Though I am hesitant to forward such horrific racist imagery, I also believe it absolutely necessary for our readers to know that this kind of right wing white supremacist activity is flourishing, even among conservaties who retain a modicum of respectability. It is a frightening and dangerous trend and one to which we must pay attention.
Please let us know if you think the value of alerting the public to this kind of activity outweighs any harm that might be caused by its further circulation.
Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / July 23, 2009
On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image [at top]. Above it, he wrote: ‘Funny stuff.’
By Zachary Roth / July 23, 2009
The election of our first black president has brought with it a strange proliferation of online racism among conservatives.
And we’ve got the latest example.
On Sunday night, Dr. David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of a Google listserv affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image [above]. Above it, he wrote: “Funny stuff.”
Now, Tea Party activists trafficking in racist imagery are pretty much dog bites man. But McKalip isn’t just some random winger. He’s a Florida neurosurgeon, who serves as a member of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates.
He’s also an energetic conservative opponent of health-care reform. McKalip founded the anti-reform group Doctors For Patient Freedom, as well as what seems to be a now defunct group called Cut Taxes Now. Last month he joined GOP congressmen Tom Price and Phil Gingrey, among others, for a virtual town hall to warn about the coming “government takeover of medicine.” And in a recent anti-reform op-ed published in the St. Petersburg Times, McKalip wrote that “Congress wants to create larger, government-funded programs for health care and more bureaucracy that ration care and impose cookbook medicine.”
Asked about the email in a brief phone interview with TPMmuckraker, McKalip said he believes that by depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the artist who created the image “was expressing concerns that the health-care proposals [made by President Obama] would make the quality of medical care worse in our country.” McKalip said he didn’t know who created it.
But pressed on what was funny about an image that plays on racist stereotypes about Africans, McKalip declined to say, instead offering to talk about why he opposes Obama’s health-care proposals.
“I have a busy day,” he said eventually, before ending the call.
Source / TPM Muckraker
Thanks to S.M. Wilhelm / The Rag Blog
If the conservatives think this is so funny, and say that they mean it humorously, I’m willing to go along with the gag – only promise me now that they’ll still think it’s funny when we wave it as a victory banner over their graves!
though disturbing, i understand your intent and find it appropriate to share this. a defense mechanism kicked in for me (not just for obama, but humanity as a whole).
Speaking as a true conservative, one who believes it quite certain that President Obama is ushering in a wave of socialism/Marxism we shall all one day regret, I find these picture both objectionable and offensive. Any true conservative would not stoop to to such a low level. Irrespective of his political/social agenda the President is a fellow human that deserves respect as such. It is perfectly fine to not respect his agenda but the proper course for conservatives to pursue is winning the battle on battlefield of rational thought and idea’s not through offensive attacks on the person. The conservative agenda can win, but only if we hold true to a rational set of ethical values. These pictures are neither rational or ethical.
Les Carpenter III
Rational Nation USA
How refreshing and I quote “only promise me now that they’ll still think it’s funny when we wave it as a victory banner over their graves!” Barbarian’s response reminds me of what I might have heard from Hitlers elite shortly before they annihilated more than 20,000,000 fellow humans. Is that the goal, to cheer over the grave of someone you disagree with? As a moderate and one who has moved from the left to slightly right of the center over the last almost 80 years, I find it refreshing that Rational Nation USA’s rejection of such a disrespectful picture as neither rational or ethical. It would take much more space and time than is possible to report all of the comments and pictures similar to this one that has been posted over the years – from both irrational far right and far left. Thank God, or whatever power you might believe in, that there are millions upon millions of rational thinkers throughout this land – left, right and center – who work together to continue keeping this the great country great as it was intended to be by our forefathers.
How is this racist? Because it’s of a black man? Our president happens to be black. I don’t see this as racist. I’ll give you disrespectful and objectionable, but I just don’t see the racist aspect.
This picture is not racist. I’m sick of the race baiters… Get a life.
One man’s joke is anothers ‘racism’ – personally I’d rather hang with the one who’s laughing – life’s too short.
Damn that free speech – it should only be free for those who agree with ME!
For more on ‘white guilt’ read our Village Idiot; Bobbo Jensen’s, silly (er I mean ‘serious’, ‘educated’ and ‘important’) progressive drivel on the issue.
Oooooh the HORROR!!!! No matter how I try, I can’t get that HORRIFIC, RACIST image out of my mind. How dare they defile our great leaders image in such a HORRIFIC way. I’m so scared I’m going to crawl into a fetal position to deal with the HORROR!
GET ME A SHRINK – quick.
Oh and please don’t let any children see this HORRIFIC image it could cause them to have nightmares. Clearly this is just another example of the evil supremacist conspiracy. It’s almost as bad as the hundreds of ‘photoshopped’ images mocking G.W.Bush. Oh, wait we laughed at those.
Regardless, we must be vigilant against such HORRIFIC, RIGHT WING, propaganda – if we dare.
the Barbarian said…
“If the conservatives think this is so funny, and say that they mean it humorously, I’m willing to go along with the gag – only promise me now that they’ll still think it’s funny when we wave it as a victory banner over their graves!”
Libiot. The whole site is phoney race baiting including your moronic post (whose IP just got snagged by the FBI)
Not a conservative involved. Same as the obamabucks scam made by you libiots.
Any war obama and the rest of you racist traitors to the civil war stoke will be American vs anti-America jihadists. No color about it.
I think this picture of Obama pales in comparison to the lampooning that President Bush received during his eight years in office by the Left.
If the bar was lowered it has been done so by the Media and cartoonists over many years, at least since the Vietnam era.
Just this week, Obama playing doctor referred to a colonoscopy as a tool to help detect and cure Prostate cancer even I know that is for Colon Cancer – as the name suggests.
This Healthcare bill will reduce the finest HealthCare system in the world to Third World status and force taxpayers to pay for illegal aliens as well as those who choose not to pay for healthcare currently.
This is just one problem among the hundreds of questionable items contained in the House Bill.
How is this RACIST?? Obama’s black? His ancestors are black? Essentially someone just put a black dudes head on a black dudes body?!? What’s racist about that?