More Double Standards

I was thinking about yesterday's post in regard to double standards and it made me think about all of this Jeremy Lin nonsense that's been happening. It made me really wonder why poking fun at some stereotypes is OK, but poking fun at other stereotypes is totally off limits. I don't mean a little off limits. I mean WAY off limits. Like so far off that you're assumed to be a Klan member if you even take a whiff in that direction.

Let's look at this sign below that showed up at a Knicks game last week when Jeremy Lin was right in the middle of his hot streak. Behold!

Now, I don't know if the fact that it's being held up by an Asian has anything to do with it being OK. I wonder what the reaction to this would be if it was a white guy holding it up. I haven't seen anything against this particular sign. No one has said that it's "racist" or that people shouldn't "stereotype" (or some sort of utopian drivel). It seems to be just fine to have that kind of a sign. As it seems OK to have this kind of a sign as well...Behold!

Again, I haven't heard of any backlash over this particular sign either. I don't know if the person with this sign was Asian or not. All I know is that no one was having a cow over it or anything. And that bring me to my question. What if someone in the stands at a sporting event had a sign that referenced a black stereotype with a black player? Like, let's say that Kobe Bryant and the Lakers were playing a team that had previously beaten the Lakers by over 70 points. And let's say that the next time that Kobe faced off against that team, someone in the stands had a sign with a picture of Kobe Bryant eating fried chicken? And the caption read "What's the matter, Kobe? Chicken?" And let's say it looked like this...Behold!


Oh, COME on! You didn't really think I was going to include a picture of Kobe Bryant eating fried chicken, did you? Are you kidding me? I'd never hear the end of something like that! Can you imagine the self-righteous outrage?! Well, I could! And that's why I gave you a picture of a cute puppy instead of one that would make even me cringe at the sight of it. (His name is Bob Barker. How cute is that?!) But that it's OK for the Jeremy Lin puns and signs to dabble in racial stereotypes all the while it is so NOT OK to dabble in anything racial in regard to those who are black? That perplexes me. I wonder why it's like that. Not just for the Asian stereotypes to be "OK", but for people to think that they're "OK"

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Nice Ad

Want a good way to not get elected to a public office that you're running for? Try the Dan Fanelli approach, as seen below. Go with a bunch of stereotypes. That's a good start to not getting elected. Then make sure that you only focus your ad on things that you probably aren't going to have a lot of say in, like how the TSA operates, for example. But I will commend you on finding people to play the parts of the stereotypical terrorists in this commercial. That's pretty impressive. Everything else, though? Yeah, you might want to rethink some of that if you're kind of serious about getting elected. To anything.

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Ahhh, The South

There wouldn't be so many damn stereotypes about the south if it weren't for hilarious incidents such as this one. This is what we have here: A woman's sister is getting arrested. The woman finds out that it will be on something called County Law (which is apparently the southern version of Cops). The woman not getting arrested gets very excited that the County Law folks are there. And who wouldn't be excited to learn that your kinfolk gettin' 'rested is gonna be on the telebishun?

Stereotypes exist for a reason. Don't get mad at people who keep using stereotypes to define or describe people when there are people like those in the video above who do nothing but perpetuate the stereotypes. In fact, can we even call it a stereotype if it's freaking true?

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I'd Like This Order To Go...Far Away

For today's account of just how completely stupid some people can be, complete with "feigning any inkling of knowledge about American society and what it will and will not find acceptable" antagonist who later gives the "I didn't mean to..." and "I'm sorry if I offended anyone" faux-pology which really won't matter because everyone will already think she is an idiot by the time her faux-pology hits the media (You know what they say..."An idiot can always apologize, but they're still an idiot." OK, maybe "they" don't say that, but I do. Well, I did.), we head down to Southern California where the leftist folks at the LA Times, bring us the tale of a women's club newsletter gone bad. To give you a hint of just how bad, I'll give you two words: Obama Bucks.

According to the LA Times, there is a Republican women's club in San Bernadino County. NO word on what a "Republican women's club" actually entails other than the obvious Republican women. They recently sent out their newsletter. There was a portion of the newsletter which seemed to get a few folks in both political parties a little bit riled up. Now, if both sides of the political system are both upset, let's just think about this for a minute because my God! They agree on something! Can't we just leave it at that and call it a little bit of progress? Please? Aw, crap. OK fine. But just remember, you guys agreed with each other. Next time, try agreeing on something that the public would actually give a crap about.

The agreeable offense, you ask? Well, in said newsletter, President Diane Fedele has claimed that she was attempting to "point out the outrageousness of Obama's statement that he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Now, I'm not sure exactly what that is supposed to mean. "The outrageousness" is the part that has me confused. Has this woman seen a dollar bill lately? (I'm assuming she has, she's a Republican.) Just to be sure I knew what I was talking about, I pulled out a dollar bill and looked at it and then I looked at a picture of Obama. They really looked absolutely nothing like each other at all. (I thought about comparing the picture on the dollar bill to Osama, because what if the woman was confused? That happens a lot these days. Osama, Obama. There's only a one letter difference. And to morons everywhere, that makes all the difference.) Therefore, I'm not sure his statement that he didn't look like any of our dead presidents who are emblazoned on our currency is all that "outrageous".

