I thought my liberal rage might be busted.

[thisficklemob]

Then I saw this forthcoming New Yorker cover of Michelle and Barack Obama.

Ah, there it is.

(x-posted from my journal)

ETA: The Obama campaign's response. (And some of the comments on that post only prove that people really believe this shit.)

Comments

[delux_vivens]

*points to icon*

[thisficklemob]

I wish you had fewer occasions to use that one.

[delux_vivens]

unlikely to happen anytime soon...

[thisficklemob]

I know. It seems like the racists are only getting louder.

[delux_vivens]

They've always been this loud.

[thisficklemob]

You think? In their own sphere, sure... but it seems like it's getting more airtime on tv. Now CNN sticks a mic in people's faces in West Virginia and asks why they're voting for Clinton instead of Obama, and they tell them, and the whole country sees it.

And when it's all white people running for President, the talking heads don't have as much chance to display their racism when they're talking about the presidential campaign. You used to have to wait until they moved on to Iraq or Katrina to hear the racism.

[thisficklemob]

Although, now that I think of it... "welfare queens" and commentary crime and social programs and all kinds of stuff were playing on racial prejudice too. I guess it's just more direct now.

[thisficklemob]

* commentary about

[delux_vivens]

You think?

Yes, because I have to live with the attitude and actionsof people who think like this all of the time, not just when CNN is reporting about it.

[thisficklemob]

I'm sorry; I certainly never meant to imply otherwise. I meant louder in terms of what we see and hear in the media. But I can see how not specifying that could have sounded like I was privileging media reflections and dismissing personal experience.

I apologize.

[delux_vivens]

No, I dont think you were being dismissive. I think these opinions show in the regular media all the time, as well, just in a less obvious fashion. Like in discussion of black men and 'the down low', as if white men never did the same, for example. By which I mean it already seemed pretty loud to me, this cover is really just more of the same.

[thisficklemob]

True. I suppose there're probably some cultural differences between black and white men who do, just as there would be according to region, religion, and urban/suburban/rural setting... but there's really no excuse for not at least mentioning that this isn't an exclusively or even primarily black phenomenon.

Thank you for pointing that out.

[delux_vivens]

An epidemiologist I know went to great pains to point out to me how the 'down low' phenomenon became a media item based on the hearsay tell all confession of one person; people in the field who actually *study* this and work with those populations were completely ignored, as they would have said something very different.

[thisficklemob]

I didn't know that. I did know that researchers refer to such men as men who have sex with men (MSM), since many wouldn't self-identify as gay or bisexual.