What year is this again?

Wow!

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

It's racist 48.97% 6435
It's fine 51.03% 6705

I casted my vote. Lets rock this poll

Must be some of that "Christian Love" I keep hearing about. (I mean, Georgia is the Bible Belt, right?)

I think we should let the racists win. Just as Expelled repelled the middle ground who might otherwise go along, this is so over the top that it would drive any reasonable person away.

After careful consideration, I'd have to say it's racist. Even though I do like monkeys, and bananas, and monkeys are, after all, quite intelligent and related to mankind, I think the intent was primarily to cast a racist slur.

Good evening, Prof. Myers.

I did vote, but the results of this farce should be broadcast everywhere, so that those who would deny that racism remains a problem today, can try and refute this. I am appalled, which just shows my naivete, since the ID movement has so many adherents, too.

racism never even crossed my mind until you brought it up

ummm... I'm not sure I get the racist reference... Is this like when the Indian bowler (forget his name) called Andrew Symonds a monkey, and everything went to hell in a handbasket?

Hey PZ!

speaking of bananas, and uh intelligent design... nah the connection is tenuous, but I just saw this book in Barnes & Noble which was excreted by some DIdiot putting one of Darwin's books among those that have "screwed up the world".

Just thought you might want to know about it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596980559

I wonder if the people who made the Curious George movie are happy with this misappropriation of their art.

I thought The Republicans already had their Curious George in The Oval Office?

"Oh, err...well, you see, we were attacked by Afghani terrorists who were mainly from Saudi Arabia...but I'm curious what Baghdad will look like in flames. LET'S BOMB IT! Fun fun for everyone!"

And things are only going to get uglier over the next several months.

It's racist, and it's trademark and copyright infringement. Quick, get the Stanford Fair Use team on this case to defend it!

Also, cue the Clinton surrogate who'll blame the shirt on Obama playing the race card.

if it isn't racist, then what the hell is it trying to say?

I lived in Georgia for 10 years. And other than my wife's entire family, coworkers, vague acquaintances, and random people I met on the street, I never saw any racism.

Well, it's racist, duh.

But that's fine. People are wholly allowed to state their opinions, no matter how stupid. If you met anyone with a shirt like that, you'd be justified in deeming them a bigotted nitwit (and most likely devoid of a sense of humour) before they even opened their mouth. And that in turn would be your prerogative.

Well since it seems my posts never get though I guess I will just use this as a rant. Could anyone here explain to me the difference between this shirt and the cartoon depiction of Mohammed in recent months?
Why is it ok in the latter but not the former?

The improper apostrophe is to be expected, I suppose.

And if you want to see how many Georgians feel about Obama, check out http://forum.gon.com/forumdisplay.php?f=9 and scan for the Obama posts. This is a Georgia hunting/fishing forum, but I assure you that these views are held by many Georgians. These guys seem to be obsessed with Obama (or O'bama for my fellow Irish).

racism never even crossed my mind until you brought it up

Me either. I would have just looked at the shirt in befuddlement.

Wow. I didn't notice the racist overtones until I read that part of the post. I was just confused...first I thought, "Curious George? Curious George Bush? Curious George Bush fucked our country, so you should vote for Obama in '08?" Then: "Monkeys? Common descent? Obama will be anti-ID, so you should vote for him?"

Only when I read the post did the sad reality of the message set in.

Chris: I thought The Republicans already had their Curious George in The Oval Office?

No, the George in The Oval Office is decidedly incurious.

About the book "10 Books that Screwed the world" at
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596980559 ,
this has only 2 reviews and both gave it 5 stars. Hopefully, the real reviewers will come along shortly and do this book justice.

Apparently it's just fine with a lot of folks that racism is still proudly presented by jerks, particularly in states that commonly vote for Republicans.

I helped turn the tide:

It's racist 50.00% 6766
It's fine 50.00% 6765

What racism. I find the guy's comments more offensive than the shirt, really.

"Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey. "We're not living in the (19)40's," he said. "Look at him . . . the hairline, the ears -- he looks just like Curious George.""

Ugh. I suppose I do agree that he has a right to do this kind of stuff, but its still infuriating...

I'll agree with Anon from Aus...is this a similar thing as to when Harbhajan Singh called Andrew Symonds a monkey? If not I'm awfully confused as to why this would be considered racist. (And no I'm not a troll, but honestly asking the question).

"No, the George in The Oval Office is decidedly incurious."

Yep- and Cheney is too damn fat and nasty to be the Man in the Yellow Hat.

I hope he doesn't hang around with the Man in the Yellow Pantsuit.

Belinda:

After reading a few more of the comments, I'm making a guess that there's some sort of cartoon with a character called Curious George that quite probably has the racism buried in it...

The article made reference to "Jim Crow Imagery", which I also don't get... I know about the Jim Crow laws, of course, but not about the imagery. I'm guessing you'd have to be American to understand, though I'm going with you in the non-trollish request for anyone else to aid our understanding...

Anyone?

I've expected all along an Obama candidacy - especially if he made it to the general election - would be a rude awakening for people who thought there wasn't so much racism in America any more. It's going to get ugly.

For more, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24588813/

I'm not sure about the Harbhajan/Symonds thing, but the reference here is to American (shit, European) racial codes in which blacks were posited as lesser humans, as apes. It's been a common trope in American popular culture. Disney, in particular (Jungle Book, Lion King...) has done quite well making such associations. The equation of blacks with apes or monkeys is deeply embedded in American racial history.

Hope that helps make it a bit clearer.

The sign outside the restaurant where the shirt is being sold is pretty misogynistic:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/double-whammy.html

Ok now I get it....Now that I've read the news article it is the same. To be honest, when I first heard about Andrew Symonds getting called a monkey last year I didn't understand why that was so offensive either (although it certainly was bad sportsmanship). Chalk another one up to my naivety. (When my American friend mentioned the "n" word I said "What swear word begins with N? "nerd??")

"He said he noted physical similarities between the Democratic front runner and the cartoon monkey while watching a Curious George movie with his grandchildren."

Finally, proof for common descent in Cobb County! And passed to a new generation. The miracle of education in Georgia.

Cobb county is home of the 'just a theory' textbook stickers.

I am conflicted on how I want this poll to turn out and the implications, so I think I will just avoid it and leave it to the better judgement of your other readers.

Sad, but the Atlanta Journal-Constitution probably knows its readship and what it can get away with among them.

#28: Yes, there's a cartoon monkey in a series of children's books called Curious George, but the racist content isn't from that. It's from the blunt "black people are monkeys" implication, which was (and, alas, obviously still is) a common racist meme here in the US.

Ugh. I can't believe it's even close to 50-50. I'd have thought that sort of thing went way out of bounds years ago.

Just to put up a defense, I live in Georgia and I'm not racist. There is a lot of racism down here, even members of my own extended family. It's like a silent undercurrent, you don't see it but you can feel it everywhere from both whites and blacks. But we're not all racist morons. Some of us want change.

Racists in the South? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you. Why, comparing a black man to a monkey...how can that be racist? It's totally harmless comparing blacks to monkeys...what harm can come from that? It's not like white people would then think of blacks as sub-human or anything...or less deserving of being treated as a fellow human..that would never happen....

Oh, man... I fail at racism.

I didn't get it and had to read the article and look around on the internet to understand what was going on.

Man, I fail hard at racism...

It's racist 50.68% 7001
It's fine 49.32% 6812

Need backup.

I say let them be racist assholes. Might as well get it out in front, let's start reinforcing that the GOP as the party of racists now.

Let's make it harder for them to run away from their own tactics and past. Make it really hard for people to hold their nose and pull the lever for McCain.

The true racists will probably vote for Bob Barr anyway, or Ron Paul.

When Obama began to emerge as a serious presidential candidate, I wondered how the Right-Wingnuts would attack him without being overtly racist. I mean, surely they realize that overt racism doesn't really fly anymore, right?

...right...?

Thanks MAJeff for the explanation. Also to KCProgramr. I'm usually pretty good, but sometimes the American references on the web just fly right by me. And for your knowledge the Harbhajan/Symonds "thing" was in a cricket game between Australia and India one of the Indian players "alledgedly" made racist remarks (called him a monkey) to Andrew Symonds (one of the Aussie players). The crowd in India also chanted monkey when they played over there. There was a huge outcry over the entire thing.

How about option 3: "It's racist and it's fine", for those of us even more behind the times

The strange thing is I don't see that much racism here. Of course I only associate with intelligent beings.

No reference yet from the 'liberal' media.

Funny, since this is the kind of thing that would help shore up the claim that Repuglicans are (kinda) racist.

In America up until the late sixties common racial slurs included "apes", "monkeys", and the ever popular "jungle bunnies", all of them referencing the African origin of the designee an the supposed degenerate status of American ex-slaves.

Why is it that the people that are most likely to vehemently deny that we are cousins of apes are also the ones most likely to compare blacks to monkeys?

Nobody sees the disconnect there? Are they that....oh, right.

It's racist 51.03% 7131
It's fine 48.97% 6843

Cognitive dissonance is their game, and they play it well.

Those confused - there is a long history in America with blacks being considered inferior and primitive, and much more like monkeys than "white folk". Sadly, it got all mixed up with social Darwinism, and was part of the bit where evolution was trotted out as evidence that white people were more evolved, therefore better, therefore supposed to hold the high ranks in society and black people were supposed to be slaves, since they were savages who lived in the jungle with/like the monkeys and acted like them and looked like them and so on and so on. I'm very glad that it's gotten to the point where a lot of people don't even make the connection, but believe me, that t-shirt is a total dog whistle to racist asshole bigots. Well, technically a dog whistle isn't detectable by others and this one is a screaming loud neon sign, but same idea.

Charmingly, the guy who is selling the shirts also ran a huge sign over his restaurant that said "I wish Hillary had married OJ". Made of win, that guy.

I'll stipulate it's fine as long as someone does a take-off on the T-shirt with Curious George looking confusedly at his finger with a banana sticking out of his rear and a caption saying 'George W.: 2000 - 2008'.

Why ponder the racist-ness of the T-Shirt when you can use it to totally pwn the other side with a better variation?

As a professional, I can attest that allowing people to vote only once per day on an internet poll makes it 38.7239% more scientificish.

As opposed to all the other polls I've been directed to, the ignorant side seems to be holding its own on this one. The grand wizard that owns that bar sure has some clever marketing schemes.

Teaching up here in Boston, I often run into students who seem to think that racism only happens elsewhere. I have to remind them that this happened in Boston during busing riots in the 1970s. While we now have an African American governor, there are still areas in the Commonwealth where folks would never consider voting for a nonwhite. There have been reports over the past few years of growing white supremacist activity here.

Racism remains a central stain. It's changed and it's different in different locations--I saw "Circle the Wagons, the Indians are Coming" bumper stickers out in Minnesota, but nothing like that here--but it ain't gone by a long shot.

To those people that, at first, didn't get it, that would be a great thing and an indicator of progress especially if you were black. Unfortunately that isn't the way things are.

Near the end of the article:

The Tennessee native figures he's providing a public service of sorts, reminding people they have a right to offend.

Sheesh... like the world needs reminding that we have the right to be assholes to each other.

-DU-

It's racist 51.21% 7199
It's fine 48.79% 6860

>Good evening, Prof. Myers.
what a formal anonymous commenter! Salutations to you, Anonymous. Let's have it, what have you got to say about the poll about the t-shirt calling Obama a monkey?

>I did vote, but the results of this farce should be broadcast everywhere,
Ok, that was tricky. Let's break it down. You DID vote, BUT the results should be broadcast everywhere. hmm. implying that your voting or not... affects whether the poll results... should... or shouldn't... be better known... 'everywhere'.

I really don't follow. If you hadn't voted, then they should NOT be better known everywhere? What does your voting have to do with anything?

Oh, and 'farce'. Nice! i gotta use that more. 'farce'. Like fart and face combined, but totally wuthering heights-ish. Farce. I Say, this unsoliscited analysis of this random comment at Pharyngula about a poll about a t-shirt that calls Obama a monkey is a farce! Good day, Sir! I said, GOOD DAY!!!

> so that those who would deny that racism remains a problem today, can try and refute this.

Yes! those racism-is-a-problem-today-deniers! that's the problem right there. We gotta get a handle on these folk! Racism-denying egg will be on their faces when they try some refuting on this one, once it becomes known everywhere, despite your having voted for it!

Man, i'm saying the words right, but it still don't make a lick of sense.

> I am appalled, which just shows my naivete, since the ID movement has so many adherents, too.

Totally! My naivete is also out there, too! Pants around its ankles, pasty ass cheeks blinding in the sun. I mean, come on! There's tons of ID'ers, thus, we are naive, illustrating how appalled we are, because there is a poll about a t-shirt comparing Obama to a monkey!

Who am i kidding. This is a pointless farce. I can not make any sense of this. I really wish the Yahoo! boards were back. There's an article saying the Vatican is okaying belief in aliens. You know what insane kinds of fun I could have on THAT comment thread? sigh...

In the 60s, it was the images of Black women and children being assaulted with firehoses that galvanized White America and helped bring about an end to American Apartied.

I say let this poll stand. The uglier this election gets, the more likely sane Americans on both sides of the political aisle will stand up and vote their conscious, if for no other reason than to prove to the world that we're not all inbred, mouth breathing, knuckle draggers from the south.

This made me think of these candies in Spain called Congolitos (can't find a picture online - they have to be seen to be appreciated), which always seemed racist to me but not really to friends of mine who weren't from the US.

Also reminded me of the Sambo's controversy years ago. There was one, briefly, in my town.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sambo's

Ugh. I can't believe it's even close to 50-50. I'd have thought that sort of thing went way out of bounds years ago.

anonymity is racisms' best disguise.

without fear of persecution or social stigma, I find racism to be rather prevalent as an attitude, even among those who should know better.

still a few generations to go before racism is truly a forgotten issue.

"The strange thing is I don't see that much racism here. Of course I only associate with intelligent beings."

Sarah. Are you retarded...or just stupid? No, I really mean it. I want an answer. If your statement is just some meta-joke I don't get, then I apol..no, wait a minute. Screw you, you racist idiot. Wake the fuck up, bitch!

The Hammer

Given the symbolism and history involved, the shirt is racist.

However, I suspect there's a legitimate bit of humor lurking in there, in that there is a slight resemblance between the character Curious George and the candidate Obama -- and no, not because they're both African or whatever. I forget who used to put out those "Separated at Birth" clips which juxtaposed random photos of two completely unrelated celebrities who had some sort of unexpected resemblance, but this shirt reminded me a bit of a popular one with I think it was Daryl Strawberry (a baseball player) and Dino the Dinosaur. Strawberry was black, but that wasn't the issue. There really was no deeper issue, other than saying "heh, yeah, I see it."

Maybe The Onion should market the shirt. That way, it will either be seen as innocent of any racist intent, or so crudely racist it's meant to be "ironic."

I think the racist undertones of the monkey imagery are not well-known not only to non-Americans, but even to most younger Americans. Well, younger white Americans, anyway.

Hell, even Macaca had a lot of people scratching their heads.

Interestingly, what is blatantly racist and over-the-line in the eyes of older generations often seems totally innocuous to many younger people. And for good reason. Without the historical context, the darker meaning behind much racist imagery is not at all obvious. And we're so afraid of talking about race in this country that we do a terrible job of giving that historical context.

Perhaps the confusion over whether or not this shirt is racist is a result of certain racist terms and images falling out of fashion amongst all but a subset of the deeply racist and the genuinely ignorant (who don't realize the subtext). Younger people simply haven't been exposed to them, so the racist connotations are considerably less obvious.

I wonder if the people who made the Curious George movie are happy with this misappropriation of their art.

Reminds me of that Simpsons quote... Bart and Milhouse are in a speeding, out of control school bus. Milhouse says, "It's just like Speed 2, but with a bus instead of a boat!"

I suppose there is a social comment in that the racist here is some loser pushing t-shirts and the man he is attacking has a good chance of becoming the most powerful man in the world. Still, what a douch bag scum sucker.

@ 63

I missed the historical monkey connection, until I read the comments here. I'm from Canada, and have only ever visited "The South" once, well after legal segregation was an issue.

I just saw the subtle similarity as a caricature... and I was really put in mind of the monkey-faces of George W. image that has made the rounds.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ijDA5bgxiHlTvS_r-SSjskS1Tq1wD90L4L680
APNewsAlert

13 minutes ago

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Democrat Travis Childers wins special election for Mississippi's 1st Congressional District

===

Not quite a jewel, perhaps insufficiently compressed coal but still....

===
see also
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/05/13/flier_links_candidate_…

Now:

It's racist 52.38% 7653
It's fine 47.62% 6957

Ohhhhh, I can't wait to vote octo times at work tomorrow!

Man, even Bush got compared to Curious George...

http://www.bushorchimp.com/images/pic49.jpg

Sastra,

How old are you? You're naivte is awe-inspiring!

Rock on, little one! Just remember: the earth existed before you got here. Really. It's true!

The Hammer

Let it stand so the people in my state can at least take credit for their ignorance.

And just think, that's only the people here who know how to use the internet.

/wishes to move far, far away

one real does have to wonder who the real knuckle draggers are. but it's no wonder, it's obvious. how sad.

That reminds me - I still kind of want a Screechy Monkey(TM) t-shirt.

Oddly, the text at the other end of that AJC link has changed in the past couple of hours. Included before was this:

Some of [Norman's] other recent musings: "I wish Hillary had married OJ," "No habla espanol -- and never will," and "I.N.S. Agents eat free."

Commedian David Cross hates the Altanta-journal Constitution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2QqrvSryQA

That's heaven AND squagels

My vote: It's racist.

Why?

Because it's racist.

Not hard to get from Point A to Point B on this one.

What do monkeys have to do with being racist? I'm not seeing the connection.

I'm going with "let this indictment of Georgia's racism stand."

It looks like George W McChimpy to me, but I still voted for racist, cuz it is. FWIW, the monkey actually looks WAYY smarter thatn George W.

I find it interesting that, in the name of condemning racism, all 8 million Georgians get painted with the same broad brush of crass generalization.

By the way, last March 1,050,000 Georgians voted in the Democratic primary, 700,000 of them for Obama. Including me, a 49 year old white guy. That same day, 957,000 Georgians voted as Republicans.

So you might want to reassess your view of Georgia as a state of racists.

That took me a moment to get.

I say, let the people of Georgia show the world just what kind of people they are.

It's one thing bringing a note of sanity to a poll put out by the DI or creationists, which will then be used to, say, lobby for more religion in science class.

It's another to represent the people of Georgia as something they're not.

I'm with Etha. There have been lots of comparisons between George Bush and Curious George. It was confusing.

Apart from the confusing stuff, it's just racist to use it against Obama as it is. I see no resemblance. I see a lot of animosity instead.

@ Chadwick (#77): See #30 (MAJeff) and #56 (David Utidjian).

Discrimination against blacks linked to dehumanization, study finds

"Crude historical depictions of African Americans as ape-like may have disappeared from mainstream U.S. culture, but research presented in a new paper by psychologists at Stanford, Pennsylvania State University and the University of California-Berkeley reveals that many Americans subconsciously associate blacks with apes.

In addition, the findings show that society is more likely to condone violence against black criminal suspects as a result of its broader inability to accept African Americans as fully human, according to the researchers."

I say let it stand. Let the bastards show themselves for what they are. Why clean up after them?

I went in and voted racist. I will NEVER cede ground to bigots, racists, or ignoramus's(sp?).

btw, in case it hasn't already been mentioned, I rather doubt this guy came up with the idea on his own:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/03/limbaugh-caller.html

OK... so I think I have it figured out. Some people out there think black people are monkeys. Or visa versa... Whatever. I wouldn't have thought anything of it until I read through the comments here. I think the so-called non-racist people on this thread are doing more damage to their cause by drawing attention to the association of black people and monkeys. What? Am I to believe they associated or something? If you didn't say anything about it, I would have gone on thinking that curious george supports obama. What about the association of Japanese people and monkeys? You know, as a consequence of all that world war II propaganda? Maybe the person selling these shirts is really calling Obama a Japanese? Damn that racist woman.

Holy shit #18, i read those and i feel actually physically sick. those are NOT people posting in that forum, just sick horrid things.

Gah, i need to go wash my eyes with lye.

Are you kidding? We should vote "it's fine." :)

Maybe there should be a follow-up poll: Should Atlanta erect a monument honoring Civil War hero William Tecumseh Sherman?

Hammer, Sastra outright said that the shirt was racist. What exactly is he being naive about? Surely not that the two look somewhat alike, which I don't see but which is entirely a matter of opinion. The very nature of most modern racism (where the explicit/conscious message is much less important than the implicit/unconscious message) almost guarantees that a lot of racist symbols will allow for innocent interpretations. That's all he was pointing out.

I was one of those that was just confused by the picture. Prompted to look for racism, I get it, and I don't understand how anyone could vote "it's fine" when clued in to the possibility of a racist interpretation, but had there just been the picture and the question: "are you okay with this shirt?", I'd have answered 'yes'.

I wouldn't have thought anything of it until I read through the comments here.

so ignorance of history as an excuse for racism?

enough already.

for those trying to blame those who actually REMEMBER the racial slurs, black as monkey included, don't try to blame us for recognizing it yet again.

blame yourselves for being so ignorant.

seriously, you should know better.

Chadwick, you're a fool. Go re-read #56, think about who's selling the T-shirt where, and why. Do a little research if you have to. You might start with the link in #29.

