A local man makes his living selling political propaganda, including campaign buttons. Like a mercenary soldier, he plays all sides. He feeds off bumper sticker philosophy, thumb-your-nose attitudes, and mocking humor. It's not exactly the world's most useful occupation, certainly not among the more charitable. But from the reaction to his "If Obama is president, will we still call it the White House?" button, you'd think Jonathan Alcox was a substantially lower form of life than drug pusher or Mafia don, just barely above child pornographer.
Barack Obama does not deny—indeed, he profits from—his partially African heritage. I fail to see anything at all racist about that button; if being aware of someone's ancestry is racist, then we all are, including Obama's supporters, and the term has no meaning other than as an epithet to throw at our opponents when we run out of rational arguments. If truth is no longer a defense, what hope have we for justice?
In the interest of full disclosure, I love word play, and am thus predisposed to finding that button amusing. I wouldn't wear one, but can see the humor and not the offense.
Alcox has other buttons that I find far more beyond the pale. For example,
Another one that Alcox said sells particularly well features George W. Bush next to a chimpanzee beneath the words "The dangers of cloning."
If the same button sported Barack Obama instead of George W. Bush, it would be no less offensive—but also no more. Yet selling that button would push Alcox below the child pornographers in some eyes.
Now that's racism.
My guess is it offends not because it is clever and funny (it is), but because the implied (or at least inferred) message is that we've had this revered, honored institution - the White House - for centuries, but if a black man gets voted it, it will be so corrupted and fundamentally warped and tainted that it can't even keep its name. Taken only literally, it is not racist, but its implications are, and no politician with half a brain would touch that with a ten-foot pole.
I think part of the reason for the double standard you lament - and it is a fact - lies in the two (allow me to simplify) races having such a vastly different history, and even still a different treatment today. It reminds me of how men are quick to think that gender inequality has been dealt with by passing a few laws and then turn around and evaluate female politicians by their hairdo and female athletes by their bum or accept "woman driver" as an explanation for incompetence.
I don't see those implications -- perhaps because everyone I know (for whom race makes any difference at all in this contest) is excited about the idea of an American of African descent (albeit not the descendant of slaves) becoming president, just on principle.
I appreciate the comparison with gender issues, though. Certainly laws do not win heart acceptance, though they can help train us in expected behavior. (Can you tell I've been reading Galatians recently?) But there comes a point, and I think we're there, where hypersensitivity starts to backfire. Injustice in one direction will never be cancelled out by injustice in another direction; it only multiplies the amount of injustice in the world.
The reaction to this button was 'way out of proportion. I think of the saying, "Don't use an axe to remove a fly from your neighbor's forehead." Couldn't they have said to the vendor, "Those buttons don't meet our standard of courtesy, please don't sell them here?" And if he refused to cooperate, couldn't they just have sent him packing? But to ban him forever, and to try to get him banned from the national convention? Does he deserve death threats, destruction of his website, threats to burn down his house? Any parent knows that making punishment disproportional to the crime does far more harm than good.
And yet you are right. That's the world we live in, and a good part of politics is diplomacy. If he's going to make his living off of politics, he needs to play the game, however unreasonable it may be.
I haven't heard anyone say they are "excited" by Obama becoming president, though I have heard a couple people wondering about having a president who has Muslim family members (though I don't know if he would be the first?) And the most racist person I know said something along the lines of who knows what is going to happen in November - all the black kids up the street will start running around with guns, so it will be good to move out of her house of 70+ years. I asked her why she thought that there would suddenly be a change like that, and she mumbled something about, "you never know with a guy like that in charge"...
I guess you don't read the blogs of all of Heather's friends. :)
True, I stopped reading that one quite a while ago.