But Diane Fedele decided to illustrate the outrageousness of his statement anyway by throwing together a little illustration of how outrageous it really is. So, just as you or I would have done, she took a picture of Obama's head and put it "atop a donkey's body on a bogus $10 bill referred to as "Obama Bucks." Inscribed on the money are the words "United States Food Stamps" surrounded by stereotypical African American food." Sure, we would have done just that thing, right? WRONG!!

The "stereotypical African American food" that the story in the LA Times is referring to includes "fried chicken, watermelon, ribs and Kool-Aid." (Oh, good Lord, woman. What is wrong with you?) Naturally, she had to include a caption. What's an idiotic political illustration without a caption? Not much, that's for sure! The caption above the Obama Bucks reads "Obama talks about all those presidents that get their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on??? Food Stamps, what else!" Wait. What? Yep. Behold!

That doesn't even make any sense! First of all, Barry says that he doesn't look like all of the other Presidents on "the dollar bills". (Technically, that doesn't make sense either. I'm aware of that. But I'm bagging on this woman right now. I'll have plenty of time to give Barry crap after he's elected President.) He didn't say that he doesn't look like all of the other Presidents on the bills with Kool-Aid and KFC. And since when is a "food stamp" a "bill"? (I'm surprised she didn't answer her own question with "The Bill of Rights" or something equally as asinine.) But seriously, lady...fried chicken, ribs, watermelon and Kool-Aid? Are you for real? Why didn't you just take it a step farther and put him in an Aunt Jemima kerchief? Perhaps a little Al Jolson-esque look to him? Oh, what am I saying?! You have to keep up! You could have given him a nice toothy grill and a bunch of gold medallions! What in the world is wrong with you?

According to the LA Times, "The October newsletter went out to about 200 members of the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, based in Upland." After it was brought to Ms. Fedele's attention that the illustration that she concocted could be seen by some as insensitive and stereotypical (not to mention highly inappropriate and in really, really poor taste), she issued her faux-pology. "I apologize to anyone who was offended because that was not my intent. It was poor judgment on my part. It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of Obama's statement that he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar ." The typical faux-pology. Once, just once, I'd like to hear someone say, "I was an idiot. I did it to poke fun at (insert ethnic or minority group here) because I wanted to. And I'll probably laugh about it when you're not around, but it was a stupid thing to do." Please note the absence of the word "sorry" or "apology" or anything else that conveys remorse. That's because there is rarely any remorse from those who are put in the position of having to give a public apology/statement. (Hello? Politicians who have been found having multiple affairs? John Edwards? Tim Mahoney? Idiot Elliot Spitzer? Helloooo?) \

Fedele said that it was in a "number of chain emails" where she got the illustration from. Of course, she declined to say who sent her the "emails" with the illustration. Translation: "I'm lying and there were no emails." Are you kidding me? If I've just been told that I'm a moronic racist for putting that in my newsletter, I'm not going to like being branded with that particular moniker very much and I'm going to defend myself. If someone else had created the illustration and I had not, I'd be showing off those emails to prove it and at least save one teeny, tiny shred of dignity. But no. Not her. She's just declining to provide that. (Lady, please. You have to understand that the Internet is a massively huge series of tubes and wires and strings and stuff that all connect everyone on the planet to each other. Even people we don't want to be connected to, the Internet connects us anyway. Do you really think that if an illustration like that was going around in a chain email (which are notorious for being forwarded millions of times, mostly by idiots) that TMZ or some other tabloid or media group would not have gotten hold of it before now?! Of course they would have! They have people who do nothing all day long except for monitor the tubes for things just like that! You're racially insensitive AND you're a moron!

She claims that her rationale for printing it in the newsletter was that she was offended that Barry was drawing attention to his own race with his claim. She did not claim why that would offend her. (Translation: It didn't.) She then pointed out that "she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president." Oh, well, OK then! That makes up for it! It's fine! Um, NO, not quite!

Look, I suppose if you wanted to show that you were "offended" in some way, that's OK. You can do that. But don't tell me you couldn't come up with a better (at least non-racist-er) depiction of Barry on the US currency. You could have come up with something like this:

Yeah, HUGE difference. Big. HUGE. You could have even gone with something like this:

But no, you went with stereotypes on parade. Nice.

I think the point has been made that this woman is a moron. I think the argument could be made that this woman is a liar (if you base that on her explanations for this debacle). I don't know that you could make an argument for or undeniably conclude that she is a racist. Granted, a lot of racists aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, thus racism tends to be perpetuated by ignorance. But while I'm not going to call her a racist, I'm not going to call her a racist just yet. And if she doesn't want to be branded something a whole lot worse than just a plain 'ol ignorant "racist", she's going to have to do some serious backpedalling and get a lot better at apologizing. In the meantime, she should consider turning the newsletter writing over to some class of 6th graders which will undoubtedly be able to use better judgment than she did.

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