Apologies to Reid and all other reasonable Georgians. The times do move. There's racism where I live but it tends to be covert or even unconscious. It was way more obvious in the southern U.S. - in posture during conversations, in who held which jobs. One of the best reasons for having everyone in public schools with a good anti-bullying policy is so that they get to know each other as equals. And to have public schools properly funded, EVERYONE should go-- including the kids of politicians -- with a state-wide equal allocation per student. Specialized schools could still exist with a voucher system... one voucher is good for one school year at any school. So kids could elect to go to specialized schools and they'd be able to afford them. What do you think?

Wow. Amazing.

So Georgia is only 50% racist.

hehe.

GWBush banana is considered manna by the Mulligan's owner and his supporters. Moreover, the mention of Homo sapiens gets them hot.

I'm with Joe (#7)--and anyone else who sounded a similar tone after that.

I just saw Curious George peeling a banana above a line of text supporting Obama's candidacy. And then I saw the word "racist" in one of the comments, and I thought,

"Ohhhhh, right! Because people used to call African Americans 'monkeys' or 'porch monkeys' or something. I suppose I should be outraged."

@Physicalist
Hey now, enough with the name-calling. I can accept naive, but fool is a little offensive. Alright, I accept that people used to use associate monkeys with black people-- they should be called racist.
However, if someone did not point it out to me, and I was an Obama supporter, I would have worn this shirt proudly. Should I be forced to do research in order to find racist implications, however minuscule in every single thing I wear?

Wow. Joshua... Yeah why be outraged about racism. Phhhht. Not your problem right?

i don't get it....seriously.
The first thing that came into my mind, was oh! it's curious george, he's so cute.
And then i thought, oh, i get it, it's like the opposite of our george.
And then told me it was supposed to be an insult.
I didn't see it.
10 people i asked thought the same thing as me.
I don't know what that says about me, i'm college educated, before you ask i have a bs in forensic biology. I'm not an idiot.
i think that whoever made this shirt missed the "current and relevant to today's voter's" boat. I think if they were trying to be racist well, as a private citizen you have to allow people to say and believe whatever they want. And it makes me physically ill that people abuse this right. But it happens. So, i have to say it's fine, fine in the way that some mormons won't allow black people in their wards, fine in the way that people send hate letters to women who are leaders, fine in the way where some bald white man paints nazi glorification murals all over his house.
You can't educate the hate out of people, make it illegal, or purge society of hater. Getting rid of hate starts with the individual and the perspective of social norm.
Without our rights, we have nothing to fight racism with.

I'm also from Georgia and still live here. It is true we're not all racists, but there's obviously still plenty around. There may even be other states where the concentration is higher than here.

MAJeff, you reminded me of the race riots in Boston. The worst of them happened when I was a senior in high school. State troopers were called in to stand in the schools in Boston as I recall. Meanwhile back in the backward south, my high school had been integrated for 10 years. The president of our National Honor Society was a black girl. Racism is clearly not a function of latitude.

While I think the shirt is racist, I do think the bar owner has a right to display or sell offensive items. I look at it sort of the same way I view a jesus fish on the back of someone's car; Thanks for letting me know you're not fully rational.

Add if you hadn't noticed, they still do call African American's, even those running for president, monkey's. They even put it on t-shirts and think it's hysterical.

Yes, that is definitely, without a doubt racist. Just as the Hillary Clinton nutcracker is definitely, without a doubt misogynistic. It's all quite depressing.

Because people used to

would you be offended if I called you a nazi, and made up a picture of you with a small, square mustache and slicked-back black hair?

seriously, stop already. If someone is unaware of the use of this particular racial slur, that doesn't mean it isn't still racist. Instead of proclaiming that those pointing out it's racist are somehow at fault, why not take the opportunity to educate yourselves on the usage of this slur historically?

damn, it's like someone telling me burning a cross on my lawn doesn't mean anything because, well crosses aren't racist and neither is fire.

I hate to say it, but this is an example of projection:

you aren't personally familiar with the racial slur, so to you, it doesn't seem racist.

seriously, would those that keep saying this try to look at it from the perspective of those who actually, in their personal history, have been called "monkeys" or "jungle bunnies" themselves?

I realize it's a good sign that it's been long enough that many have forgotten the use of many racial slurs, but I personally think that still doesn't excuse us from learning the history of racism in this country. It would be like saying it's just fine to forget all the signs and symptoms that lead to the rise of fascism in Germany, or to forget the things that lead to the internment of Japanese in this country, or to those that lead to McCarthyism in the 50's.

trite to say, and I'm surprised I even have to around here, but:

"Ignorance is no excuse".

It's racist 53.73% 8217
It's fine 46.27% 7075

I didn't get it as racist. I thought it was an ape eating a banana - pro evolution vs that Comfort dork. Or Curious George = Obama loves children.
I'm not even on the right dock for the boat am I?

Brittany,

So you're saying it's fine and it's racist?

It's one OR the other.

You could say it's racist, but it's protected speech. But not "fine".

I'm not even on the right dock for the boat am I?

'fraid not.

if it was voted not racist i would take there word for it since about 80% of there readers are black.

@Ichthyic (94)
So I grew up in an era and a location where I didn't hear the term "porch monkey" to refer to black people and now you're calling me ignorant or maybe even racist? There has to be some sort of logical fallacy associated with that. I'd call myself privileged or lucky... maybe even a little naive.

1. If only we lived in a society where the shirt could only be interpreted as a playful (and not necessarily unsupportive) take on Obama's relative youth and amiable demeanor.

2. I'd sure like to know the intent of the t-shirt designer.

3. That said, I have to agree that the image is loaded, and not in a nice way.

4. Go to 1.

This stuff drives me crazy, this idiotic obsession with white vs. non-white. No geographic region is immune. It's just a matter of degree.

I do wonder how ugly it's going to get.

Patricia,

You're in the desert on an inner tube.

if it was voted not racist i would take there word for it since about 80% of there readers are black.

Interesting point, Kenny.

Wow, that's bad.

BTW, PZ, have you seen this article? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7399661.stm

Chadwick,

Walk up to a black woman and ask her if characterizing her as a monkey would be offensive... see what happens.

And I love how ACLU doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there". Classic.

The article has been digged... or is it dug? Anyway, that story is on the web, oh sage of the ACLU, is the web 80% black?

I'm with Ichthyic [#107] people should make the effort to learn about the overt and covert symbols that are still being used to communicate racism. But I really object to the hateful name-calling shown by others in this thread. It's good that we've made enough progress that some people of good will don't immediately recognize these symbols. Of course a lot of racism still exists, especially of the subconscious variety. However, the kind of self-education that will help people learn to recognize and counteract it is not encouraged by making them angry or defensive.

Just because people vote "it's fine" doesn't mean the world is racist. It means we're naive. Honestly, I had NO CLUE why anyone thought the shirt was racist. My husband had to finally sit down and lay the whole thing out. I've never heard anyone refer to a black as a "monkey" or anything at all of that nature. In fact, I like curious george, so I would have been ignorant enough to go buy it and think it was cute.

So, if most of those "it's fine" people are voting from a stance of ignorance (like I would have until a couple minutes ago), I think that's a good sign. Maybe it means people have never heard those things said before and are horribly lost and confused as to why people are upset.

shouldnt this be the t shirt for comfort and cameron?

So I grew up in an era and a location where I didn't hear the term "porch monkey" to refer to black people and now you're calling me ignorant or maybe even racist?

ignorant yes, racist absolutely NOT.

However, it's dangerous to forget that racism still exists in this country, and that you ARE ignorant of the symbolism of this particular racial slur is clear.

ignorance does not mean stupid, it does mean you are unaware of a particular issue.

you can rectify that, but don't blame others if you decide not to.

seriously, just again to stress this and make it clear:

just because someone is unaware of the history of a particular racial slur, does not make the racial slur any less racist.

If you call an African American today a "porch monkey", you are attempting a racial slur, regardless of whether or not you knew of the past history of the term.

try to imagine something that IS familiar to you, like say "nigger", and imagine trying to say:

"I don't see how calling an African American "nigger" is racist."

see?

would you really try to blame those trying to point out to you that "nigger" historically is used as a racial epithet?

Brittany @ #103: I'm not an idiot.

With all due respect, you've offered a great deal of evidence to the contrary.

Constitutionally-protected does not equal "fine." And every expression of annoyance, disgust, or outrage is not a call for a totalitarian state. When someone says something explicit about curtailing people's right to free expression, then it is appropriate to note your support of it. Until then, stop reading implicit challenges to rights into everything.

Just because people vote "it's fine" doesn't mean the world is racist. It means we're naive.

not that poll data means much of anything in this case, anyway.

Honestly, I had to think for a few moments to even understand the problem here. "Curious George?" I thought to myself, "Why would they put curious George on a pro-Obama T-shirt?" I thought,and I thought, and then I got it. Now I'm utterly sick.

There are millions of people at the least that would love to be citizens of this country. Many are well-educated, hardworking, honest, and exactly what we would want in citizens. Many of our current citizens are afforded the privelage only by birth. Can't we allow more immigration of people that would make good citizens and simply make up the difference by exporting the disgusting pigs that make things like this T-shirt somewhere else?

Cherish,

If you think most people are voting "it's fine" out of not getting it...

I've got a nice bridge that goes over the east river to manhattan to see you, It's pretty, I can see it from my window.

@ Chadwick (#101). Naivete is a perfectly acceptable excuse for your first post. Indeed, I'm among those who saw nothing out of the ordinary when I first looked at the shirt; it was only when I started thinking about the racism charge and looking at the article that it all made sense.

However, once you've got the framework in place, as you do by your second post, it is indeed foolish to claim that

the so-called non-racist people on this thread are doing more damage to their cause by drawing attention to the association of black people and monkeys. (#89)

The relevant point is that the racists and their victims understand the symbolism very well. (As David Utidjian pointed out in #56. I assume you're not black; if you are, then I'll take your naivete to be a good sign because it means that there's some racism you've been spared.)

We have an obligation to shine light on the evils of racism, and not to just put a happy face on it and congratulate ourselves on being ignorant of the abuse that others face.

But a single foolish statement does not a fool make, so I'm happy to retract my so labeling you.

Interesting point, Kenny.

why? Who's to say that ignorance ignores race?

I'm sure you will find plenty of African Americans who don't know what it means to have a cross burned on their lawns, either.

doesn't make it less racist, does it.

Watch lists contain way too many names, yet there is justification for some individuals to be on them. Displaying the wish that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton should have died by murder should qualify Mulligan's owner Mike Norman to be placed on a watch list by the United States Secret Service.

Wait... Why is a picture of the current President labeled as Obama? 50% of Americans can't find America on a map and the same number believe a magical ghost in the sky created them from dust 6000 years ago, now they can't put the right name on a picture of the President. What are the children learning in schools anyway?

Wow, I never would have pegged that as being racist. I assumed it was a creationist thing about the teaching of evolution - a little obscure, maybe, but it didn't look to be like a professionally produced piece of merchandise so I figured some guy must have had it custom printed.

Well that's more than a bit disturbing. Every once in a while I hear something on the TV about, "Is America ready for a black president" and I get completely exasperated; "Jesus f****** Christ, haven't we all f****** gotten over that yet" are words I believe I've once used with regarding the subject.

I guess I just grew up sort of sheltered - where I live (affluent, cosmopolitan southern Ontario), I never encountered anything that looked at all like racism to me; ethnicity just never came up at all.

In a sense, I almost desire for Barack Obama to win because he's "black". I mean, I suspect he'll be a good president and I like his politics (a little heavy on the "change" rhetoric for my tastes, I prefer the quiet braininess of Stéphane Dion), but in a vindictive sort of way, I'd like to stick it to all the dimwits out there who are still living half way back to the middle ages. It's easy to understand children or rebellious teenagers getting suckered into that sort of racism while they are impressionable and still don't know any better, but how the hell do you manage to grow all the way up and not shed it when it really starts to intellectually reek?

This sort of thing is above and beyond the sort of repugnant intellectual excrement characteristic of 'intelligent design' creationism, which only indirectly threatens our contemporary enlightened ideals. This is a direct affront to a sizable minority of Americans and as such is a direct affront to liberal respect for the autonomy of all persons. From what I've read in some news stories while investigating this shirt thing, it sounds to me quite like a non-trivial subset of the United States need their heads forcible removed from their colons, and a "black" president who does a good job and is admired for it would be just the ticket for some of the less delusional ones.

I can't believe that anyone thinks this is ok.

We have an obligation to shine light on the evils of racism, and not to just put a happy face on it and congratulate ourselves on being ignorant of the abuse that others face.

well said.

I'd further it to suggest we all have an obligation to lift each other out of our own personal ignorances. It's simply the best way to prevent things like racism, creationism, etc., from gaining ground to begin with.

Hell, isn't that a big part of what Pharyngula, and Science Blogs in general, is supposed to be about?

Didn't we cover the distinction between defending a right and criticizing what people do with that right...just yesterday?

Ichthyic many of us get racial slurs, ethnic slurs, and sexual slurs.
Does - stupid ass ignorant hill-billy, ridge runner whore, cracker cunt - count? Of course there are more to go with that - you can imagine.
You are right that ignorance is no excuse for persons old enough to know better - including me. I just 'assumed' we had moved passed that stupidity.
But I know from mentoring young people that one of the questions they really do not know is this: Who was Hitler, and what happened to him?
They don't know the answer. The school system here in my part of Oregon sucks. History begins with the Viet Nam war. The students tell me what they know. I don't know what the teachers actually teach. I have no children.
Normally I agree with you book and verse Ichthyic - but this time I didn't get the message the same. Fillet me, I expect it.

devil's advocate question no. 1: comparing our current (white) president to a chimpanzee or to curious george, funny. comparing a presidential candidate who happens to be half black to the same things, racist?

devil's advocate question no. 2: aren't all homo sapiens primates anyways? and isn't this whole thing based just a little on the scientifically inaccurate idea that some primates are somehow less evolved than others?

(but yeah, now that you point it out, that's kinda racist, isn't it?)

I have to say I'm a little heartened by those who admit they didn't get it first time around.

I've seen just enough of the ugly side of racism that I have no doubt that the purveyor of the shirt is snickering among his redneck friends at finding a way to compare Obama to a monkey. But I'm also inclined to think, now, that at least some of the votes for "fine" didn't necessarily come from ill will. The question is; what percent? This was in Georgia, after all.

Whatever the case, there is going to be a lot of this kind of thing cropping up in the next months. It will be an excellent chance for Obama's to display what he's made of, and to prove his leadership ability. (Can't help it, I'm just a glass half full kind of guy...)

Also, there's an interesting dynamic going on here between those who would let it stand and those who would vote "racist".

My impulse was to jump in and vote to try to correct the problem. (Hey, it's not like it's a different country.) But honestly, I don't know that that is the most productive thing to do in this case.

(I'm reminded of this challenge at Zeno's Coffeehouse a few years ago, for those of you who find this kind of thing interesting. They even did a real experiment a few weeks later, offering real money, and they didn't have to pay!)

Mulligan's is a refuge, they say, in an otherwise hypersensitive world. Here, smoking isn't only allowed, it's expected.

I really wanted to say "Good." But I can't seem to bring myself to wish that kind of death even on these morons. Just can't cut it as a Darwinist, I guess.

Regardless of what some here were aware of, I guarantee that those people in GA who voted "its fine" weren't just thinking it was cute Curious George.

Even if not everyone in GA is racist, they all are damned well aware of racism and typical racist imagery that was used.

Frankly, I think it's a good sign that so many people aren't getting it. It implies that eventually the day will come when nobody gets it. In the meantime, however, vigilance is indicated. What makes me sad is that we have to shatter the innocence of those who didn't get it for the purpose of alerting them to the reason why the image is so loaded.

It's a bit of a paradox, a Catch-22. By informing everyone, we may be pushing back that day when nobody gets it. I have to agree with Ichthyic, though - as long as there are people out there who'll promulgate loaded imagery (be it racist, sexist, or whatnot) and people who'll feed off that imagery, it's best not to pretend they don't exist. But how do we get from here to there, to the day when the last racist t-shirt designer finds that he's made a shirt that nobody even understands, let alone sympathizes with...?

This Norman individual sounds like the classic right-winger. He thinks the totality of society has been pussified by political correctness (which some corners have been, though not nearly as many as the repugs would like us to believe), so in retaliation, he thinks he can say anything as an act of defiance and what ever he says automatically has some predetermined amount of credence simply because said act was in defiance of a stricture he thinks exists in far wider suply than it realistically does. Plus, it has the added effect of "hiding" his long latent views out in the open.

This is an act of little, petty people. The inevitable march of progress has left this guy behind intellectually, and he doesn't like it, so, he's going to become defiant and act like the child he is in order to "get back".

@#136 arachnophilia --

comparing our current (white) president to a chimpanzee or to curious george, funny. comparing a presidential candidate who happens to be half black to the same things, racist?

Yeah -- it's all about context & how the comparison will be interpreted. I think it's fairly clear that when people are putting GWB next to a chimp they're trying to say "dumb as a chimp" (which is an insult to the poor chimp, but I digress...). With the Obama comparison, it's obviously a racially loaded image, even if not everyone "gets it" immediately, and the people who made that loaded image have a responsibility wrt its implications.

Arachnophilia...

1. Yes calling Bush a chimp is funny. Yes it's racist to apply the same to Obama. And no it's not a double standard.

2. Yes, all humans are primates, we just happen to have opposable thumbs and speech. Humans have evolved apparently to the higher brain function that blinds us to a person's talents and only let us judge them on their skin pigmentation. Some of us humans vote based on that bias. The chimps don't seem to have that genetic trait.

OK, this discussion has changed my mind. I'm voting after all.

I had assumed that it was obvious that the T-shirt, in its context, was racist. Indeed when I saw the poll, I was thinking that one of the choices should be "All of the above: It's racist AND it's fine," since that's what I see the patrons of Mulligan's Bar saying.

But now it seems that what really needs to be emphasized is that this is real-live, good-old-fashioned racism. (Bar owner says "We're not living in the '40's," -- but we can still bring back the good old days!) It won't serve as an indictment if so many people just don't get it.

I just 'assumed' we had moved passed that stupidity.

a lot of us have. some have not.

It's not the point though, is it?

You touch on it in mentioning that many kids haven't the slightest clue who Hitler even was.

However, I don't think I can state it any more eloquently than Physicalist did, so I'll just post it again:

We have an obligation to shine light on the evils of racism, and not to just put a happy face on it and congratulate ourselves on being ignorant of the abuse that others face.

It's great that many have never faced, and in fact are innocent of some of the evils we have faced historically. However, it's sad to see that the lessons of history are so quickly forgotten, as yet another old and trite saying comes to mind:

Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.

I really don't think that racism is so far behind us that we can afford to forget the impact of it in this country, let alone globally.

If children are our future, then how will they recognize racism when it appears if we don't show them what it means?

How will they be able to prevent another Hitler if they don't know the signs?

I'd love to be able to say that teaching kids about racism, or nationalism, or warmongering, is irrelevant.

Frankly, I rather think we have MANY generations to go before that might even be remotely accurate.

that said, the particular thing that got me angry in this thread were the people suggesting this is only racist because those of us who remember pointed it out.

Throwing bananas at and calling Black football players monkeys and making ape-like sounds directed at them has been a problem in Europe for years - and apparently still is...

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=afp-fbleurc3rusfrapetersburgmarse…

In the US people usually are not this public about their racism. Hence the shock of the Obama campaign workers when they're called "niggar lovers" etc. I'm guessing, as others have noted, we can expect this (usually) publicly suppressed racism to come out of the closet through November more and more. Especially when it's Obama v McCain and not Obama v Clinton.

So, if anyone still has any doubts: banana and non-human primate references to Black people from white people are de facto racist. That is their intent and they will and should always be construed that way.

If you think it's ok you're a fucking idiot. Not that it should be illegal (free speech and all), but it is racist and is not ok. Just ask FIFA and the footballers who are abused by your cousin fuckwits in Europe.

#115 - Steve - You're right. I am. Dang!

"...I realize it's a good sign that it's been long enough that many have forgotten the use of many racial slurs, but I personally think that still doesn't excuse us from learning the history of racism in this country.

Well said, Ichtyic.

That leads to my slight quibble with MAJeff from #30:

blacks were posited as lesser humans, as apes. It's been a common trope in American popular culture. Disney, in particular (Jungle Book, Lion King...) has done quite well making such associations. The equation of blacks with apes or monkeys is deeply embedded in American racial history.

I'm afraid I just don't see the racist intent in Lion King, nor Jungle Book. If any, the Disney version probably contains far less racism than Kipling intended. The King Louis sequence is usually cited as racist, but King Louis refers to Louis Prima ("another fine Italian," as Frank Zappa would say). The problem with Disney is the explicitly overt racist imagery that Disney has excised. The company has, for good or ill, aspired to normative status for its entertainment directed at children, so sequences from Fantasia that include Bacchus and his entrance with two black zebra centaurs and a "pickaninny" shine have been cut and/or cropped, explaining the missing bars from Beethoven's Pastorale. Song of the South, full of Br'ers Rabbit, Bear and Fox, is made of unobtainium in America, long available only as a Japanese import Laserdisc, despite the quality of the craft on display by animators at the height of their skill. The company practices revisionist history for the most part and would like to pretend that racism was never part of the company's output.

