opinion. When the GOP employs subliminal forms of bias and bigotry in their rhetoric, the idea is to reduce the electorate into a particulate mist such that people are turned into factions at odds with each other and no longer talking together or comparing notes as a cohesive force. Then the GOP is able to play factions against each other and slip odious legislation into the mainstream without intact voter blocks noticing the fine print.
This is how protofascists stage-manage public opinion in a democratic society.
Dippy Teahoo and Tyler too.
ReplyDeleteDo you teahoo?
Funny, you don't look Teahooish.
It's a keeper.
As for stage managing public opinion, the media flap about the kid with toenail polish on the J Crew catalog is a perfect example of ratchet-jaw media goons rousing the rabble over nothing.
We live in a place where your mom does indeed wear Army boots, drives an Army truck, has more tattoos than anyone Barnum and Baily ever employed, ten pounds of hardware and three feet of chain through her face and every other word out of her mouth rhymes with Buck -- and the idiots are screaming about ruining some kid's gender identity?
I'm through. I'm done. I can't stand it any more and there's hardly anything left about our sad, stupid country I give a Teahoo about. The whole thing needs to be buried deep before it infects the whole world.
I just attempted to register Teahoo.com and wouldn't you know it, some teahoo already has it and is selling it for $1200 bucks. http://www.hugedomains.com/domain_profile.cfm?d=teahoo&e=com
ReplyDeleteIt's also the name of some guy from Thailand http://cid-52692b6393d6224b.profile.live.com/
A penis enlargement forum http://www.cheekycherry.com/ccforums/showthread.php?t=6413
Some kind of a virtual football club in Denmark http://www.virtualmanager.com/managers/721688
I'd look for getmeoffthisgoddamplanet.com but I know it's hopeless.
People like Marilyn and the other verbal gaffers in Orange County drift further from reality daily. In Costa Mesa, there's a revolt against four city councilmen. The councilmen got "a taste of Wisconsin" and decided to cut half the city workforce. One worker jumped to his death the day that he received his notice. What did the Councilmen do? Party at one of their buddy's Irish bars on St. Patrick's Day!
ReplyDeleteDemography and stupidity like this is going to come crashing down hard on the local GOP here, and they are going to flip the freak out.
Shaw, I couldn't have said it any better. The one thing that keeps me reasonably sane is that rational people are able to see that the Teahoos (great term dino!)are the idiots telling the tale.
ReplyDelete