Warner Bros, with its stable of screwball shorts from Termite Terrace has come to be more honest with the archival of the great short cartoons that were never made for children; they were meant to entertain adults. DVD collections start with the warning that racist stereotypes are regrettable, but were characteristic of that period in American history. To bowdlerize the cartoons would be to pretend that the racism never existed.

For some racist imagery that is quite disturbing, watch for Louis Armstrong in his Betty Boop cartoon, or Cab Calloway in his set of three films for Betty Boop. At least we have film records of Armstrong and Calloway from the early thirties.

While Stephen Jay Gould's description of our fascination with cuteness and neoteny, featuring Mickey Mouse, is masterful, it didn't support his argument to point out that Mickey Mouse also resembles a caricature of a minstrel in blackface. There's very little difference between M. Mouse and Bosko, the "talk ink" kid, explicitly a black character.

I think it's important to know about it, and not forget it, so we can recognize it, and not condone it. When we see racism barely concealed behind mass marketing, we are dared to call it out as racism, and we must. This kind of racism is called dog-whistle politics, and we're going to see it get a lot worse, as if it weren't already bad enough.

"if it isn't racist, then what the hell is it trying to say?"

I think it most likely is racist, but we should think of other possibilities too.

If it's not racism, it could be something just as bad, namely, comparing Obama to a monkey because he's sympathetic towards evolution.

And that banana looks strangely phallic too. Are they calling him a wanker? ;-)

But how do we get from here to there, to the day when the last racist t-shirt designer finds that he's made a shirt that nobody even understands, let alone sympathizes with...?

I would argue that we shouldn't ever get to a state of perfect ignorance.

I would be entirely satisfied with getting to a state where everyone recognizes racism, and that it was a thing of the past.

that everyone recognizes and has been taught about nationalism, and that it was a thing of the past.

that everyone recalls something called "religion", and that it was a thing of the past.

We will never even get to that point by trying to get people to forget it ever happened, however.

I assure you all that every single vote for "it's fine" was by a person well aware of the inherent racism. I live in the south, and while it is not the hell-hole of ignorance some think it is, it is very decidedly a racist area.
I think it's wonderful that some have never been exposed to such blatant racism, but anyone from Georgia who claims to be ignorant of the shirt's intended meaning is a liar.

re #140 Absolutely. As a recovering Southerner when I saw the shirt there I knew immediately it was intended to be racist. I am encouraged that so many people didn't get it. But that doesn't mean the intention doesn't exist.

The intolerance on this blog makes me sad. It's just a big hatefest towards people who believe that black people are monkeys.

It's my OPINION that black people are inferior to whites. Scientists know this because black people never reports NDEs, so obviously they don't have souls. I come on here to defend my OPINION, and all you can do is insult me and call me names. And you call that "reason and logic."

All you liberal atheists probably believe that race is a social construct with no biological basis, and a black person is worth more than 3/5 of a white person. Typical.

I don't want Obama to win because he's black. Even more, however, I don't want him to lose because of it.

Ichthyic, wasn't it obvious that I was being patronizing to "ACLU"? It was an absurd comment.

It's only racist in your mind.

I thought the shirt was fine. It's a monkey and banana. There's no connection to black people on this shirt.

lol @ faux-Kenny Poe #153.

First, the Tee-shirt appears to be a picture of Curious George from the PBS show:
http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/

It is easy to see the shirt and assume it is, was intended to be, an insult. But there is some chance it isn't or wasn't intended that way. Or at least there is some chance it isn't a direct one.

Is it possible it was put together by someone who just likes Curious George and is so unaware, or tone deaf, to racial slurs that hey missed the potential insult?

Perhaps it was assembled knowing the potential to be taken as an insult. Without appearing to be so directly. It is sort of like the joke about about a prudish lady who assaulted a man at a bus stop. He said he was just humming a tune. She told the police that not only was he humming a tune but that 'she knew the words' to the obscene song.

Are people taking the shirt as an insult because we 'know the words'? The racial inferences.

Personally I like Curious George. He is a plucky, supportive and positive character. Is it not possible to ignore the potential insult and assume that it was assembled with good intentions? The point to insulting people is to make them feel bad and get their goat. What happens if the person being insulted refuses to act or feel insulted.

Sometimes I have found that the most aggravating thing I can do in retaliation for an insult is to refuse to feel insulted. They then escalate the insults and, over time, they cross a clear and universally accepted line. When they do I get to smack them down without mercy. And when i do those around me, people who witnessed the crossing of the line. All say I was entirely justified and had given them every possible chance to walk away and avoid violence.

If any, the Disney version probably contains far less racism than Kipling intended.

heh, that reminds me of when I read the original Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books as a boy. Even then, they seemed more than a bit racist to me.

Aw geez, Kenny's back... I thought they killed Kenny!

and I had a typo in the N-word - guess it's a good thing I don't type it enough to have the the muscle memory...

Is it possible it was put together by someone who just likes Curious George and is so unaware, or tone deaf, to racial slurs that hey missed the potential insult?

Is it possible wearing a white hood with a tall peak isn't intended as racism?

sure.

is it likely?

Is a Klan hat not to be considered a racist symbol because similar things have been used for other purposes?

no.

There is still racism in Utah, the land of Mo. Because of a folklore and myth regarding the origins of the Africa-Americans--As well as the Native Americans. Superstition, myth and ID go hand in hand.

Ahh...the good old day when the GOP was progressive, the party of Robert Ingersoll, now it's a corrupt party of religious fanatics and white sheet wearing bigots. Goldwater was right; the religious right will destroy the GOP.

""This place is a diamond in the rough," said Gene McKinley, a Woodstock engineer. "People here are genuine and honest. It's the one place I can go without having to worry if I'm offending someone."

Children.

"This Norman individual sounds like the classic right-winger. He thinks the totality of society has been pussified by political correctness (which some corners have been, though not nearly as many as the repugs would like us to believe), so in retaliation, he thinks he can say anything as an act of defiance and what ever he says automatically has some predetermined amount of credence simply because said act was in defiance of a stricture he thinks exists in far wider suply than it realistically does. Plus, it has the added effect of "hiding" his long latent views out in the open."

Hit the nail on the head there. I can just about believe that he innocently meant to compare Obama to Curious George. But then, after the racism outcry started, he could have said, "Oh, I didn't realize black people would construe it that way, my mistake, I'll stop printing these shirts" but instead, he's digging in his heels and whining about rights and PC and all that. So in short, racist.

Let's repeat for anyone seriously suggesting this is not racist....

Banana and non-human primate references to Black people from white people are de facto racist. That is their intent and they will and should always be construed that way. Using cute and copy-righted Curious George does not mitigate it in any way.

This has been explained by several posters in several different ways. It's racist and if you want to argue that somehow it is not, you're either Kenny or a fucking racist idiot.

Fine, you were naive, now you're not. Now you know better and have no excuse.

Personally I like Curious George. He is a plucky, supportive and positive character. Is it not possible to ignore the potential insult and assume that it was assembled with good intentions?

sure.

Is it ever really a good thing to hide one's head in the sand, though?

Ichthy @ #150: Sounds good to me.

The vote is approximately tied because there's no "Both" choice.

Doesn't anyone else remember 2006, when Virginia Senator George Allen torpedoed his own political career by calling a black campaign worker for his opponent "macaca"? (Most Americans had to have it explained that this was a variant of the name for the monkey known as macaque, but after that the racism was clear enough to sink the re-election of a man who might well otherwise be the current Republican presidential nominee.)

heh, that reminds me of when I read the original Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books as a boy. Even then, they seemed more than a bit racist to me.

I remember feeling that way, too, when reading the Tarzan books. I think Burroughs mellowed out in the later one's in the series, but he was definitely a product of his times.

It's funny..

All the comparisons that I recall between Bush and a chimpanzee were based on similarity of expressions, OBVIOUS similarities of feature and expression. If you put Bush, the chimp picture, and 4 or 5 other pictures all together, you'd have been able to easily see the resemblance between George's drolly-twisted features and those of the chimp.

This T-shirt.. I don't see any resemblance between Curious George and Obama at all. I've never seen him with an expression anything like that. The face is different, the hair is different, the expression is different. The ONLY similarities left to compare are the color. Oh look, they're both brown. They're alike!

No, I'm afraid to say it, but even though Bush was compared to a chimp many times, this comparison appears to be for entirely different reasons than the pictures of Bush.

Yeah, it's racist.

The guy has a right to make and sell the shirts, even to put up his disgusting billboard, but I'll use my equal right to decry the racism that he's showing.

The Lesser of TWO Weevils

A good clip from the Daily Show about Disney:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=84572&title=frog-…

BlueIndependent - Pussified? Can't say that I care for that word.

@#157 Art --

It is easy to see the shirt and assume it is, was intended to be, an insult. But there is some chance it isn't or wasn't intended that way.

There are three people whom we should consider here:

1) The designer of the T-shirt. He may or may not have intended it to be an insult, but in either case, he has an obligation to consider how his message will be interpreted by the public. Racism is obviously far from being a relic of the distant past. If he did neglect to realize the insulting message conveyed, he should certainly be aware of it by now, and should not permit any more of these t-shirts to be manufactured.

2) The man selling this shirt. He certainly is aware of the racist overtones, but doesn't care:

Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey,

'Nuff said.

3) The consumers. I was among the "didn't get it at first" group, and I couldn't fathom why someone would buy this. The message seemed very unclear (see my #20) until I realized the racist implications of it. I find it very difficult to believe that a substantial set of the consumers are buying the shirt based on a non-racist understanding of its message.

So given that the consumers, the seller, and in all probability the designer of this shirt are seeing it in a racist light, I don't think we can afford to assume the best.

Ichthy @ #150: Sounds good to me.

consesus! I'll drink to that!

btw, no i did not catch the satire in your earlier comment, as I was swept up trying to fight for the value of history.

;)

I hope everyone knows that was faux-Kenny up there. The real Kenny is at work (if the pattern holds).

So... what I was getting at before was this: If we need to remember racism, can we ever get to the point where it's perfectly fine to compare a candidate who resembles Curious George to Curious George himself, without regard to the racial or ethnic background of the candidate? Though it may sound silly or trivial, it is, after all, the ideal - is it not? Because if we cannot, then racism hasn't been eradicated.

Pierce, the "macaca," S.R. Sidarth, was an Asian filming the Allen campaign event for Sen Webb, Allen's opponent. Allen was pointing Sidarth out as the only non-white in the room and seemed to settle on "macaca" in fumbling for a description of him... and it gloriously backfired on the racist shitbag.

Sidarth looked like a fucking furener to Allen, but was actually born and raised in Virginia.

But Barack Obama DOES look like Curious George.

I don't understand why this is racist. It doesn't contextually make sense, as I don't know what a cute monkey cartoon has to do with a presidential candidate, but I don't think it's racist.

But then, I'm Generation Y, whadda I know?

The guy has a right to make and sell the shirts

Not with a trademarked image he hasn't licensed. Lawyers love to show up with cops and confiscate such contraband.

I don't remember who is sitting on the licensing for Curious George at the moment, but it reminds me of the time Universal Studios was putting up a park in Orlando to compete with Disney World. A nearby preschool made the mistake of hiring a local artist to paint the walls facing the road with the standard menagerie of Disney characters, and lawyers from Da Mouse made them whitewash the buildings. The paintover was barely dry before artists from Universal showed up to put up every cartoon character they had the licenses for, at that time, a lot of Hanna Barbera.

Curious George is flagship edutainment for PBS right now, and my kids seldom miss it. That clown in Georgia has a right to be a jackass, but not with somebody else's work whose owners would never condone such misappropriation. He's gonna have to break down and pay for his own monkey.

Doesn't anyone else remember 2006, when Virginia Senator George Allen torpedoed his own political career by calling a black campaign worker for his opponent "macaca"?

Yes, indeed! Though I believe the target of Allen's comment, a student who was filming his appearance, was of Indian descent. Not that it particularly matters. Allen was an ass, and good riddance. I love it when they torpedo themselves...

Ichthyic, Again - you are spot on. But not only do the kids here in my local school district not know about Hitler, they don't know what small pox or witch trials are.

That's cute. I think it's entirely appropriate given how much Obama likes monkeys.

What? What do you immediately think of when you see the t-shirt?

(before you ask, yes, I'm playing)

But then, I'm Generation Y, whadda I know?

way to be proud of your ignorance.

oh why am I even bothering?

it's obvious that there will be an endless stream of lookyloos coming here to say the exact same thing, without bothering to read any of the other commentary on it whatsoever.

maybe PZ could add an addendum to the fact that ignorance of racism doesn't mean it doesn't exist?

I went to my nieces high school graduation in the middle of Georgia two years ago. The graduation was held on the football field. It's hard to believe, but everyone who was black sat on one side of the stands, whites, the other. It wasn't "segregated", but everyone knew their place. Except my wife and I. We made a point to mingle with everyone afterwards. We got a lot of looks.

Afterwards, we were driving to a picnic spot (were I noticed KKK scratched almost everywhere in the wood surfaces) and noticed a billboard that read "Carpetbaggers go home!".

We did a little check, and there was a church for every 35 people in that town of under two thousand. I don't need Steven King. Reality holds enough nightmares as it is.

Wish I were making this up.

I think Daryl Strawberry looks a lot more like Dino the Dinosaur than Obama looks like Curious George. In any case, I think non-racist interpretations of the shirt are stretches.

Ah - I'll try again with a shorter Daily Show link. Sorry about that.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=84572&title=frog-…

Kseniya, racism has not been eradicated, so it's not ok... I don't see your ideal as possible in my lifetime.

By the way, the racism is not limited to whites. You should hear (some) Asians, Latinos and Blacks talk about each other, at least here in SoCal.

In LA some Mexican and Salvadoran gangs are shooting Blacks because... they're Black (not just gangbangers)!!! So it's not just the Aryan Nation and KKK we're talking about here...

Oh, why do you even bother, Ichthyic?

Woe is you, oh, wise and beneficent teacher...please don't leave us in our ignorance.

Enlighten us, teacher.

I don't see it as racist, and i HOPE u don't either.

the LESS people who see this as racist, the better.

In a perfect world 0% of us would see it as such.

let it stand

they don't know what small pox or witch trials are.

which will lead to them asking themselves why they should ever bother inoculating THEIR kids for smallpox.

actually, the ignorance of the history of smallpox has already lead to parents not inoculating their kids for smallpox (it's become a serious issue, as you are probably aware).

when they get all defensive about their ignorance of how bad smallpox USED to be, and COULD be again, some of them end up defending their inane decision by jumping on the "inoculation causes autism" bandwagon.

In fact, that is a perfect example of how ignorance of history can be downright dangerous to everyone.

I don't understand why this is racist.

If the shirt said "Vote for the Nigger!" would you get the racism, then?

Enlighten us, teacher.

read the posts in the thread, asswipe.

It's racist 55.67% 9079
It's fine 44.33% 7231

So wise, Ichthyic. So wise.

The more people who don't understand this is racist the worse off we are. Why would intelligent people think ignorance is a good thing?

See the references to smallpox above and look at the trial attempting to link vaccines to autism. Not gonna let my kid get autism - smallpox, what's that?

I'm white and live in a white world, why would I care if some KKK wannabes in GA are having fun with racism? Yeah, let's all be good Germans.

Coincidentally, I was just looking for some info on the riots in Baltimore after MLK was assassinated (that's when my family moved there; I was 6...) and google found me this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1997524/posts

The racists are out there, lurking in their little piss-smelling holes where the light doesn't shine in.

Mostly, they're cowards; after all, they don't have the courage to hate openly and have to pull silly games like pretending to walk on the edge of respectability with the "monkey" image. That pathetic creep doesn't have the guts to just say his piece and stand his ground (and take what comes as a result). I remember hearing something last year about that the grand dragon of the KKK works for a black man at his day job... Now there's a fellow with the courage of his convictions!! Bleah.

What terrifies me is that I support Obama (simply because he's a less obviously SSDD candidate) and I'm afraid that if he's elected, he's going to be assassinated. That would be the icing on the shit-cake of national shame we've got to swallow regarding this issue of race.

actually, the ignorance of the history of smallpox has already lead to parents not inoculating their kids for smallpox (it's become a serious issue, as you are probably aware).

actually, I am more thinking of polio, as smallpox hasn't been vaccinated for in quite a while, but outbreaks of polio still exist around the world.

"The strange thing is I don't see that much racism here. Of course I only associate with intelligent beings."

Sarah. Are you retarded...or just stupid? No, I really mean it. I want an answer. If your statement is just some meta-joke I don't get, then I apol..no, wait a minute. Screw you, you racist idiot. Wake the fuck up, bitch!

The Hammer

I wonder what it says about your mentality that you automatically assumed the allegedly unintelligent beings with which she refuses to associate are African Americans, rather than racists (which is how I read it).

Wait a second... isn't that an image of Curious GEORGE?

Racists and ignorant people who should know better will be with us for a long time. An Obama presidency will be a huge step forward toward the day this type of thing doesn't happen. Let's make it happen.

Please let it stand. Those who hail from that state consider "Georgia" a religion rather than a region. I'm thrilled to see it shown for what it truly is ... an arrogant, regressive embarrassment to the remainder of the country. Please secede from the Union, you rebel flag flying atrocity.

I don't care for Georgia, can you tell? (I lived there for years, too)

I remember feeling that way, too, when reading the Tarzan books. I think Burroughs mellowed out in the later one's in the series, but he was definitely a product of his times.

I grew up reading Tintin comics and, in retrospect, they were pretty horrifying in how they portrayed blacks, asians, and - well - everyone except the French and Belgians. "Wogs begin at Calais," after all.

Burroughs had a few definitely racist elements - especially the black barsoomians being portrayed as arrogant stereotypical chieftains in line with American/European views of Africa that prevailed at the time. I give Burroughs props back, though, for un-subtly debunking christian afterlife myths in "The Gods of Mars" Generally, science fiction has been appropriately forward thinking on race; consider Smith's Lensman books, in which you've got interspecies brotherhood and whatnot. Cracking good stuff, that! Clear ether!

The link I posted earlier in this thread has ruined my whole evening. I feel filthy knowing that there are creepy, cowardly shitheads who say things like that in the covert anonymity of their little dirtblog. Faugh!

Even more disturbing: This!

Mike Norman missed the [swift-]boat. If those lapels don't make Obami-wan unelectable, I don't know what will.

If anyone's interested, there's an intelligent discussion about evolution/atheism/deism/theism/religion/..., starring Sastra, going on (or winding down) here:

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/05/evolution_and_atheism_a_fasc…

Azky (#196), I totally agree. "Hammer" was such freaking idiot, I didn't even bother to respond. It was obvious what Sarah meant, and he not only mangled it, he had the gall to lambaste her for his own error.

One can be aware of racism and history and not have heard many or even most pejorative epithets used by racists. It's not like they teach you that in school, which is where a lot of people DO learn about the history of racism. And frankly, the people I hang around don't think that way. So the only way one is going to learn about this stuff is by seeing it action.

Intent is everything. I remember a few years ago when a Buddhist monastery was under attack because they had swastikas on the main gates into the area. Obviously, they were a bunch of Nazis, right?

I'm sure the fellow selling the shirts did not have good intent, given the nature of the other things he was selling...but that poll is not being voted on just by people from Georgia (as is obvious since a bunch of people from here are voting). It is conceivable that there are a lot of people who don't get it...and aren't ignorant and racist. They're more like the Buddhist monks that were going, "What the heck is upsetting these people?"

If you want to pick on the seller, fine...but it's not fair to assume that everyone who voted that the shirt is fine is racist or terminally stupid. Because they don't run around looking for people who are racist to see what they say about others doesn't mean they're ignorant of the history of racism, either.

An Obama presidency will be a huge step forward toward the day this type of thing doesn't happen.

hopefully.

Please let it stand. Those who hail from that state consider "Georgia" a religion rather than a region. I'm thrilled to see it shown for what it truly is ... an arrogant, regressive embarrassment to the remainder of the country.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. What does an online poll REALLY say about anything after all? In fact, people mistake why we crash them: It's not necessarily to skew the results one way or another (though that's always fun), it's to show they CAN be skewed easily, and therefore are entirely meaningless. This, aside from the fact that typically such polls are horridly worded and also biased to begin with.

They're more like the Buddhist monks that were going, "What the heck is upsetting these people?"

What's worse is that the Nazis (mis)appropriated the symbol from eastern spiritual practices. The stigma is significantly greater here in the west than in the areas where the symbol originated. The Buddists have rights, and the Nazis violated fair use...

I'm bothered by the "I'm not from the U.S., so I don't get it" views above: as someone in the thread remarked, Europeans and Asians can be very attached to the black people = monkeys association. Heck, Haeckel was a big promoter of that idea, and he wasn't U.S.ian. But either way, I can only imagine that people who don't get it tend not to be black and perhaps even to have had little contact with people who are: African Americans I've known have been quite vocal about not wanting to be depicted as monkeys, to have their neighborhoods called Monkey's Nests, or to be styled Porch Monkeys --all practices that some white Americans still enjoy. So, to the extent that some comments here are not "Ooh, I get it now that you've explained" so much as "Hm, racist? That's a bit of a stretch . . . " there are certainly sheltered lives going on. Reminds me a little of the guy (American!) in a previous thread who couldn't for the life of him understand why he was expected to know that nooses hanging from the back of a pickup truck were offensive . . .

As someone who lives in Georgia, I'm torn between letting the indictment stand and crashing the poll. Looks like it's already pretty well tipped now, though.

The intolerance on this blog makes me sad. It's just a big hatefest towards people who believe that black people are monkeys.

It's my OPINION that black people are inferior to whites. Scientists know this because black people never reports NDEs, so obviously they don't have souls. I come on here to defend my OPINION, and all you can do is insult me and call me names. And you call that "reason and logic."

All you liberal atheists probably believe that race is a social construct with no biological basis, and a black person is worth more than 3/5 of a white person. Typical.

What is truly sad it that I'm unable (entirely) to discern whether this is an earnestly written post or a satire; that's how closely the real mirrors the absurd in these days of Century 21. So, you are either very funny or a product of successive generations of horny, enthusiastic inbreeding.

but it's not fair to assume that everyone who voted that the shirt is fine is racist or terminally stupid. Because they don't run around looking for people who are racist to see what they say about others doesn't mean they're ignorant of the history of racism, either.

Yeah, but you don't really have to run around looking for evidence of racism...you just have to read the article:

Norman acknowledged the imagery's Jim Crow roots but said he sees nothing wrong with depicting a prominent African-American as a monkey,

(Emphasis mine.)

PS:

For everyone who feels the need to point out that the bar owner "has the right" to display racist statements and sell racist merchandise...

NO SHIT.

"Having the right to" has fuck-all to do with whether statements and/or character are racist, offensive, or worthy of criticism.

Can we please bury this particular piece of conceptual confusion with a stake through its skull and move on?

PSS:

Instead of proclaiming that those pointing out it's racist are somehow at fault,

Err, did anyone actually say that?

and isn't this whole thing based just a little on the scientifically inaccurate idea that some primates are somehow less evolved than others?

Well, some primates are certainly MORE evolved than others...

@#212 Azkyroth --

Instead of proclaiming that those pointing out it's racist are somehow at fault,

Err, did anyone actually say that?

Yes; for eg, Chadwick in #89:

I wouldn't have thought anything of it until I read through the comments here. I think the so-called non-racist people on this thread are doing more damage to their cause by drawing attention to the association of black people and monkeys. What? Am I to believe they associated or something? If you didn't say anything about it, I would have gone on thinking that curious george supports obama.

Come now. Until you declared racism, I was convinced that this t-shirt supported Obama. Perhaps the problem is in the observer?

Only when we give one another the benefit of the doubt will we actually be able to treat one another as equal.

It's racist AND it's fine. What's the big deal? I think it's kinda funny, even though I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing it.

Why is it that the people that are most likely to vehemently deny that we are cousins of apes are also the ones most likely to compare blacks to monkeys?

Nobody sees the disconnect there? Are they that....oh, right.

A once popular explanation for the existence of black people before Darwin was that God created them not as humans but as another bunch of "beasts of the field".

I'm another Georgian, Obama voter, not a racist. But I am so ashamed.

We're not all like this, especially many of us in the north.

n America up until the late sixties common racial slurs included "apes", "monkeys", and the ever popular "jungle bunnies", all of them referencing the African origin of the designee an the supposed degenerate status of American ex-slaves.

I can recall hearing a particularly vile variation bandied about back in East Texas: "Alabama porch monkeys."

I can't believe we're actually having this conversation in 2008. Well, I can, given how plug-ugly racist so many Americans are, but I'd hoped we'd be over this by now. We're not, as this T-shirt so amply proves. What's even more depressing is that it's only one of thousands of examples that are happening every second of every day in America.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. What does an online poll REALLY say about anything after all?

But ... as originally stated, why in the heck would the Atlanta Journal and Constitution find the need to institute such a poll asking such a question?

Were this hellish place not the wretched, overly self-absorbed area it is, this poll would exist. Believe me, the "Rebel" Flag is a significant part of the "Georgian experience". If one leaves one's home, one will not avoid hearing the rebel call of: "The South Shall Rise Again"...What do you think is meant by that statement?

BTW, I've resided in several southern states and I don't think this about any of the others. It's an overwhelmingly hateful region of this earth.

I can't believe we're actually having this conversation in 2008

it really hasn't been that long since the Civil Rights act (1964).

these things take time (generational time).

ironically, I've always been impressed at how fast things have changed in such a short time.

right after #214, we get #215; as if to prove the point.

*sigh*

What is truly sad it that I'm unable (entirely) to discern whether this is an earnestly written post or a satire

it would be clearer if you were a regular at this bar.

(it's parody of a particular obtuse troll we have seen around here recently).

you are either very funny or a product of successive generations of horny, enthusiastic inbreeding.

Can't Sven be both?

;)

it would be clearer if you were a regular at this bar.

Well, my point is that it's sad that I NEED such exposure in order to determine it. See? There are enough people that think like that....

Well, my point is that it's sad that I NEED such exposure in order to determine it. See? There are enough people that think like that....

oh yes, I didn't mean to avoid your point. I thought it just went without saying after Poe's Law was "published", and thought I would just clarify that it was indeed a parody.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

The tide has turned. Unreal that anyone could think this was okay. Sad that the poll is so close.

It's racist 57.83% 10108
It's fine 42.17% 7370

This establishment also has a sign to the effect: Too bad Hillary didn't marry OJ.

Unfortunately, this is only the beginning. The swift boat guys are revving up their engines in defense of McCain.

Sad for us all.

oh yes, I didn't mean to avoid your point. I thought it just went without saying after Poe's Law was "published", and thought I would just clarify that it was indeed a parody.

Lol, and just as sad that you need to clarify it. The views I've seen lately on this internet are such that they are a parody of themselves. Thus, my leveling an "inbred" comment, which is a stereotype and bigoted remark often hurled at North-Georgians and all Appalachia. We have bypassed the age of reason and entered the dawn of the absurd, I think.

It's either that or the Twilight Zone, I'll let you know if I figure it out.

For those people who claim that they can look at this shirt and see no implied racism, the message implied by the image was not meant for you. But for racists who see black people as apes and monkeys, the message could not be any clearer.

If you need proof, just google the words "nigger", "ape" and "monkey". The filth will gush from your screen.

This kind of coded racist message is hardly new. One of the biggest and worst example of this in American history is Ronald Reagan giving his first major campaign speech in 1980 from Philadelphia, Mississippi. In 1964, the town was where there civil rights workers were murdered. For the general population, it was a regular speech. But for those who felt those men got what they deserved, the meaning could not be any more clear. Why else would have Reagan gone to such an out of the way place?

Just because you may not see racism does not mean that racism was not meant. You are out of the loop.

Ichthyic: I forgot to add, in reference to Poe's Law that I have attempted to parody Ayn Rand! It is, indeed, difficult, if not impossible. You and I are on the same wavelength, I think.

I had to think for a while before I got the racist angle. I just thought it was a funny t-shirt.

The only reason you can find it racist I suspect is because it's a reminder of insults and insinuations used by racists in the past, guilt by association in other words.

Could it be that so many people not thinking it racist is actually *good* news? I mean maybe American society has moved on enough that most people voting (on the internet, so most likely younger people) don't actually remember or even know about the old association and hence don't see what the problem is?

If the t-shirt had Clinton's name on it would it have been considered racist or maybe just a bit unflattering? Why not? If it's not racist for Clinton aren't those that call it racist running the risk of simply being seen to think that what it's alluding to is actually true but merely too rude to mention?

Aren't we giving the racists power by seeing racism in that t-shirt, essentially by accepting their premise and bigotry? Doesn't that mean we've already surrendered the choice of battlefield to the enemy? Surely the best defence against this is for Obama to simply look at it and say "that's quite funny, looks a bit like me" thereby totally taking the wind out of the sails of any racists?

Maybe I'm just naive or too much an idealist.

I honestly dont see any resemblance between the cute monkey and Obama.

Bush on the other hand...
http://jcnot4me.com/images/Bush-monkey.gif

"If the t-shirt had Clinton's name on it would it have been considered racist or maybe just a bit unflattering? Why not? If it's not racist for Clinton aren't those that call it racist running the risk of simply being seen to think that what it's alluding to is actually true but merely too rude to mention?"

I can't decide if your comment is a parody or not. The people not seeing a problem with this shirt are either super young and have a legit reason to be ignorant of the past or old and inexcusably ignorant of the past.

I completely agree with MartinSGill. Labeling that t-shirt racist is like giving racism free advertisement, like giving people a false reminder that 'race' might matter after all.

If you really were a non-racist, you would never come to think of racism in that t-shirt on your own.

it really hasn't been that long since the Civil Rights act (1964).
these things take time (generational time).

Yeah, yeah, patience, how long is that gonna take? /lame joke

I know what you're saying, but it gets so disheartening.

I was a kid in the 60s. I grew up in about as racist an environment as there could be (East Texas). I remember the segregated schools. The separate fountains/bathrooms were just about gone, but not completely. So we have left that behind, but only moved what feels like painful inches forward.

I guess it's just difficult for me to wrap my mind around why people cling to these ideas. Life is too short to hate people who have done nothing to you.

Aren't we giving the racists power by seeing racism in that t-shirt

NO! emphatically and repeatedly.

shining a light on racism is exactly what is needed, and there IS racism in that image. that's a fact.

It's not projecting racism onto it, it's simply recognizing what the intention of it obviously was.

those saying otherwise are in fact projecting their own ignorance onto the issue though.

...and refusing to read all the other related commentary that came before theirs in the process.

guilt by association in other words.

No, it is guilt by willful ignorance. One could adorn oneself with a Swastika and claim no ill intent, but unless one lives in an area of total seclusion or suffers severe mental disability, one would know better if one bothered to care about such things. Would those objecting to that Swastika be ""giving power to the Nazis" by objecting? That's balderdash! It's a hateful, readily understood symbology and so is this stupid t-shirt.

You've got internet, so if you don't know better, I am not buying ingenuousness and wide-eyed innocence. These are issues of significance and those with the means to know about them are responsible for making damn certain they do! It's no wonder we have the Government we do. Asserting oneself as simply too innocent to understand just won't fly, especially if one votes since his or her ignorance is affecting us all.

Make an effort, people, please!

So we have left that behind, but only moved what feels like painful inches forward.

Hey, at least it's forward.

I could easily see it going backwards, if just from sheer ignorance.

Would those objecting to that Swastika be ""giving power to the Nazis" by objecting? That's balderdash! It's a hateful, readily understood symbology and so is this stupid t-shirt.

this whole thing reminds me of the reasoning behind why many of us spent so much time railing on the disinformation and outright lies in Expelled, while others claimed we were simply doing the creationist's advertising for them.

the benefit to the racist/creationist in advertising their monstrosity by speaking of it is far outweighed by clearly explaining what is wrong with it to begin with.

It wasn't wrong to expose "Expelled", and it's not wrong to shine a light on this, either.

Looks like a Parody. Smells like free speech.

Just because you are so thin skinned to think it's Racist doesn't make it Racist.

"Would those objecting to that Swastika be ""giving power to the Nazis" by objecting?"

That's exactly what it does. It's like keeping the wounds open. As a non-ignorant and non-narrow minded person swastika surely brings nazis to your mind, but at the very second instant you would remember it is just an ancient symbol given many beautiful meanings in different cultures during the human history.

Letting nazis to ruin that symbolism is really weak I would say.

If you really were a non-racist, you would never come to think of racism in that t-shirt on your own.

Who was it upthread that wondered who had called us racists for understanding the reference?

Now for our poor deluded fool who made the remark:

Projection, much?

As many others have stated, just because you're too ignorant to understand why this would be perceived as racist doesn't mean that we are that ignorant.

It's racist, not because we noticed that fact but because the people who make and buy the shirt are clearly sending a message of associating a black man with a monkey, as countless other racist yokels before them have done. We happened to notice this curious pattern of behavior and learned from it. Who knows where you were, probably writing some poem about how persecuted you are.

"As many others have stated, just because you're too ignorant to understand why this would be perceived as racist doesn't mean that we are that ignorant."

There's a difference between ignorance and fighting the false presumptions people are trying insist on you. Surrendering yourself to this meaning of racism in this t-shirt gives racism an another victory.

Since polling is still coming up, here is one from the BBC on the site of "A Brief History of Disbelief" by Jonathan Miller.

The Question is: Do you believe in God?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atheism.shtml

With 26,000 responses so far, the results are quite good. Of course it is a selective audience.

Who was it upthread that wondered who had called us racists for understanding the reference?

At the point I made the comment I had overlooked Chadwick's statement but it was otherwise true.

Surrendering yourself to this meaning of racism in this t-shirt gives racism an another victory.

*sigh*

"surrendering yourself to recognizing the swastika as a symbol of naziism gives naziism another victory"

how many more ways can it be stated?

epic fail.

Bleccchhhh. The only difference between this shirt and the "Macaca" wisecrack is that (AFAIK) a politician didn't make the shirt.

As someone whose extended family looks like the United Nations when we all get together and whose brother-in-law has memories of being terrorized by racist @$$#073s when he was a kid, I have to say that this kind of crap not only offends me, it scares the hell out of me.

(That's right, my sister did "marry one," and no one died of it. In fact, of my three sibs' and my first marriages, theirs is the only one that didn't crash and burn. So sue me.)

I voted a few minutes ago. "It's racist" has pulled ahead, 10,500+ to 7500+. But this poll is patently unfair. It only lets you vote once a day. We declare shenanigans!

Who was it upthread that wondered who had called us racists for understanding the reference?

it all initially refers back to post #89.

hanging "chad" said:

I think the so-called non-racist people on this thread are doing more damage to their cause by drawing attention to the association of black people and monkeys.

which, as I noted earlier, is the same (wrong) argument some made wrt to us spending time ripping apart the lies and misinformation in "Expelled".

What if it said "McCain '08"? Would that be racist too?
C'mon, Obama does look like a friendly chimp to me and I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I don't think it should be seen as racist.

What if it said "McCain '08"? Would that be racist too?

were white people racistly associated with monkeys historically?

why, no they weren't.

seriously, stop while you're behind.

"surrendering yourself to recognizing the swastika as a symbol of naziism gives naziism another victory"

Yea word twisting can always make a great deal of amusement. Does anyone else see a difference between verbs "surrender" and "recognize" in this context?

Yea word twisting can always make a great deal of amusement.

it's good to be both amusing and correct.

bottom line, there is no way to defend ignorance of a symbol for racism by saying "I interpret it differently".

it makes not one whit of difference what you interpret as, it's still a symbol of racism.

now before you go off again, do at least TRY and read the many comments on this specific issue that have already been put forth, so we don't all have to repeat ourselves for your benefit.

there's a big list of good posts on the subject in this thread.

freedom of speech, laws against hate speech, are wrong because we all have that right to say what ever when ever.

That's exactly what it does. It's like keeping the wounds open. As a non-ignorant and non-narrow minded person swastika surely brings nazis to your mind, but at the very second instant you would remember it is just an ancient symbol given many beautiful meanings in different cultures during the human history.

Sure, don't let's be "keeping the wounds open"! Heck, if it weren't for us bringing it up, those Jews would have forgotten ALL about that nasty little Holocaust awkwardness, and those blacks would be over that silly slavery misunderstanding. Let's don't remind them. SHHHHH!

to all those who think the shirt is not racist: go buy one, then wear it around Black colleagues and in Black neighbourhoods and see what the reaction is. Of course now we have told you that it is offensive, it would be crass of you to wear it knowing it was offensive to other people, yes?

You have been told it is offensive to others, and why. What is your problem with that? Just because it is not offensive to you does not exclude it being offensive to others. I do not see the problem with this. If you truly think there should be no consequences to wearing such a thing, go ahead and wear it, go on, I dare you.

Beyond this t-shirt, I wonder if we need to regulate our own reactions to this sort of thing better.

In the previous election, there was an infamous picture circulating the internet that compared the current president's facial expressions to those of various chimpanzees.

I'm not claiming this is a similar case, as that was more of a jab at Bush's intelligence. Reading more on the guy selling these shirts it seems more than likely that his claims of non-racism are bunk.

However, for myself, it took me about 30 secs scratching my head to realize that the objection to this imagery was on racist grounds. This is not because I ostensibly share that view, as if I did I would also be aware of the furor it would cause. No, it is because I consider racism to be a conceptual non-issue and this is a good thing, because to me that means that racist concepts are losing ground. Now, I realize that racism is alive and well and my view is more than likely a result of me living in a different country.

My question would be,would it be possible to see an analogue to the above mentioned Bushmonkey picture with Obama and not attribute it to racism any time soon?

Well, looks like obvious racism and I don't understand it.

I think it is a shame. I like Obama and I hope he becomes president. I don't really care for the democrats liberal positions on many of the issues. However, National heathcare is really needed and Obama seems like he is on the ball. Besides hillary is going to go after Iran if she gets into office.

Not so happy about the religion comment obama made in San Fran. I am not scared running for guns or to my religion (I don't own a gun. I know of some people that do and they go hunting with it for food). I am not running to religion because I am afraid. I believe in God for many of the reasons posted here.

I am also not happy about obama's own pastor. He isn't Godly at all. He is just playing politics in the African American community.

It's sad how people are sometimes really misinformed. My wife's aunt in Oregon thought that he was a practicing muslim and I told her no he wasn't and she was sure he was.

Also, I am a Christian who did not vote for Bush. I don't believe that he was the right person to lead the country and I think he has taken advantage of people to vote for him. I never wanted him to get in this war and he did but that is water under the bridge.

Long time lurker, finally moved to jump in here.

@ #242 Enok:

By your logic, it would be okay for me, as an asian, to start using the word "n*gger" as a term of endearment for my black friends and acquaintances because *my* usage supposedly subverts the historical implications of the word.

The problem is that racial epithets are like heat-seeking missiles: they are geared towards a certain target, and they will always hit that target, no matter what the intentions of the person screwing around with the trigger.

You can't disarm a weapon by convincing yorself it isn't a weapon anymore.

Any skilled graphic designers/silk-screen press operators out there? Want to make big big simoleons with this "offensive tshirt" racket? Let me suggest you make and market tshirts reading:

Reconstruction -- it can still work!

No no, don't mention it; a modest 5% royalty will be more than ample expression of your gratitude.

It's racist 59.28% 10875
It's fine 40.72% 7471

Surely we can do better than this??

All our other poll crashes tipped the scales completely...

ID sucks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO2n3GHGK7c

Peter Ashby:
"You have been told it is offensive to others, and why. What is your problem with that? Just because it is not offensive to you does not exclude it being offensive to others. I do not see the problem with this. If you truly think there should be no consequences to wearing such a thing, go ahead and wear it, go on, I dare you."

Thing is, one of the main arguments used (by me as well) when religious people object to certain depictions of their faith is that " you do not have the right not to be offended". Why does this not apply here?

Jumpin' Jeezus! Is Hillary gonna get a yellow hat?

From what I remember, didn't Curious George get the better of the Man in the Yellow Hat? I sure hope that Obama gets the better of Hillary. He seems to be too intelligent to really believe in that religion crap, but maybe he's one of the crazies who believes it?

Ichthyic @122,

If you call an African American today a "porch monkey", you are attempting a racial slur

No, no; it's OK! Randall "took it back" in Clerks II.

@ #251 and #257

it makes not one whit of difference what you interpret as, it's still a symbol of racism.

Now that you both found the point, try to relate that to my original post. It's in the tiny steps that make a great change.

Racist ? But of course it's racist, it's just supposed to reinforce some good old prejudices, that blacks aren't as intelligent as whites, oooh they can be nice and cute and friendly, but they're just not as capable as us white folks !
Oh, he's friendly that chimp, but who cares about friendly ?

What I found even more racist, is people who don't find this shirt racist. Just shows that these stupid prejudices are still so deeply rooted in their brains that they can't even reason them out.

Disturbing.

Has anybody ever considered that people not finding the image on this t-shirt to be offending, shows a society that has conquered racism?

Let me clarify my statement. Say, somebody says something that might offend someone else, but he or she didn't mean it that way and didn't even realize it might be taken offensively. Then, when another person points out it might have been a bad thing to say, that third person is in fact the offending one.

Of course, I have no doubt about the meaning the 'designer' of this t-shirt's print had. But in my opinion, to point out that it is offending is as bad as, and maybe even worse than, making the t-shirt. So, why do you even respond so vigorously to this post? Just let it be. Barack Obama would stand above it, I'm sure. Shouldn't you?

This comments thread is depressing.

No progress can be made while white privilege remains so invisible to so many of us who benefit from it every minute of every day.

arachnophilia @136,

devil's advocate question no. 1: comparing our current (white) president to a chimpanzee or to curious george, funny. comparing a presidential candidate who happens to be half black to the same things, racist?

OK, I realise you're only playing devil's advocate here. Still, tell your client to listen to Etha Williams: context is everything.

Yes, one can make out that Curious George has a bit of a resemblance to both Incurious George and Barack Obama (it's the ears, mostly). The humourous potential of a caricature pointing this out is, to my mind, mild at best, but de gustibus and all that.

But that's the humourous potential viewed in a vacuum; now let's put it in context. Two factors could spoil the fun, as I see it. (1) Does there exist a racist trope of "blacks = monkeys"?; and (2) Is the butt of the caricature black? If both statements are true, then the caricature is not only humourously lame but racist and inappropriate as well.

Now (1) is incontrovertibly true. (2) is true of Obama but not of Bush. So the "Obama as CG" shirt is offensively racist in a way that "Bush as CG" would not be, and no, that's not a double standard. See? It's easy if you just think it through systematically.

PS -- Given the nature of this website community, I am amused to consider that the formal title of the official popularly called "Devil's Advocate" is "Promoter of the Faith". Sadly, Arachnophilia has no hope of getting this job, as Wojtyla abolished it during his papacy. Who knew he thought faith shouldn't be promoted?!

PPS -- your nym is, however, spectacular.

I say we get the t shirt and pull a switcheroo with the caption;

"COMPARED TO OBAMA, GEORGE W. BUSH IS A MONKEY"

P.S. How cute does your racist caricature of a black man have to be in order for it to be seen as non-racist?

Actually, if there was one poll not to crash, it's this one.

Because I'd like to know what is the reality of the situation of racial prejudice in America on this one, not the filtered version.

I want to know if there is still a majority of people who have these deeply rooted racial prejudices.

I don't want this to be hidden.

This is a very good test, because at first glance it appears just so naïve. But in reality, it's excellent, because it really brings out the underlying biases.

If you'd ask in a poll, "are you racist" you'd probably get more than 90% negative answers. People are very good at denying their own prejudices as if they didn't realise they were subject to them.

So I'll stick with the initial data, before us Pharyngulites started to overturn this poll : there are still a majority of racists in America.

And that's the sad reality of it.

I didn't know that Obama supported evolution? Sweet!

All kidding aside, this is a pretty sad statement for these times. Just when you think most of the hurdles have been crossed something like this crops up. So much for enlightenment.

Re: Post #260

I would certainly never maintain that anyone had no right to any opinion. A person has every right to be offended or not be offended by ANYTHING. Certainly every one has rights to any opinion they hold, even violent ones. (I do wish the blissfully ignorant would refrain from the polls, but that's a whole other ball of wax)

I would never hold that anyone hasn't the RIGHT to wear this shirt, a swastika, or a KKK robe. However, when the people wearing any of those things tells me that doing it does not signify racist malevolence or promote harmful factions, I'm going to tell them they're talking nonsense. I am going to tell them that it sends a message as clearly as typewritten words send a message. Someone can argue all day long that, to them, H-A-T-E spells love, but it doesn't. And because these are just little symbols we use to represent our thoughts does not mean they are random or that I can spell "yellow" B L U E. When one puts certain letters together, they project and communicate a particular thing. These shirts spell out their meaning quite concisely.

I'd never tell folks that they cannot overtly advertise their racism, though; I'm glad they do. I'd just as soon know right up front rather than down the road.

Should we just let this nigger Presidential candidate stand?

Woohoo! Not Florida! YESSSSSS!

Of course, we do have plenty of stone ignorant racists here too. Oddly enough, they seem to get more and more numerous as you drive north on I-75 and get closer to Georgia. Hmmmm.

Bengt77 #265,

Has anybody ever considered that people not finding the image on this t-shirt to be offending, shows a society that has conquered racism?

No it shows a society in denial, which is worse.

Let me clarify my statement. Say, somebody says something that might offend someone else, but he or she didn't mean it that way and didn't even realize it might be taken offensively. Then, when another person points out it might have been a bad thing to say, that third person is in fact the offending one.

Racism is bad precisely because racists don't realise it's bad. Pointing it out may be offensive to those racists like you, but it's still the right thing to do.

Of course, I have no doubt about the meaning the 'designer' of this t-shirt's print had. But in my opinion, to point out that it is offending is as bad as, and maybe even worse than, making the t-shirt. So, why do you even respond so vigorously to this post? Just let it be. Barack Obama would stand above it, I'm sure. Shouldn't you ?

So, if you have no doubt about the intentions of the designer of this T shirt, what are you talking about ?
And I'm not Barack Obama, neither are you. You were not asked "what should be Obama's response ?", but "is this T shirt racist ?".

@ #263:

Oh, I understood your point when you made it. I just don't agree with it.

Whether you like it or not, racist discourse is a two-way dialogue between discriminators and the people they discriminate against. They're the ones who determine what constitutes a racial slur. Not us, the third party.

So you can claim that turning a blind eye to someone's racist comments disempowers them. But they're not calling *you* a porch monkey or a nigger; they couldn't give two shits what you think.

In fact, I'd say by *not* calling them out for their racism, by *not* pointing out what fucktards they are, you are aiding and abetting their dipshittery. You are letting them get away with it.

Seriously, if you're an American, how far up your ass does your head have to be in order to miss the obvious racist intent of this shirt?

#100:

I just saw Curious George peeling a banana above a line of text supporting Obama's candidacy. And then I saw the word "racist" in one of the comments, and I thought,
"Ohhhhh, right! Because people used to call African Americans 'monkeys' or 'porch monkeys' or something. I suppose I should be outraged."

Used to, huh? I'm impressed - obviously you come from a future civilization that has mastered time travel.

#136:

devil's advocate question no. 1: comparing our current (white) president to a chimpanzee or to curious george, funny. comparing a presidential candidate who happens to be half black to the same things, racist?

Yes, because context matters - it always matters, especially in matters like this. There's no history of referring to white people as monkeys in the US; on the other hand, there is a well-documented history of the use of that word as a racial slur against blacks.

#175:

I don't understand why this is racist. It doesn't contextually make sense, as I don't know what a cute monkey cartoon has to do with a presidential candidate, but I don't think it's racist.

But then, I'm Generation Y, whadda I know?

I've taught a few members of Generation Y during their first year in college, and I still haven't figured out what, if anything, Gen Y kids actually do know.

Wise up, u silly, silly americans. u all just jump on the closest band wagon around. do u know the rest of the world laughs at you so much. this t-shirt business is a perfect example of why. its a t-shirt wit a monkey, so?

do u all think that the new zeland rugby shirt is racist cus ts all black. or if a chicken company advertised a black man eating chicken, would u say that is racist because black people like chicken........

clowns

AWWWWWW, this is going to sound racist! but look closely at both abama and curious george they look alot like each other the big ears, im black and i found it very funny, lighten up take that pole out of your ass and look at how funny it is, monkeys look alot like black people, to bad theres not a animal whites look like, so what we look like apes but god makes up for it, some of you might get that joke.

Glad I went to bed when I did, before the racism-excusing fuckwits showed up. Makes me so proud to be an American.

would u say that is racist because black people like chicken........

It's fun to watch racists trying to say there's no racism by using racist tropes.

A little off-topic, but what the heck.

Why are all racist terms nouns and rarely adjectives? I think this is an interesting question on the linguistic aspects of racism. Even the noun "negro", which until fairly recently could be used rather neutrally in non-racists discourse, has become racially very charged, and supplanted by adjectives, that are considered racially neutral, like "black" or "Afro-American." Could it be so, because the use of adjectives presupposes the presence of nouns - even when used elliptically - that automatically denote some measure of equality? Like black *men* or *women* as opposed to *negroes*?
I am not a native English speaker, but I have a feeling that similar linguistic strategies may be at work in my own Dutch language. I'd like to read your thoughts on this matter.

How the f**k is Curious George racist? Why are you so obsessed with race? Are YOU racist?

would u say that is racist because black people like chicken........

It's fun to watch racists trying to say there's no racism by using racist tropes.

i'm black u fool

i'm black u fool
Posted by: John | May 14, 2008 7:08 AM

And yet you still use totalizing racist tropes.

Wow. Really, just wow.

How the f*ck can anyone not see the blatant racism in this shirt?

Wow.

it will be a cold day in hell befor i let ombama become commander and chief, and thats my freedom of speech, don't care what you think, hes a noobie HE knows less then bush,

Done my bit, it's racist.

It's racist 59.97% 11498
It's fine 40.03% 7674

Now to read the comments. I need more time, and more coffee.

you want to support are troops? well then vote for MCcain he was a soldier, unlike abama and hillary, Mccain fought in vietnam, meanwhile obama and hillary wer protesting the war, and spiting on soldiers who wer coming home, do you realy want to vote for some one who protested american soldiers??????????????????????????????

You Tube Link
David Cross READS from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a serious article about Heaven. Very funny

If y'all want to depress yourselves any time (or if you feel the need to induce vomiting), read some of the comments on the Journal Constitution's blogs. By about the third comment into any discussion it's guaranteed some knuckle-dragger will be ranting about the coloreds ruining life for all decent folk.

The guy who owns the bar selling the tee-shirts was on the local news saying he's not doing anything wrong, people love the shirts, and he's going to keep right on selling them. IMHO, someone needs to go after him for copyright infringement -- isn't Curious George a protected image? Even racists respond to being hit in the wallet.

He is an equal opportunity hater -- he put up a sign a few months ago advocating that someone kill Hillary.

You see the idiots I have to live among.

Must be a generation thing. I looked at it and saw an anti-Bush statement. Then, if I stretch, a racist thing. The shirt would work with "Hillary" or "McCain" substituted for Obama.

I didn't get any racist implications from this shirt, as I was too distracted by that suggestive banana.

Spencer re #273,

Yeah, the further north you drive the more Confederate flags you see.
Living in Hollywood Florida.

John #278,

Gem Alert !

do u all think that the new zeland rugby shirt is racist cus ts all black.

That gotta be the stupidest argument I've read for a long long time.

Well, no, John, pea brain, it's not racist, because it's not reinforcing any negative prejudice against blacks is it ? Can you try to think before you write ?

I don't think I would have immediately thought the shirt was racist at all, to be honest. I've heard blacks called "monkeys" before (go Southern Illinois!) but this shirt would have just left me sorta confused. I'd have initially guessed it was some sort of political joke on GW, or just the work of someone who dug Curious George.

@ #274 (negentropyeater)

No it shows a society in denial, which is worse.

I don't know for sure. It might indeed show a society in denial, but then again, it might as well not. It depends on who looks at it, I believe. If a group witnesses a racist remark, and chooses to ignore it, then I don't think it shows a society in denial. I firmly believe it shows a society that has conquered racism. Sure, there are bound to be pariahs that will keep their racist beliefs. But if the group at large (society) can just ignore them without taking offense, then it definitely does not show a society in denial.

Racism is bad precisely because racists don't realise it's bad. Pointing it out may be offensive to those racists like you, but it's still the right thing to do.

Of course it's a good thing if people stand up against racists. And right now I do believe it's still necessary in the US. But in the future, when racism will be mostly overcome, the few racists left could just be ignored, I think.

And why did you find it necessary to call me a racist? I definitely am not a racist. The example I gave wasn't necessarily one concerning racism. It applies to any sort of insult, really. You could one day say something that is offensive to a certain person. That second person will most likely be able to tell whether you meant it that way, or not. If he decides not to be offended by what you said, then a third person pointing out the might-be-offensiveness of your remark, will by that act most likely grieve the second person more than your remark did (because it didn't).

So, if you have no doubt about the intentions of the designer of this T shirt, what are you talking about ?
And I'm not Barack Obama, neither are you. You were not asked "what should be Obama's response ?", but "is this T shirt racist ?".

It's certainly despicable. And yes, it's most likely meant to be racist. But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism. The same as bullies in a schoolyard. Once their victims choose to ignore them, the bullying loses it's appeal.

But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism. The same as bullies in a schoolyard. Once their victims choose to ignore them, the bullying loses it's appeal.

*headdesk*

in the UK tea company PG tips ran (still does?)tv commercials showing chimps at a tea party, that was a recurrent theme, anyway i remember that at some point about 15 years ago it was either those adverts or something similar which had somebody complaining that they were racist anyway i seem to remember it being an issue on the news at the time if im remembering correctly. bizzare.

That gotta be the stupidest argument I've read for a long long time.

Well, no, John, pea brain, it's not racist, because it's not reinforcing any negative prejudice against blacks is it ? Can you try to think before you write ?

neither is a monkey eatin a fuc*ing banna. i refuse to post any more, if a fuc* wit like u is commenting on it.another fine exmple of american genius

the irony here of course is that if the intent is a racial slurr then the people most likey to be amused by it will totally contradict themselves because of course god made man in his image and so any reference to monkeys is utterly devoid of meaning. if they somehow feel that non whites are 'closer' to monkeys than are they, then they really need to start reading up on the facts of evolution, which they will reject anyway.

ignorance and stupidity seem to go hand in hand.

neither is a monkey eatin a fuc*ing banna. i refuse to post any more, if a fuc* wit like u is commenting on it.another fine exmple of american genius

In other words, the cultural history--both popular and political--in the United States that has consistently dehumanized black people by linking them to monkeys and apes is completely irrelevant in a situation in which a monkey is used to represent an African American candidate for President.

Doesn't take a genius to see what's going on, just someone paying attention.

"i refuse to post any more"

So what? Do you think anyone cares?

Bengt77,

It's certainly despicable. And yes, it's most likely meant to be racist. But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism. The same as bullies in a schoolyard. Once their victims choose to ignore them, the bullying loses it's appeal.

You don't overcome racism by ignoring it. The same can be said of all these stupid prejudices that have impregnated the brains of so many over the course of time, prejudices against women, against homosexuals, against jews, etc...

History shows that what you are suggesting has never worked. It is only by denouncing and fighting severely those prejudices that one can over time make things better. The rest is just wishful thinking.

And we're talking of adults, not children in a schoolyard.

Bengt, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, you might not be racist yourself, pardon me for the accusation.

But this whole story just demonstrates the obvious, that America is far from having rid itself from its racial prejudices (BTW I'm French, and on the racial issue it's probably even worse here in Europe, so don't get me wrong).

As long as our societies are far from having overcome these negative prejudices, these kind of things like this T-shirt need to be point blank condemned. People who come up with these ridiculous ideas should be shameful. It is our responsibility to make them feel the shame. That is the way you overcome racial prejudices.

It's obviously racist. The sign on the same man's restaurant reads "I wish Hillary had married OJ". Which is a hell of a lot worse, bigotry wise. Wishing that a woman would have been brutually murdered just because she dares run for president while not having a penis is overt misogyny. So apparently, Mr. Bigot doesn't mind showing the world what a frigging moron he is.

Cafeeine the difference is you can choose and change your religion, you cannot choose or change your race. So when religion gets criticised it is different from racism.

re: The publication of Poe's law.

The deletion-crazed Wiki folks are probably going to take it down:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Poe%27s_la…
If anyone both cares and knows of a proper "notable" use of it they may want to make themselves heard.

Poll-crashing type behaviour doesn't really work there btw.

Only someone obsessed with race would interpret this as racist, thus making them effectively racist. For anyone normal, it's just Curious George, regardless of how other people chose to interpret it.

You don't fight hate speech like this, that only validates it.

MAJeff,
Maybe we are from different parts of the country, but the ape tag typically goes with adjectives like "Big" or "Hairy" not "african american". When younger I was regularly referred to as an ape or a gorilla because of my build, not my color. In sailing, the crew are sometimes referred to as "deck apes", and children are referred to as "house monkeys".

Search that google thing for "curious george" and bush. Its been a standard trope for the last 8 years.

Kseniya(#202): I found it interesting that he'd choose to berate somebody for her (perceived) prejudices by calling her a "retard" and a "bitch".

I can't keep up with the discussion here, so I'll inject some comments pretty much at random.

One problem with the issue is that we seem to have lost the concept of intent somewhere along the line. Something is either racist or it isn't, and if it offends somebody it's de facto racist. I think a lot of the defenders of the shirt here (racist trolls aside) are caught in the backlash against this, while getting themselves caught in the same trap. People are bending over backwards to find any way in which the T-shirt could be construed as innocent, without considering the cultural context and the likelihood that it really is innocent--or indeed, the fact that the guy came right out and admitted that it was racist...

It's the same trap with those who are asking how making the same comparison to Bush could not be racist. Viewed in isolation, of course, it couldn't--Bush and Obama are members of the same species, and both are related to any given monkey to exactly the same degree. The comparison in itself isn't racist, but you have to consider it in context, and there's some very unpleasant context that's present in one case and absent in the other.

Consider Jackie Chan's "what's up, my nigger" scene in "Rush Hour". It's funny because Chan's character clearly has no idea what he's just said--he's simply copying Chris Tucker, and he really is so ignorant of the culture he finds himself in that it doesn't occur to him that a friendly greeting coming from a black man can be a killing insult from somebody else. But it wouldn't have worked with any other character; you just wouldn't believe it could have been an honest mistake. Similarly, it beggars belief that a native of the southern U.S. could not be aware of the implications of deliberately comparing a black man to a monkey. There's no room for reasonable doubt--it's simply racist, and people looking for reasons to believe that it isn't are barking up the wrong tree.

Witness, for a somewhat more trivial example, Richard Dawkins' use of the word "Darwinist". Perfectly innocent--it's not got the same connotations over here that it has in creationist hotbeds in the U.S. Dawkins has a perfect right to use the term, but when called on it, he didn't start angrily defending that right, he said, "good point, I hadn't considered that, I'll try to stop using it in future." There is, as others have said, an appropriate response. Sometimes it's "wtf? Get over yourself", of course, but if you've bumped up unwittingly against a nasty piece of historical "ism", it's probably best to apologise, through gritted teeth if necessary, and try to be a bit more tactful in future. I don't see that happening here.

I can't believe there's even a discussion of whether this is racist. Of course it is. That said, I wouldn't get behind banning the shirts or censoring the sign in front of the asshole's bar. Freedom of speech includes freedom to be a giant douchebag.

I thought this quote from the article was interesting:

"This place is a diamond in the rough," said Gene McKinley, a Woodstock engineer. "People here are genuine and honest. It's the one place I can go without having to worry if I'm offending someone."

Ya know, I can go anywhere I want without having to worry if I'm offending someone. My secret? I'm not a jerk. If you have to worry that you might offend someone, because you go around comparing black people to monkeys, the problem isn't with society, it's with you.

Racism is alive and well in America. If you doubt this, if you, like PZ, are "stunned that this t-shirt could be proudly displayed anywhere anymore," go to a diner located in a neighborhood unlike the one in which you live, sip a cup of coffee and listen to what people who frequent the diner are talking about. Frankly, I am stunned that so many people who post on this blog seem divorced from the reality that comprises their larger world, although I shouldn't be. According to the homophily-heterophily theory in the social sciences (particularly in the field of communications), the "stunned" reaction of posters to this blog is exactly what would be predicted.
One's intimates tend to be those who are most like one's self in terms of social characteristics such as age, educational and economic statuses, values, etc. When one interacts with others who are dissimilar to one's self, information transmittal tends to be less intimate, consisting of things not central to one's core beliefs and values. This creates subtle social barriers that are infrequently crossed, and consequently semi-isolated groups of people who do not know what other groups think, feel or value. And, since mass media is sensitive, by and large, to expressing opinions which may offend whole classes of people and as a consequence adversely affect the willingness of their sponsors to continue their support, it fails to act as bridge between these semi-isolated groups.
Karl Rove (despicable, perhaps, but nonetheless attuned to American society) has warned that there is much more that will surface if/when Obama becomes the Democratic Party nominee. It's only just begun...

It would be clearly racist if they were trying to make the point that black people are just monkeys.

But what if the guy just really thinks Obama looks like the character? He has a point about the hairline. But then again you could say he looks like Mickey Mouse.

Would that be racist?

"'m bothered by the "I'm not from the U.S., so I don't get it" views above: as someone in the thread remarked, Europeans and Asians can be very attached to the black people = monkeys association."

I am British and can confirm that there is a long history of racists associating black people with monkeys and bananas in this country. When I saw this T-shirt, and that there seem to be some people who cannot see anything wrong with the association of a black presidential candidate with a monkey eating a banana I was shocked. There was a time in the UK when black players at football games (soccer) would regularly have bananas thrown at them, and be taunted with monkey chants. Thankfully that is pretty much a thing of the past since the authorities took a tough line on such behaviour, banning them from attending any football games for example. Sadly there a parts of Europe where it still happens, although again the European football bodies are cracking down hard by banning teams who's fans behave in a racist manner from competition.

Comparing people to animals is almost always racist in intention. Sure there is the occasional exception.

Its only racist if you want it to be. I personally, do not think it's racist. Just with any other racist word or icon... society is what makes it racist. If you were to show this to someone in say, uganda, would they view this at all as racist?

NEW PERSONAL GOAL-- to forget that any word or imagery is racist, so as to not get offended when bigots use them.

Lets face it, the end to racism has less to do with government/media controls, and more to do with our teachings and perceptions. if were really serious about stamping out racism, we'd start by not writing articles like this, and start actively not reacting to racism.

Any different than 8 years of comparing George Bush to a monkey? Is it different just cause Obama's black? Sounds stunningly hypocritical to me.

http://www.bushorchimp.com/

"Only someone obsessed with race would interpret this as racist, thus making them effectively racist."
What a moronic thing to say. Strike "obsessed with race" and replace with "who is not totally ignorant". If you claim to never have heard monkey used as a racial slur, you're either lying or you live on Mars.

@208:

What's worse is that the Nazis (mis)appropriated the symbol from eastern spiritual practices. The stigma is significantly greater here in the west than in the areas where the symbol originated. The Buddists have rights, and the Nazis violated fair use...

Completely agree. But it still didn't stop people from believing the Buddhists were Nazis. So who are the ignorant ones? The Buddhists who have been using it for 2 millenia and didn't associate it with Nazism (and couldn't figure out why anyone would get so upset)? Or the people who got upset and thought that the Buddhists were Nazis?

Personally, I don't think either group was ignorant. Perhaps uninformed. And after the angry folks figured out where the symbol actually did originate and the Buddhists weren't out to spread Nazism, they let things be.

"Just with any other racist word or icon... society is what makes it racist. If you were to show this to someone in say, uganda, would they view this at all as racist? "
No. If you were to call people in Uganda "dirty stupid nigger", who didn't know what "dirty stupid nigger" meant in English, would they view that as racist? No. So if that's the measure you use to determine whether something's racist, I advise you to go try that somewhere with a large, armed, black population, and see if they agree with you.

if were really serious about stamping out racism, we'd start by not writing articles like this, and start actively not reacting to racism.

Defeat racism by ignoring racism? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you that ridiculous?

Any different than 8 years of comparing George Bush to a monkey? Is it different just cause Obama's black? Sounds stunningly hypocritical to me.

Not hypocritical. Historical.
But whites are the oppressed ones, right? PC has made it so that you just can't be racist without being called on it. Waaaah!

Nin, and his facist sense of "normality" #312,

Only someone obsessed with race would interpret this as racist, thus making them effectively racist

No, only someone who wilfuly denies what this T-shirt was clearly intended for would pretend this is non racist, thus making them effectively racist.

For anyone normal, it's just Curious George, regardless of how other people chose to interpret it.

Do you realise that extrapolating one's own sense of normality on racial issues is the perfect breeding ground for facism ?

You don't fight hate speech like this, that only validates it.

So here you admit it's hate speech, but just above you just said it was only a depiction of curious george. So is it hate speech or not ? You seem to be very confused.

I intend to vote for Obama but I think it's fine. We as a country need to get over ourselves. Nobody else has this problem but we're still bogged down by this. "It's fine" for me.

No jamie, I don't. Just as I can't decide that the word Jamie now means something racist. People can only define Curious George as something racist if they themselves are racist. It's just a fucking monkey with a banana, stop dignifying these people with any recognition at all.

Nobody else has this problem but we're still bogged down by this.

Bullshit.

I intend to vote for Obama but I think it's fine. We as a country need to get over ourselves. Nobody else has this problem but we're still bogged down by this. "It's fine" for me.

No one else has what problem? Racism? Really?

i'm a southerner(south carolina), and i didn't get the reference at first. had i simply voted from looking at the shirt, i would have said "it's fine." i honestly have to wonder at the people who say it's racist. why did you assume that a shirt with a monkey on it was racist? if you do, doesn't that make you the racist? sheesh, all i see is curious george with a banana. if anything, i thought it was a commentary on our current president.

"No jamie, I don't. Just as I can't decide that the word Jamie now means something racist. People can only define Curious George as something racist if they themselves are racist. It's just a fucking monkey with a banana, stop dignifying these people with any recognition at all."

No, it is NOT just a monkey with a banana. It is a monkey with a banana being linked to a black man in a country with a long history of racist treatment of black people. The image in isolation would not be racist, when it gets linked with a black person it is. Do you really not get that ? Like how a picture of a gas oven would not be anti-semitic, link with a Rabbi though and it would be.

No, it is NOT just a monkey with a banana. It is a monkey with a banana being linked to a black man in a country with a long history of racist treatment of black people. The image in isolation would not be racist, when it gets linked with a black person it is. Do you really not get that ?

As we are seeing, there are a lot of people who seem to be really invested in not getting it.

Kseniya #314 makes a very valid point. The one about intent and context.

While I agree that the intent of the T-shirt may well be racist (and judging by the other things that guy sells it's very likely to be intended that way) the t-shirt in and of itself isn't racist.

It's only racist in the context of history and specifically in the context of American (and other) racists using a comparison to apes to insult black people.

I'm not American and I don't consider myself racist, nor do I consider the society and culture I grew up in (which admittedly was a bit sheltered) racist. I just don't see those connections because I was never exposed to them.

I actually feel sorry for the people that automatically see that t-shirt as racist. You have been so conditioned and influenced by the racists that they dominate your thinking so that you automatically conjure up in your mind the images they've been seeking to promote whenever you see those images. Someone who didn't grow up in that sort of environment just sees an innocent (and possibly cute depending on personal tastes) t-shirt. I don't automatically associate black people with monkeys because there's no reason to. You do, whether you agree with it or not, because the racists have imprinted that connection in your mind. Only a true racist (or someone who grew up in a society where their views had power) would make that connection automatically.

Once the context and the intent of the t-shirt is revealed, then yes, it's intended to be racist and that is the real problem, the intent. The t-shirt without the intent is harmless. That's almost a bigger problem in our various societies than racism, those people that really are innocent are condemned as racist/whatever simply because the thought never entered their mind, which is as it should be for someone that isn't racist.

While I agree that racism does need to be stamped on and out, hard, wherever it's encountered, I also think that without intent, there is no crime. By condemning (and insulting) people who have already become that which we strive for (people who aren't racist and who just don't see race/colour etc. factoring in any decision or view they hold) we are actually undermining that which we strive for.

The t-shirt is not racist, there is no inherent racism in it or it's image. The man who made it is racist, because he implies and promotes a connection that doesn't actually exist. That's the distinction that should be made.

"i honestly have to wonder at the people who say it's racist. why did you assume that a shirt with a monkey on it was racist? if you do, doesn't that make you the racist? sheesh, all i see is curious george with a banana"

So being ignorant of cultural history is OK ? Why do you seem to be proud of being ignorant ? Do you really not know there has been a long history of racists associating black people with monkeys and bananas ? And if you honestly did not, why cannot you not bring yourself to admit you were ignorant of the fact, and accept that the t-shirt is racist, rather than act as an apologist for those who designed it ?

i'm a southerner(south carolina), and i didn't get the reference at first. had i simply voted from looking at the shirt, i would have said "it's fine." i honestly have to wonder at the people who say it's racist. why did you assume that a shirt with a monkey on it was racist? if you do, doesn't that make you the racist? sheesh, all i see is curious george with a banana. if anything, i thought it was a commentary on our current president.

I'm also from SC and you are either being ignorant to the history of comparing Monkey's to blacks being used as a racist technique or you are lying.

That or you are terribly nieve.

Ugh, horrible editing on my part. That's what i get for totally changing a sentence.

Monkey's = monkeys

Has anybody ever considered that people not finding the image on this t-shirt to be offending, shows a society that has conquered racism?

No, it shows an ignorant society.

You can't make a problem go away by sticking your fingers in your ears and singing 'lalalalalala'.

Each generation must be taught that some groups of people thought other groups of people were not human. Each generation must be taught how racism manifested itself in the past so that they can (hopefully) better recognize signs of it emerging again.

Wrapping oneself in willful ignorance of history does not make racism go away. I'm appalled at the shirt and absolutely horrified by the notion that continued ignorance by some can somehow erase history.

Having read through the comments, I still have a hard time believe in the sincerity of those people saying they didn't see the racist connotations until they were pointed out. Admittedly, I'd never heard of Curious George, so I just saw a monkey with a banana linked with Obama's name. All the same, can there really be anyone over the age of 5 who has not come across this most common of racist tropes? Maybe it's that "political correctness" we've been hearing so much about - it's been so successful, younger people just haven't been exposed to it? Maybe... hey! A whole squadron of pigs just flew past the window!

"It's only racist in the context of history and specifically in the context of American (and other) racists using a comparison to apes to insult black people."

Which is exactly what this t-shirt does, and what makes it racist.

I'm 25% African American, 50% native-American and the rest European origin. I got the t-shirt message loud and clean but I laugh when I saw it. I'm used to this nonsense and it's funny. It shows fear, superstition, primitive and ID thinking on Mr. Inept part.

I'm a primate and damn proud of it.

Any different than 8 years of comparing George Bush to a monkey? Is it different just cause Obama's black? Sounds stunningly hypocritical to me.

To answer your questions, ctiberius, yes. When there has been a long historical precedent of blacks being compared to monkeys, gorillas, and the like so as to make them appear subhuman, uncivilized,and unintelligent, there is a difference. There is no racist context that likewise colors a similar comparison with Bush, who is white, rather than Obama. How could they possibly be the same thing? Past use always affects the way we interpret and use language and images and the connections we draw from them, and this shirt is drawing on very well established racist imagery.It's not hypocritical to recognize this.

I've lurked around this website for a long time now, and have always found the discourse in the comments so enlightening and intelligent that I never felt as if I could add much. But this post has really brought out the stupid, and I felt it necessary to try and do something about it.

And yes, it's most likely meant to be racist. But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism.

Bengt77, your solipsism borders on the pathological.

So what do those defending the shirt think that the intended meaning was consciously choosing that picture to use on the shirt?

Why not a picture of a Tree? Or the Sears Tower? Or Captain Kirk?

If it has no meaning, why that picture?

With so little to go on, this begs the question:

Is this racist because the observer thinks it racist, or is it racist because it's simply racist?

A "monkey" reference to those of african decent is certainly a racist notion. This monkey however is known for his curiosity, loveability, and general overall childlike nature. And then there's the banana.

Personally, I find it distasteful. I think it's a bad idea because it's obviously a bad idea. Too many people will see this and either giggle or get upset. Either way, it's because they, the observer, recognize the racism.

Annie

In historic Rockville, Maryland, the street settled by freed slaves was "known to blacks as 'The Lane' or 'The Back Lane' and to whites as 'Monkey Run'."

A 2003 discrimination lawsuit in Baltimore claims employees were called 'sand nigger' and 'black monkey'.

From a 2006 suit:

Beginning in May 2002, Green worked with Jared Howard, a teller at the Washington Avenue location. Howard is a Caucasian male. According to Green's deposition, Howard began harassing her and using racial slurs to describe her. Specifically, Howard called Green "monkey," "black monkey," and "chimpanzee."

The t-shirt is incredibly racist.

Having read through the comments, I still have a hard time believe in the sincerity of those people saying they didn't see the racist connotations until they were pointed out. Admittedly, I'd never heard of Curious George, so I just saw a monkey with a banana linked with Obama's name. All the same, can there really be anyone over the age of 5 who has not come across this most common of racist tropes? Maybe it's that "political correctness" we've been hearing so much about - it's been so successful, younger people just haven't been exposed to it? Maybe... hey! A whole squadron of pigs just flew past the window!

I recall mentioning about 150 comments ago that they don't teach you individual racist slurs in school. One can be quite aware that racism exists and its history in our country without knowing that black people were called monkeys.

Making generalizations that people are stupid and/or racist because they've never run into this sort of thing is...well...stupid. It says more about their class, privilege, geography, what have you, and doesn't mean that they are complicit in racism in any fashion.

Making generalizations that people are stupid and/or racist because they've never run into this sort of thing is...well...stupid. It says more about their class, privilege, geography, what have you, and doesn't mean that they are complicit in racism in any fashion.

Ignorant or naive then.

And probably in some cases, lying.

@ 292

Just in case this isn't a parody (sorry, it's hard to tell for me sometimes).

"you want to support are troops? well then vote for MCcain he was a soldier, unlike abama and hillary, Mccain fought in vietnam, meanwhile obama and hillary wer protesting the war, and spiting on soldiers who wer coming home, do you realy want to vote for some one who protested american soldiers??????????????????????????????"

Holy shit, wow. Please try to learn how to write. It's hard to even understand you. It's the reading equivalent of trying to listen to someone giving a speech while gargling jello.
OK, that said, Do you think having fought in a war gives you some sort of special ability to lead a nation properly? Does sitting in the Hanoi Hilton for 5 years give you extra insight into the complexities of statecraft? Hey, props to McCain for his service from one vet to another, but gimme a break.
Obama was born in 1961. Hard to believe he was out there spitting on troops during the war before he was even a teenager. Actually, there are no documented cases of protesters EVER spitting on troops. There are a hearsay cases which have been mostly discredited. Oh, and Rambo talked about it, but, well, that's a movie.

I'm sure I just wasted 5mn of my time because this MUST be a parody, and if it's not, the writer will be unable to understand anything I've said, but what the hell. Something to do while drinking coffee.

Hi, another poster from Georgia, but I'm one of the 'good guys'. I saw this news article yesterday, and I'm rather disgusted by it. Sadly, yes, the overwhelming majority of people here are racist, and as Ichthyic has made the point repeatedly, it's quite obvious code-speech.

(I also did my part on the poll - happily, it's about 63-65% in favor of sanity at the moment. But, this is Georgia, that may change...)

"I recall mentioning about 150 comments ago that they don't teach you individual racist slurs in school. One can be quite aware that racism exists and its history in our country without knowing that black people were called monkeys."

It might well be possible. However that does not explain the following.

1. Why the t-shirt is still on sale. Had it simply been a ghastly mistake you would expect those selling to be mortified when they realise they missed the racist context. You would also expect them to stop selling the t-shirt with immediate effect, destroy existing stocks and offer the profits from any sales to an organisation that seeks to combat racism. None of this seems to have happened.

2, Why are people still trying to justify the t-shirt. If they really were ignorant about the racist context why not admit that, learn from it, and stop saying there is nothing racist about it.

Those who now know the t-shirt has a racist context have no excuse for their continued attempts to claim there is nothing wrong with it. Ignorance is only a defence up until the time you cease to be ignorant. Support of a racist t-shirt one you know to be racist is racist, and anyone doing it deserves to be labelled as such.

Wow! Where can I get one of these shirts online? Love it!

To the people crying out about this t-shirt being racist:

What are you achieving? What do you hope to achieve? You think that making a stink about this going to dissuade the creators of this stupid t-shirt? Or do you think, just you know, perhaps, that making all this noise is giving them the attention they want and validating their racism as something you recognise?

So what if some fuckwits make a t-shirt they interpret as racist. Their racism comes from within, you're not going to stop them thinking that way by bitching on the internet, you're only joining them in their pathetic interpretation of Curious George.

You're not defeating racism, you are perpetuating it by recognising it.

thank you number 346. i'm not a liar, nor naive, nor racist. i'm only 25 years old which may explain things, seeing as how it's an archaic term at best. i've heard MANY MANY a racial slur, but have never heard a black person called a monkey. EVER.

if that makes me culturally ignorant, i could care less. i don't make it my life's work to go around finding every archaic racist term and whipping it back out 40 years later to use against someone that has never heard it. besides, who considers learning racist terms being cultured? i'd consider that damn near the OPPOSITE of cultured.

i didn't see racism in the shirt until i read the comments, and i'm glad. i'm glad that every time i see a depiction of a monkey or banana, i don't think "OMG RACIST!!" i'm glad that i can't pass that information down to my children, thus sullying an innocent image of a cartoon character.

Cobb county, might have known. When I lived in Atlanta in the early nineties Cobb county had a separate mass transit system. The Cobb county system could ride MARTA (Atlanta's system) with their passes but the MARTA passes were worthless in the Cobb system. Basically to keep Atlanta's car less Blacks and Latinos out of their little white trash clubhouse. Cobb county is politically identical to a trailer park. They are the folks who; gave us Newt Gingrich, almost lost the opportunity to host Olympic volleyball in 92 over some homophobic legislative push, those stickers in biology textbooks and the inevitable follow-up court case.

Yes, it is racist, quite intentionally so.

Makes no sense as an Obama T-Shirt.. Now if it had been used as a Bush T-shirt, I could see it as very accurate.

I live in Atlanta (this shirt is being sold just outside of Atlanta) and I can tell you that this viewpoint is in the minority. In fact, I have seen many street vendors selling pro-Obama shirts.

they don't teach you individual racist slurs in school.

Posted by: Cherish | May 14, 2008 9:51 AM

Just because they're not in the curriculum does not mean that school isn't where most kids learn these kinds of slurs. Of course they don't learn them in school -- but they most certainly do learn them at school. And the only reason that such social peer education would not take place would be a lack of either diversity or racial tension. If you want to bet on which is usually absent, my money's on diversity, but even then it is possible for these kinds of social and racial opinions to show up. Anyone who suggests otherwise is either - as has already been pointed out - ignorant or naive. But I suspect that this case is one of using dishonesty in an attempt to defend a racist suggestion.

"I recall mentioning about 150 comments ago that they don't teach you individual racist slurs in school. One can be quite aware that racism exists and its history in our country without knowing that black people were called monkeys."

It might well be possible. However that does not explain the following.

1. Why the t-shirt is still on sale. Had it simply been a ghastly mistake you would expect those selling to be mortified when they realise they missed the racist context. You would also expect them to stop selling the t-shirt with immediate effect, destroy existing stocks and offer the profits from any sales to an organisation that seeks to combat racism. None of this seems to have happened.

2, Why are people still trying to justify the t-shirt. If they really were ignorant about the racist context why not admit that, learn from it, and stop saying there is nothing racist about it.

Those who now know the t-shirt has a racist context have no excuse for their continued attempts to claim there is nothing wrong with it. Ignorance is only a defence up until the time you cease to be ignorant. Support of a racist t-shirt one you know to be racist is racist, and anyone doing it deserves to be labelled as such.

i didn't see racism in the shirt until i read the comments, and i'm glad. i'm glad that every time i see a depiction of a monkey or banana, i don't think "OMG RACIST!!" i'm glad that i can't pass that information down to my children, thus sullying an innocent image of a cartoon character.

I'm adding dense to the list. Let me say this slowly. It is not just a picture of a monkey and a banana. It's a picture of a monkey and a banana used to denigrate a Black man.

That is the difference, if you can't see that I'm sorry.

I don't think racism every time I see a picture of a monkey and a banana either, but I do recognize it when it is being used in that manner. If you never knew that before, then fine, now you have. Continuing to ignore it doesn't make you racist but it does make you dense.

Please teach your children that Curious George is a fine cartoon for kids. But when it's used in this way, it's not just some innocent cartoon. Which is unfortunate, but it's reality.

"thank you number 346. i'm not a liar, nor naive, nor racist. i'm only 25 years old which may explain things, seeing as how it's an archaic term at best. i've heard MANY MANY a racial slur, but have never heard a black person called a monkey. EVER.

if that makes me culturally ignorant, i could care less. i don't make it my life's work to go around finding every archaic racist term and whipping it back out 40 years later to use against someone that has never heard it. besides, who considers learning racist terms being cultured? i'd consider that damn near the OPPOSITE of cultured.

i didn't see racism in the shirt until i read the comments, and i'm glad. i'm glad that every time i see a depiction of a monkey or banana, i don't think "OMG RACIST!!" i'm glad that i can't pass that information down to my children, thus sullying an innocent image of a cartoon character. "

You may not be racist, naive is arguable, but there you cannot escape the charge of ignorance on the subject.

Now you that are aware that there is a long history racists associating black people with monkeys and bananas I trust you will not longer try to defend this t-shirt, and accept that it is racist ?

And yes, it's most likely meant to be racist. But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism.

Bengt77

Just because you do not see anything racist does not mean that racist people do not miss the meaning. The meaning does not disappear just because you try to ignore it. Earlier, I suggested that one google "nigger", "ape", and "monkey". You will find the people who are keeping racism a strong part of American society.

Blaming people who point out racism for racism do a disservice for all of us.

MartinSGill(#334): That was me--I was addressing Kseniya in my first paragraph. Yes, kind of, but I was trying to say that you can't separate something like that T-shirt from its historical context. Any defence of it is necessarily contrived. The guy clearly knew exactly what he was doing, and is unapologetic. I still think there has to be intent involved, yes, but that's kind of irrelevant to this case. The T-shirt is racist and the guy who is selling them is an arsehole. I think we can consider that proven beyond reasonable doubt. Yes, there are people who see racism everywhere, indended or no, but that doesn't mean that they aren't sometimes, unfortunately, right.

There's a difference often highlighted on this blog between ignorance and wilful ignorance. Hence my comment about "Rush Hour". Chan is playing the innocent, and the incident and subsequent fight are handled as slapstick--the audience is aware that it's all a misunderstanding and can sympathise with Chan, still knowing why he got that reaction. And nobody is really hurt. But if afterwards, somebody had explained to him the cultural context behind what happened, and he'd blustered and defended his right to speech, and undertaken to carry on talking like that knowing the context and how offensive it was, then he'd be behaving like our little trolls here. It's behaviour bordering so closely on racism it's basically indistinguishable from it.

i'm not ignoring it. i see that the intent of the shirt was to be racist. i get that. what i don't appreciate, is that the majority of commenters on here are denigrating the few of us that didn't automatically equate black man with monkey.

i'm not going to stand for being called names simply because i assumed curious george represented george bush.

i'm sure there were people defending the shirt. i'm not. i'm defending my right not to be aware of every racial slur that exists or has existed. i'm defending my right not to be called "naive, racist, dense, uncultured, etc" just because i'm not aware of every racist term that exists or has existed.

you see the difference?

"i'm sure there were people defending the shirt. i'm not. i'm defending my right not to be aware of every racial slur that exists or has existed. i'm defending my right not to be called "naive, racist, dense, uncultured, etc" just because i'm not aware of every racist term that exists or has existed."

You have admitted you were ignorant. If you really did not know that this was a racist slur then fine, but do not make excuses for your ignorance. You should have known, being a part of a society that has a long history of racism and of the use of this particular slur. As a responsible adult you have a duty to be aware of thing such as this, and saying you did not know is not an excuse.

I knew it was slur in America, and I am not even American.

what i don't appreciate, is that the majority of commenters on here are denigrating the few of us that didn't automatically equate black man with monkey.

Being called ignorant or naive isn't an insult unless you choose to continue to be that way.

You are in control of that.

But I suspect that this case is one of using dishonesty in an attempt to defend a racist suggestion.

I grew up in a very culturally homogenous area. However, I also spent a year working in the juvenile detention system in Los Angeles County. I ran into TONS of racism there...and it was very eye-opening.

Even with all the crap I got to hear (I heard a lot, and yes, had to have most of it explained to me), I never heard someone call a black a monkey. Of course, even if I did, I probably wouldn't have known enough to be offended.

And although I would not buy the shirt, now knowing what it means, it's really upsetting that someone would take a cartoon character who is supposed to be a symbol of good qualities in people and use it that way. I can see why a lot of people would be incredulous. If they'd stuck a gorilla on there, it might not be such a big pill to swallow.

I posted a like comment at the newer "Jews Against Obama" thread but I want to register it here as well--

I live in Marietta, Georgia, a beautiful town but unfortunately home to Mike Norman's Mulligan's tavern. So I want to say to Mike Norman:

FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE

This monkey however is known for his curiosity, loveability, and general overall childlike nature. And then there's the banana.

Oh, and I'm sure that this is how you see it when Bush is compared to Curious George. That they are highlighting Bush's curiosity, lovability and childlike nature. [well that last part is right]. No, it is meant as an insult to compare Bush to CG and even without the racial overtones, it would be the same to compare Obama to CG.

Suppose a "vote for Bush" t-shirt showed Bush with a tiny little mustache just under his nose. I guess that would be perfectly fine, after all Charlie Chaplin had a similar mustache, maybe we are comparing him to the "Little Tramp".
Bullshit. and so is your comment.

Here are possible stages one could go through in understanding this, and my interpretation of their meaning:

See a photo of the t-shirt with no context whatsoever.

Don't recognize that it's racist or think it's fine: You're not from the US - plausible that you don't recognize the culturally-specific imagery, but questionable, depending on where you're from. You're from the US - still plausible, but more questionable; there seems to be some willful ignorance going on. You're from the US South - still plausible that you're just ignorant, but more likely you're extremely stupid or racist yourself.

See the t-shirt in the context of this blog post, which you read.

Still don't recognize that it's racist or think it's fine. All groups: Still some plausibility due to ignorance or confusion, but a rational person would have to ask him/herself "Why that picture? What's the meaning of that? Why is this blogger offended?" and want to investigate further before reaching a determination.

Read the article linked to in the post. The man selling it is a racist. He is explicit about and unashamed of his bigotry, and in fact appears to wear it as a badge of honor. His friends having a good laugh over it are racists. People in the town are picketing his racist establishment.

Still don't recognize that it's racist or think it's fine. All groups: If you still think this, it's highly likely that your thinking is severely impaired in some way, either through racism or sheer stupidity. Or you are singularly incapable of recognizing that the world beyond you is independent of your interpretation of it.

Read the comment thread following the post, including the large number of comments explaining the cultural history and contemporary significance of this imagery.

Still don't recognize that it's racist or think it's fine. All groups: You are frightfully stupid or racist, a troll, or some combination thereof.

it's really upsetting that someone would take a cartoon character who is supposed to be a symbol of good qualities in people and use it that way.

Well of course, but it's not like cherished symbols have never been abused by ill meaning groups to further some agenda completely unrelated to the symbol.

2, Why are people still trying to justify the t-shirt. If they really were ignorant about the racist context why not admit that, learn from it, and stop saying there is nothing racist about it.

There is nothing racist about the t-shirt. The only thing that's racist is people drawing a connection between black people and monkeys. There's no way you can defend the man who created it, since that was apparently his intent, and that makes him racist.

A bottle is not a weapon, although it can be used as such. It only becomes a weapon when the wielder intends it to be one. The t-shirt and its image is not racist, it only becomes racist when the creator (and the viewer) intends it (or perceive it) to be racist.

It wasn't racist until someone pointed out that connection and/or that intent, or made that connection themselves. The t-shirt and image can be defended, it's done nothing wrong. The man who created it with the intent of a racial slur cannot be defended and should be condemned.

If Obama decided he liked the t-shirt and adopted it, would you consider him racist? Surely if the t-shirt is inherently racist, as many people here are arguing, then obama (or any black man) wearing it must also be a racist?

It's not racist when a black person wears it because there is no intent. Hence, the t-shirt isn't racist, the man intended it to be racist is racist. The t-shirt should not be sold by that racist man. I'd have nothing against Obama's campaign selling it though.

Condemn the racist. Condemning the t-shirt is like condemning the bottle, when you should be condemning the person that whacked you over the head with it.

"People can only define Curious George as something racist if they themselves are racist."
In presumably much the same way as those who recognise a swastika or a burning cross as something racist are the REAL racists. Get a grip.

Nin, again, #352

fantastic logic !

Or do you think, just you know, perhaps, that making all this noise is giving them the attention they want and validating their racism as something you recognise?

No, condemning is not the same as recognizing which is not the same as validating.
So for you, the only way not to validate something that you condemm is to keep quiet ?

So what if some fuckwits make a t-shirt they interpret as racist. Their racism comes from within, you're not going to stop them thinking that way by bitching on the internet, you're only joining them in their pathetic interpretation of Curious George.

So here again, you admit that the intention was clearly racist, but if someone somehow condemns it, he's joining them in the racism ? Jeebus how confusing is this ?

You're not defeating racism, you are perpetuating it by recognising it.

So for you, the best is to deny that there is any racial prejudice in this country, deny that this pathetic guy is a racist, and things are just going to get better from themselves ?
History, my friend, shows that this has never worked. Never. Denial is the worst one can do to fight aginst prejudices. You have to systematically denounce them, always. And it is because of people like you who make excuses and want to keep things quiet, that prejudices remain fiercly engraved into people's minds, and that still in 2008, this kind of thing can happen.

The Author's Intent Doesn't Matter

The real or imagined intent of an author (of alleged hate) is only relevant when charging an author with a crime. It's irrelevant when determining the damage or the effect of hate.
Take a swastika for example. Sure, maybe a gaggle of Buddhists who happened to be visiting from Tibet, happened by a synagogue and decided they urgently needed to pray, so spray painted a swastika on the wall. That's perfectly innocent, however, the damage that is about to be done results from what that symbol means to the Jews in this neighborhood, irrespective of what the symbol means to its author.
Of course, Buddhists aren't racists, but swastikas are - unless the author does something to clarify its meaning (ie. left a little note reading "thanks for letting us pray - the Buddhists").

I noticed a few people were having problems with this. There are three separate questions here: is the author racist? is the shirt racist? is it hate?

You're not defeating racism, you are perpetuating it by recognising it.

Beat racism not by confronting it by ignoring it? Idiocy.

if there had been a line drawn through curious george it would make more sense. The messsage however seems to be "pro" Obama.

MartinSGill, while I see the point you are trying to make but I think you miss the obvious point. We're having this conversation because of the shirt and because of who is selling it.

Taken on it's own to a completely ignorant person, yes the shirt is not racist. But we don't live in a vacuum.

Excerpted from today's NYT:

Clinton Beats Obama Handily in West Virginia

[*snip*]

Mrs. Clinton defeated Senator Barack Obama Tuesday in a primary where racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor. She drew strong support from white, working-class voters who have spurned Mr. Obama in recent contests.

The number of white Democratic voters who said that race influenced their choice on Tuesday was among the highest recorded in voter surveys in the Clinton-Obama nomination fight. Two in 10 white West Virginia voters said that race was an important factor in their vote, and more than 8 in 10 of them backed Mrs. Clinton, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls.

[*snip*]

The voter surveys showing a strong racial component to the West Virginia voting suggest that Mr. Obama would still face pockets of significant Democratic resistance if he does become the party's first black nominee.

[*snip*]

[N]o Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia since 1916.

i'm defending my right not to be called "naive, racist, dense, uncultured, etc" just because i'm not aware of every racist term that exists or has existed.

That's not a right.

if there had been a line drawn through curious george it would make more sense. The messsage however seems to be "pro" Obama.

And burning a cross in someone's yard is a reminder that Jesus loves you very much.

So I guess it's only okay to portray Republican presidents with the initials GWB as monkeys...

MartinSGill @ 371,

Here's where your argument falls down. We're saying the shirt is racist, because of the context. Now think of your bottle. If it's used to hit someone with and cause harm, we'd say it was a weapon. Why? Because it can and was used in that way. You, apparently would say "No! The bottle isn't a weapon. It's not the bottles fault!" Context matters.

Why do you think you can't have glass bottles in the stands at baseball games? Or baseball bats for that matter? Just because some here would say "Wow! I never thought of a bottle as being a weapon!" will still not get you into the game with one.

Oh, and BHO isn't even black, so how is the t-shirt racist?

That's perfectly innocent, however, the damage that is about to be done results from what that symbol means to the Jews in this neighborhood, irrespective of what the symbol means to its author.

Swastikas have been used for millenia by Buddhists, long before the Nazis misappropriated it. And, in fact, when I lived in CA, a nearby Buddhist temple came under fire for exactly this. Once people realized that the Buddhist symbol is rotated the opposite way and has been used by the Buddhists for far longer than it had been associated with the Nazis, they felt ignorant.

You have to look at intent. Just because someone wears the shirt or likes the shirt doesn't mean they're racist. Context and intent aren't the same for everyone, and just because you have that association doesn't mean everyone does!

And yes, it's most likely meant to be racist. But I chose not to view it that way. And that, I believe, is how to overcome racism. The same as bullies in a schoolyard. Once their victims choose to ignore them, the bullying loses it's appeal.

Writing as someone who was the victim of a decent amount of schoolyard bullying as a child, I'd just like to point out that ignoring bullies does NOT work. Suggesting that it does is perhaps the most dangerous thing you can tell your kids. The ONLY thing that works with bullies is standing up to them.

Same principle applies here.

jsn, really please. You're embarrassing yourself.

You have to look at intent. Just because someone wears the shirt or likes the shirt doesn't mean they're racist. Context and intent aren't the same for everyone, and just because you have that association doesn't mean everyone does!

Right, but do you know recognize the intent?

The ONLY thing that works with bullies is standing up to them.

Same principle applies here.

Posted by: spencer

I was bullied. I walked away. The bullies didn't get their emotional high from getting a reaction out of me. They quit bullying me.

know = now

fingers moving to fast

So I guess it's only okay to portray Republican presidents with the initials GWB as monkeys...

Has anybody said that? No, just that it isn't racist to compare GWB to a monkey, but it is still clearly meant as an insult.

In fact it seems there are quite a few commenting that because GWB has been compared to Curious George, then it must not be racist and in fact must be some kind of compliment (based on everyones love of CG) to compare Obama to CJ. That takes some serious rationalization to come to that conclusion.

Folks who don't see this image as racist remind me of Sarah Silverman's joke about trying to get out of jury duty by scrawling "I hate Chinks" on the letter she is to send back to the court, but is afraid that'll seem racist, so she writes "I love Chinks" instead.

The racists are counting on ignorance of the monkey slur; it's a coded message that means nothing to many but everything to a few.

jsn, really please. You're embarrassing yourself.

Am I really?

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp

'Nuff said.

"I was bullied. I walked away. The bullies didn't get their emotional high from getting a reaction out of me. They quit bullying me."

I don't believe you.

Not only is it racist, it is incorrectly punctuated (the apostrophe is the wrong way round) - and that's a hanging offense to me.

Right, I'm going to put my hand up and be one of these young folks brought up ignorant to the black man=monkey insult.

When I first laid eyes on this T-shirt I saw Curious George and thought, "Aw, Curious George wants Obama for president". I then educated myself by reading the comments and realised the completely appalling racism intended by producing the T-shirt.

See? That wasn't too hard.

yawn, screen name attack. How quaint.

Says the person with http://fckff.com as his contact site.

Sent to Houghton Miflin:

"I'm sure that I am not the first to direct you to this, but I'd appreciate you suing Mike Norman into the dirt:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/05/what_year_is_this_again.php

Yes, that's right - He is selling T-shirts comparing (implicitly) Senator Obama as Curious George, one of your trademarks. I'm sure a C&D is already on the way - but you can do so much more!"

PS

if that makes me culturally ignorant, i could care less

Posted by: jenni | May 14, 2008 10:01 AM

I could care less makes no sense whatsoever. I believe you mean, I couldn't care less. There, fixed!

Dahan @382

No, the analogy doesn't fall down.

The bottle in the baseball stadium is not allowed because people that are excited and/or in a strongly emotional/agitated state are considerably more likely to intend to (and actually) use a bottle as a weapon than those that aren't.

A more prominent reason they aren't allowed is that glass becomes dangerous even without any intent, simply by dropping it, and in a crowded area that is a much greater hazard than fights breaking out, so not having glass is a good thing regardless. Banning it just has an additional benefit.

Apply your analogy back to the t-shirt and what you'd have is that racists are not allowed to print their own t-shirts because racists are considerably more likely to intend to use them as a platform for racial slurs than non-racists.

@Cherish #384

Not all versions of Buddhist and Hindu swastikas go in the opposite direction. But that doesn't matter. One can't assume that a viewer of a swastika spray-painted on a wall is familiar with the history of the swastika.

"You have to look at intent." - Cherish

A T-Shirt is incapable of intent. It is not alive. It doesn't think. It doesn't plan. It has no intent. It just is.

"Just because someone wears the shirt or likes the shirt doesn't mean they're racist." - Cherish

I didn't say they were. I said it doesn't matter. Or rather, it doesn't matter when determining whether the T-Shirt is racist. Intent only matters for the author or wearer.

"Context and intent aren't the same for everyone, and just because you have that association doesn't mean everyone does!" - Cherish

This works both ways. If you can't say the T-Shirt is racist because some people don't see it that way, then you can't it isn't racist for the same reason.

So which is it? Is it both?

Just to stick up for Georgia, it's not fair to impute this guy's racism to the entire state. First because the odds are, like most people in the metro Atlanta area, he's not even from here.

And second, Obama won the Democratic primary in Georgia quite handily, getting more than twice the votes Hillary got and more than twice the votes the Republican primary winner got.

I can appreciate the outrage at racist expressions, but why make the same mistake and generalize the thoughts and actions of one man to apply to the residents of an entire state?

I don't believe you.

Posted by: spurge

That's okay. I never expected you or anyone else here to believe me in the first place.

The fact is that the bullies I faced were older and bigger than me. I was a skinny little dweeb with glasses. "Standing up to them" would've done nothing for me and would've given them exactly what they wanted, namely a reaction and something to hit which couldn't hit back (not well, anyway). They would've come back for more.

I please beg the commenters here to stop with the same repetitive argument that "curious George" in itself is not a racist symbol.

So, ounce and for all, it is the association curious george with obama, in the current context that makes this T-shirt racist. Moreover, the additional info regarding the guy who came up with this pathetic idea makes it even clearer that it was his intention. Ok ?

Maybe a few examples will be useful :

which of the following t-shirts are racist :

1. tree + obama
2. bee + obama
3. gorilla + obama
4. eagle + obama
5. waterfall + obama
6. bonobo + obama
7. light bulb + obama

i'm defending my right not to be called "naive, racist, dense, uncultured, etc" just because i'm not aware of every racist term that exists or has existed.

That's not a right.

Exactly, sir. Thanks for pointing that out; it is amazing what people think 'rights' are. I blame a lack of compulsory logic classes from a young age.

Everyone owes it to themselves to read the eminently accessible and inexpensive "Crimes Against Logic" by logician and philosopher Jamie Whyte.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon…

Says the person with http://fckff.com as his contact site.

Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp

Unlike your screen name, the "contact site" I use has a deeper meaning. Pea Zee probably would recognize it.

All the "No one ever calls anyone a monkey anymore, how are we supposed to know about it?!?" commenters: Does Macaca ring a bell?

In 2006 a republican senator was defeated in large part because he called an Indian (darker skinned) audience member a monkey.

But no one does that anymore, right?

Yikes, I'm a sheltered little white girl from Canada and even I know that that t-shirt is offensive and racist. Don't make excuses for this people. If you weren't aware of this kind of racist imagery before, you are now. Acknowledge it for what it is, speak out against it and learn from this experience. That's how you fight racism not by denying it exists.

Even with all the crap I got to hear (I heard a lot, and yes, had to have most of it explained to me), I never heard someone call a black a monkey. Of course, even if I did, I probably wouldn't have known enough to be offended.

Posted by: Cherish | May 14, 2008 10:24 AM

Personal presence or individual experience is not necessary to recognize the racism inherent in calling a black man a monkey. You can continue to assert that you haven't come across this specific insult in your own life, but to say that you've never encountered it is highly suspect. If you claim that you've never seen or heard of this specific - and quite common - insult on the news, in print, in school, or anywhere else in modern culture or in studying our recent past, then you're either lying or dangerously oblivious.

Cherish and MartinSGill - Visual images are a shared language, just like spoken or written language.

By your (il)logic, it should be fine for me if people spraypaint "Kill All the Jews" all over my town, as long as it's written in a language I don't read, like Russian. And even if people who can read Russian explain to me what it means, I should still think it's fine because to me it just looks like some pretty symbols.

Would you be OK with people putting up swastika banners around your town, since they're just scraps of cloth with some lines arranged in a shape, and that shape has had other meanings in completely different cultural contexts?

Any symbol - spoken, written, pictorial, or whatever - has meaning only within a shared cultural system. This image/text has a meaning in the culture (and subculture) in which it was created. I don't make the symbol O not mean what it does in chemistry because I use it as a letter in my language, just as you don't remove the racism from this image in its context by pointing out that it lacks that meaning outside of that context.

I seriously don't understand the need for slurs. They sound dumb which would probably explain the IQ (or lack thereof) of the person who designed this shirt.

My issues with this shirt are more did they get copyright permission to use 'Curious George'? I had a hell of a time trying to get a cake with his face on it, and had to pay threw the nose to get it, because of copyrights. I would not care if Obama was purple, and a dinosour... what worries me about him is any ties he might have to Richard Daily... the crime boss... er mayor of chicago for many years....

NO! Surely we are in a post-racial era now. 'Cept for the racism of them macaca types.

I was bullied. I walked away. The bullies didn't get their emotional high from getting a reaction out of me. They quit bullying me.

Oh, well, I guess your sample size of 1 proves me wrong. When I tried the "just ignore it, they'll lose interest" route, it really *did* work. I was just too stupid to notice.

Thanks for clearing that up.

321 "Any different than 8 years of comparing George Bush to a monkey?"

In that case it is an insult to the monkey.

Is it really the case in America that the racist comparison of black people to monkeys never gets brought up in the media ? I may be wrong, but I do find that a little hard to believe, which is why I find it hard to believe those who claim they were unaware of the slur. Now it maybe these people have led very sheltered lives, and do not read the papers, watch TV, listen to the radio or go online, in which case I suspect it is possible they are unaware of the fact. However such a person can hardly consider themselves as being very responsible members of society as such membership brings with it duties, one of which it is be aware of overt and hidden prejudice and the forms it takes.

And as for Jenni, who seems to be proud of her ignorance, I can only hope she comes to regret her stupidity later in life, when she has become an proper adult. I do hope she is not a student at present as I pity those charged with imparting knowledge to her.

what worries me about him is any ties he might have to Richard Daily... the crime boss... er mayor of chicago for many years....

Posted by: KH | May 14, 2008 11:29 AM

Considering that he's a senator from Illinois, it would be suspect if he didn't have some sort of interation with the mayor of Chicago (and it Richard Daley by the way...just to make sure you're accurate when making a faulty case of guilt-by-association). What matters is how the two are connected - and the answer is that he came to Obama's defense concerning the Ayers affair.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/mayor-daley-the.html

And concerning connections, the article mentions that Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of two of Ayers' associates - people that are now supposedly the reason no one should trust Obama. The campaign manager's response in the article is politically priceless.

In a conference call with reporters today, Clinton spokesmen Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer argued that Obama's political relationship with Ayers was more important than the decision by Clinton's husband, ex-President Bill Clinton, to commute the sentences of two of Ayers' former Weather Underground members, Susan Rosenberg and Linda Evans, on terrorist-related weapons charges...Asked if Hillary Clinton had expressed any disagreement with her husband's action, Wolfson said only that he would ask the candidate.

I wonder if that question ever got asked, much less answered. I somehow doubt it.

1. tree + obama
2. bee + obama
3. gorilla + obama
4. eagle + obama
5. waterfall + obama
6. bonobo + obama
7. light bulb + obama

Now, if you did not answer 3 and 6, it is probably because :

a) you do not know that gorilla and bonobo are primates, sometimes referred to as "monkeys"

b) you do not know that for centuries, us white folks have felt that there was much more ressemblance between monkeys and africans and have used this to conclude that somehow, descendants from africans must be less intelligent than us superior races (this is a racist argument, if any !)

c) you do not know that for centuries, african americans have suffered from this

d) you do not know that still today, african americans suffer from racial prejudices

e) you do not know that because of all this history, the net result is that on average, if you were born african american in the USA, your net worth on average would be approximately 1/8 (one eight !) of that of the average caucasian american. This is what some call equality of chances at birth.

f) you do not know that things have not improved at all over the last 20 years , and that this basic injustice permeates all aspects of the American society

Well said Matt P @#418.

Does Macaca ring a bell?

No, I'd never heard about that, either, until I read the comments.

Arguing with racists never changes their mind. The only thing that is going to change people's mind is for them to have positive interactions with people from that race and realize how they may have been wrong about believing hurtful things or to see others of their race interacting positively. I can't do much about the first, not being minority, but I try very hard to set a good example. That's all I can really do. Making myself aware of all the possible ways someone could try to denigrate another really will not serve any purpose.

Making myself aware of all the possible ways someone could try to denigrate another really will not serve any purpose.

In other words, an understanding of oppression is unnecessary for combatting oppression.

Curious George, Curious Georgia. If you think its racist, you think too much about the wrong things.

I'm really surprised at the people who fail to see the racism in that picture. You must live very cloistered lives.

Here, let me wake you up. Sit down, compose yourself, and follow this link to a representative thread on the Vanguard News Network. Warning: VNN is an openly racist, white supremacist site.

This trope that black people can be demeaned by regarding them as 'lower', ape-like creatures is very, very old; it's also been applied to any 'other' race, from the Irish to the Japanese, to tag them as subhuman. My earliest exposure to casual racism that I recall was a relative, a flaming kook of a John Bircher, who gave me some of his literature comparing blacks to gorillas. He thought it was hilarious. I thought it was stupid, because it confused derived and primitive traits (large lips, for instance, make people less gorilla-like). But the point is that this is a historically common racist claim, one that has been repeated over and over, and you better perk up and pay attention.

Racism thrives on ignorance. Don't contribute to it.

Making myself aware of all the possible ways someone could try to denigrate another really will not serve any purpose.

Yes, knowledge is a bad thing. I know that's snarky, but come on.

You never heard the Macaca thing?

I'm asking this in seriousness. Do you keep up with the news or is it something you're not interested in (which is fine too)?

Would you be OK with people putting up swastika banners around your town, since they're just scraps of cloth with some lines arranged in a shape, and that shape has had other meanings in completely different cultural contexts?

Actually, given my half-German heritage and strong desire to never see that part of history ever happen again, I'd still not object to those flags unless they were put there to express support of those ideals. I consider myself intelligent enough to distinguish the symbol from the intent. I'd also realise that many people might not.

The swastika is not inherently racist/anti-semitic or whatever. It was the symbol of the nazi party, and now also the symbol of those that still share those views. I'd be concerned if a german town raised such flags, it could send the wrong message, given the cultural background. The big difference is that culturally to me the connection between swastika and nazi party is unmissable. The connection between a monkey and black person never crossed my mind (not atleast until I started wondering what all the fuss was about). There is still nothing inherently racist in that picture.

In an area apparently suffering from such widespread racism as parts of the US do it might be inappropriate; but that still doesn't make it inherently or even explicitly racist.

Red is our cultural symbol for danger, yet that doesn't mean everything red has to be dangerous, or in fact that something red is dangerous at all. It all comes back to intent and context.

The intent is the crime. Intent turns something harmless into something offensive.

"Kill all Jews" cannot be anything other than offensive (I bet everyone here, even those that never recognised the monkey connection, would condemn such a t-shirt), a t-shirt with a monkey and a name on it is considerably more ambiguous and open to interpretation.

It only becomes offensive once you recognise that it's a monkey, recognise that the name belongs to someone who happens to be black and then make the connection that jerks from 30 years ago in some far-away and at the time considerably culturally backward country popularised the notion that one was like the other.

I'm sorry that you've been brainwashed into having that connection permanently hard-wired into your brain. I'm actually quite pleased that I don't have that and that for me, unlike you, there is no automatic connection (other than simple genetics) between black people and monkeys.

It only becomes offensive once you recognise that it's a monkey, recognise that the name belongs to someone who happens to be black and then make the connection that jerks from 30 years ago in some far-away and at the time considerably culturally backward country popularised the notion that one was like the other.

Here's the issue--PEOPLE DO THE SAME GODDAMNED THING TODAY! It's not an artifact of history, it's still contemporary practice. The t-shirt itself is evidence of that.

Thank you MAJeff.

I'm sorry that you've been brainwashed into having that connection permanently hard-wired into your brain

Context, context, context.

It is not hardwired that I think of black people when I see monkeys. I am however cognizant of the fact that it is used in this fashion by people with less that stellar motivations and I am also aware enough of my surroundings to recognize it when it is being used that way.

"The only thing that is going to change people's mind is for them to have positive interactions with people from that race and realize how they may have been wrong about believing hurtful things or to see others of their race interacting positively." - Cherish

There are so many things wrong with this sentence, I'm just not sure where to start.

- changing people's minds isn't the only concern
- positive interactions don't necessarily override negative ones
- positive interactions don't necessarily lead to right realizations
- how can one know they were wrong about "believing hurtful things" when they don't know the "possible ways" one can be hurtful?

...and on and on.

First, a point of information for the naive and the nitwits present: a noose, as a reminder of the long nasty history of lynching in the US, is indeed racist and a threat. So, it does not bode well for Senator Obama that a (white) Secret Service agent has been charged with placing a noose in the locker of a (black) Secret Service officer at the Service's training center in Maryland.

Second, it's obvious that Obama's candidacy is not only bringing more and more bigots out from under their rocks, but that the Clinton and Republican smear machines are both exploiting and encouraging this reaction, hoping to gain a few points without regard for the lasting damage thereby caused to the United States. (I've claimed all along that H. Clinton is the most Republican of the Democratic candidates, but am still dismayed at how low she stoops to prove me right.)

Third, look at how racism in official policies is making a comeback in such unsubtle ways as the new voting requirements being pushed in Missouri, Indiana, etc, as well as through the xenophobic hysteria of the anti-immigrant movement.

Fourth, please consider the likely scenario of Obama being elected in spite of this. Given that the Republicans still control the broadcast media, the courts, and (with connivance of "blue dog"/"boll weevil" Democrats) a major part of Congress, and that he will face the wreckage and bankruptcy of Bush's legacy - plus the typical lapse into lethargy of most progressives once a "good guy" wins office - Obama's prospects for failure are non-trivial. Couple that with the continuing chorus of bigotry (some sincere, some opportunistic) from those who want him to fail for their own narrow purposes, and it's not at all hard to imagine losing forty years of fitful but tangible progress in American racial relations.

At the least, we're looking at the emergence of a substantial racist bloc so overt and nasty that even the blissninny denialists popping up in this thread will be able to smell it.

MartinSGill,

I think you are a stupid ignorant fuckwit with less intelligence than the remains of the cabbage sitting in my fridge.

Now please do not think I am insulting you, as you do not know in what context I am using the words ignorant, fuckwit, intelligence, cabbage and fridge. If you still think I have insulted you, then it is your fault for putting the meanings those words that you do.

So I think we can all feel free to call you whatever we like, knowing it will mean nothing, can mean nothing, to you.

Now please go outside and play whilst the adults have a chat.

Thank you MAJeff.

My "pleasure" (?).

This is frustrating and personal for me. Yeah, I'm white. But, I also teach race and ethnicity courses at the college level, which tend to attract disproportionate numbers of students of color. I get so tired of hearing stories about being pulled over for "driving while black" on the way to a movie, or being told an apartment was no longer available--after being told it was on the phone--once they showed up at the door and the landlord saw they were black. I'm sick of hearing students talk about watching their mothers being followed around a store simply for speaking another language. Actually, what I'm sick of is the fact that this bullshit still goes on.

And then we have to put up with fools who are like, "Good for me for willfully ignoring that this happens! That makes me great!"

I would add that ignorant, fuckwit, intelligence, cabbage and fridge and just symbols in your screen. A series of pixels in a pattern. Meaningless in themselves, until you put those pixels in the context of making up letters from the English alphabet to put together to form English words that are intended as an insult to MartinSGill.

Of course he will not see them as such, to him they will remain pixels making up symbols with no meaning.

i remember now why i infrequently visit this website. most of the commentators on here would rather insult than engage in honest debate. all i said was that i had never heard a racial slur in reference to calling black people monkeys.

now that's turned into people feeling the need to correct my grammar, fling insults, and say that they hope no children are entrusted to me because i'm proud of my ignorance.

again, not knowing all racist terms from the beginning of time isn't ignorant. and if it is, it's an ignorance we should all embrace. because at the end of the day, if no one recognized this bigot's t-shirt as racist, and assumed, as i did, that he was making fun of george bush, it would have literally neutered him and his childish point(which i think was "obama looks like a monkey").

feel free to disagree with me, but do so in an adult manner, at least.

Well, DUH! OF COURSE IT'S RACIST!! Why else would they use a monkey?! Why not a wise old owl, or a bald eagle or a tiger, etc?

GET A CLUE, Blacks have been insulted by being called "apes" and/or "monkeys" for hundreds of years!

I'll tell you this, I do believe that some folks (probably all white) honestly didn't think the t-shirt was racist, but they probably haven't ever been persecuted for their race either. Further, I bet about 99.9999% of any and all black folks if asked if this t-shirt is racist would respond with a resounding "YES!" Now what does THAT tell you? What matters is, is if the folks who are the TARGET of this kind of garbage pick up on it / are offended by it, then yes, it is indeed RACIST. 'Nuf said.

I think it's racist and I helped bomb the poll. The only black person I talk to regularly (about politics) is my hairdresser. She has a fatalistic feeling that Obama will be murdered and that will be the end of that. Or, if he lives, "they" won't let him be president. She hasn't voted in decades. I told her she might be right, but that Obama was definitely going to be the nominee. Her response had a tone of tentative fearful hope that almost made me cry.

Racism is not even remotely like what it was 40 years ago, but it's still out there.

again, not knowing all racist terms from the beginning of time isn't ignorant. and if it is, it's an ignorance we should all embrace. because at the end of the day, if no one recognized this bigot's t-shirt as racist, and assumed, as i did, that he was making fun of george bush, it would have literally neutered him and his childish point(which i think was "obama looks like a monkey").

It is ignorant. You need to go look up what that word means. And again, you don't fight oppression by ignoring it, pretending it doesn't exist, and then being proud of not knowing that it does. That's ignorance, and it's sad as hell that you're proud of it.

I have to say that it's great some people have never heard of African Americans being referred to as monkeys. Isn't that progress? My grandmother is racist and makes that analogy when she sees African Americans on TV. She doesn't even realize there is anything wrong with that. For those of us who have heard the slur, it's apparent what's wrong. The color of a person's skin doesn't change their intelligence, their ability to think, inspire or create change. The only thing that impedes those things are narrow minds.

Dagny McKinley
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

"now that's turned into people feeling the need to correct my grammar, fling insults, and say that they hope no children are entrusted to me because i'm proud of my ignorance."

Jenni,

You really do have problems with reading. I did not say children should not be entrusted to you, I said that if you were a student I pity those entrusted with teaching you as you have made it very clear you think ignorance is just fine.

The precise comment was "I do hope she is not a student at present as I pity those charged with imparting knowledge to her." I find it hard to think you could have misread that comment by mistake.

"again, not knowing all racist terms from the beginning of time isn't ignorant. "

Er, yes it is. Sorry, but I think you are either lying or English is not easy for you to understand. If it is the latter then I am sorry, but maybe you should not comment in discussions that take place in English until you have improved.

Jenni, I see what you are trying to say, I really do. But the thing is, ignoring something doesn't make it go away. Yes, it would be great if no one knew any racist slurs, wouldn't it? Well, that isn't going to happen, so we should be able to recognise and condemn them when they do happen.

Besides, sweeping 300+ years of horrible racial abuse under the carpet isn't something that I'm willing to do. Like I said earlier, I didn't recognise the black man=monkey slur when I first looked at the T-shirt, I now do. Do I feel sullied by this new-found knowledge? NO. I do not now immediately associate black people with monkeys, but I will be able to recognise it being done in the future and can better understand social history.

The only black person I talk to regularly (about politics) is my hairdresser. She has a fatalistic feeling that Obama will be murdered and that will be the end of that.

NPR reported on this phenomenon a few months ago. They interviewed a lot of black women in hair dressing salons and there was a consensus that although they loved Obama, they weren't going to vote for him out of fear that if he did get elected he would be assasinated.

From the article cited by Pierce R. Butler in #431:

When asked about the abundant controversial pardons and commutations in his last days, and even hours, in office, she answered with this:

Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said: "People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them."

Wow - THAT is the kind of person I want running this country. So her experience gleaned during her husband's presidency was the same kind learned by a kid delivering a message to grown-ups. Exactly how is that valuable to her ability to actually be President?

And it is also interesting to note that it wasn't Bill's family pulling them into these messes, but instead it was Hilary's. Her two brothers were central in the scandal, and should be being discussed again in the presidential discussion. Somehow, in all of the talk about her immense experience, her Godfather-style handling of her husband's official documents seems like a bad quality for a future President. But maybe that's just me.

I'd still not object to those flags unless they were put there to express support of those ideals.

That is just too imbecilic to warrant a response. Well, no - You seem to think that because symbols have no inherent meaning, that we can individually selectively attribute meaning to the symbols we use or view, and ignore or reject those existing in the broader culture at our will. That's not how it works.

"Kill all Jews" cannot be anything other than offensive (I bet everyone here, even those that never recognised the monkey connection, would condemn such a t-shirt), a t-shirt with a monkey and a name on it is considerably more ambiguous and open to interpretation.

You've missed my point completely. That sentence, as you've typed it, has meaning to us because we can read English, we form part of a shared culture that can make shared sense of those symbols. That meaning is offensive. To someone who doesn't read that language, who does not share that culture, it is merely some straight and curved lines. They will only understand it if you explain its meaning.

If that's all you're saying - that symbols have no inherent meaning outside of that attributed to them by cultures - well, of course not. No one here is saying that every picture of a monkey is inherently racist, or that a picture of Curious George is inherently racist, or that a t-shirt with a picture of Curious George is inherently racist, or that this t-shirt would necessarily be racist in Timbuktu. It is a racist statement (symbol, gesture - whatever works for you, but this is what we're getting at when we talk about the t-shirt being racist; is this where you're getting stuck?) within the specific cultural context in which it was created and viewed. That's what we're saying.

That shirt is racist? I thought it was implying Obama's belief in The Way Of The Master...

I emailed the folks at the Curious George website, below, letting them know this guy was using the Curious George image for personal profit (and probably not paying a royalty). heh heh
http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/parentsteachers/help/contact_us_s.html

matt, i wasn't referring to your comment. i was referring to one made about the children that i don't have by another commenter much further up the page. since i have already once stated that i reside in the south, and based on my other comments, you should have been able to reasonably assume that i'm american, and thusly, speak almost perfect english...not perfect, though (thank you grammar police for the i couldn't care less comment)!

as i have already stated, i recognize that the intent of the shirt is to be racist. i disagreee that i as a person need to seek out every single racial slur through the history of time to fight oppression. in fact, i personally think it's better to ignore twits like the maker of the t-shirt. i know others disagree, and that's fine. i won't call your comprehension skills into question. i just feel that this man made this t-shirt to get attention, and he has succeeded. i prefer not to reward bigots and racists with the attention they're seeking. i can't change their minds, so all i can do is quietly diagree with them, and hopefully, one day raise children that also disagree them, and hope they raise children that....well, you get the point. i think many people on here feel that by speaking out against this behavior, they can change it, and that is just not so(at least in my experience in debating racists).

i'm not proud that i didn't know the term. i said i was glad. there's a difference. what i am proud of is that i've made my point without denigrating others. how are any of you better than the racist? how can any of you bash racism while insulting someone else in the same breath? it really makes no sense whatsoever. just because you're throwing your barbs at one person instead of an entire group doesn't make you a better person. in fact, they hurt just as much.

it's really disappointing to find out that even educated people can be so short-sighted.

Come on, it's Georgia.. whaddya expect? I'd rather not even visit the site - giving them a hit - than try and sway some nitwit's poll.

btw, I don't think Obama will actually change much.. at least not the kind of change we really need - but none of the candidates will do that.

OOPS! My bad! THIS is the Curious George website!

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/cgsite/

did they get copyright permission to use 'Curious George'? I had a hell of a time trying to get a cake with his face on it, and had to pay threw the nose to get it, because of copyrights. I would not care if Obama was purple, and a dinosour...

That would also involve copyright issues...

One issue on this thread is that several commentators claim not to have realized that monkeys are used as a derogatory symbol for African-Americans. A common response has been that it is simply a fact that monkeys remain a derogatory symbol for African-Americans and that those who do realize this are culpably ignorant. A couple of comments:

1. One needs to resist the temptations of meaning essentialism when it comes to racist (and other) symbols. The meanings of symbols are conventional, not essential. Monkeys are derogatory symbols for African Americans only insofar as there is a conventional practice of using and understanding them in this way.

2. The same symbol can have different conventional uses different social groups or in a single social group at different times. The swastika is an anti-semitic symbol in the West b/c there is a conventional practice of using and understanding it that way; it symbolizes purity in India b/c there is a conventional practice in India of using and understanding it in that way.

3. In principle at least, something which has historically been a derogatory symbol for African Americans (or any other group) could cease to have that symbolic meaning. This occurs when the conventional practice of using and understanding it in that way terminates, or more likely, becomes entirely local (like a code used by a group of friends as opposed to a meaningful use of an expression in the broader linguistic community of which they are a part).

4. In the case at hand, the fact several people claimed not to realize that monkeys are a derogatory symbol for African-Americans (at least if we take them at their word) may offer some evidence that the conventional practice of using and understanding it in this way has become less widespread and may even be on its way to termination. Nevertheless the fact that so many people still use and understand it in this way suggests that it has certainly not yet found its way to history's dustbin.

5. Even if the use of monkeys as a derogatory symbol for African-Americans is on its way to termination, this does not by itself establish any abatement of racism. This symbol could, after all, simply be replaced by another equally heious symbol, or other current derogatory symbols could come into more widespread use.

6. Contra to what some commentators have said, intentions of symbol users do not by themselves determine what a symbol means. It is no more true that a monkey is a derogatory symbol for African-Americans only if someone intentionally uses it in that way than it is that the word "snow" refers to snow only if the person using it intends to thereby refer to snow. Of course, to get a meaning-convention up and running, many people do have to originally use the symbol with the intended meaning.

7. If a single symbol is used differently in different symbol systems, then what an individual's use a of symbol means depends upon what symbol system she is using. In most cases, the individual may be conversant only in one of the systems in which the symbol is used. But in a case where a symbol-user is conversant in multiple systems, which system she is using may be a matter of intention.

I was absolutely shocked that any American would seriously claim to be unaware of the monkey-African American bit in racism. But then I remembered that at 19 years old (and from a very liberal family who explicitly addressed issues like racism as I was growing up) I had to be told that the term "porch monkeys" had not actually been invented to describe frat boys. I don't consider it a particular virtue to be able to claim ignorance of popular stereotypes or slurs. It is important to be aware of what is out there.

i'm not proud that i didn't know the term. i said i was glad. there's a difference. what i am proud of is that i've made my point without denigrating others. how are any of you better than the racist? how can any of you bash racism while insulting someone else in the same breath

There is no moral equivalence there. That's not really the best way to go about this.

jenni, you seem like a perfectly nice person but you also seem to not understand that calling someone ignorant or naive is not the same as calling someone a monkey because they are black. I don't think you are a racist from anything I've read here but I don't think you are being rational about some of the people who have questioned your comments.

It's fine if you didn't know that usage (a little odd IMHO, but still fine), but now you do know. Being ignorant is only an excuse once.

Jenni,

Being glad to be ignorant is no better than being proud of being ignorant.

Just accept that your ignorance led you to make some silly statements and learn from it. Learn that the best defence against a charge of ignorance is not denial, but honesty and a willingness to learn coupled with an acknowledgement and apology for that ignorance. What you should not do is say you are glad to be ignorant, as that just compounds the problem.

There are others here who have admitted, like you, that they did not know about the racist connotations of monkeys, bananas and black people. Maxi is one such person. She is not glad she was ignorant, and reading between the lines, probably regrets it. She has admitted she did not know, acknowledged that the t-shirt is a racist slut and moved on.

Posted by: jenni | May 14, 2008 12:45 PM

i disagreee that i as a person need to seek out every single racial slur through the history of time to fight oppression.

You didn't have to seek this one out, though. This one hit you right in the face. Enough, at least, for you to type your two cents in, so you actually didn't have to find this one. You obviously failed to recognize it, apparently.

i'm not proud that i didn't know the term. i said i was glad. there's a difference. what i am proud of is that i've made my point without denigrating others. how are any of you better than the racist? how can any of you bash racism while insulting someone else in the same breath? it really makes no sense whatsoever. just because you're throwing your barbs at one person instead of an entire group doesn't make you a better person. in fact, they hurt just as much.
it's really disappointing to find out that even educated people can be so short-sighted.

Anyone can be short-sighted - educated or not, but that isn't the case here. Being glad, but not proud, of something is quite a unique situation to be in, considering that saying that you're glad about something implies a personal satisfaction with it that we all call pride. So while they're not the same thing, they are close enough to be inseparable in the sense you're using them.

Insulting an individual - while the tact may sometimes be lacking - has absolutely nothing to do with racism, or any other sort of generalized hate. Fopr exampple, insulting someone (an individual) for failing to recognize a common manifestation of hate (racism) makes perfect sense. You may not agree, but it definitely makes sense.

I think we need to put to rest the faulty analogy comparing racists to schoolyard bullies.

If you ignore bullies when they make fun of you, yes, they'll probably stop and leave you alone.

If you ignore racists when they denigrate you, they'll think they can get away with anything and eventually drag you from a pickup truck.

Apples and oranges. Ignoring bullies discourages them. Ignoring racists encourages them.

Curious George isn't racist

Correct.

So why d'you suppose people are talking about this?

it will be a cold day in hell befor i let ombama become commander and chief, and thats my freedom of speech, don't care what you think, hes a noobie HE knows less then bush

Get your parka, dude. Obama has served as an elected representative for twice as long as Bush had when he was running in 2000.

neither is a monkey eatin a fuc*ing banna. i refuse to post any more, if a fuc* wit like u is commenting on it.another fine exmple of american genius

John, you've obviously never lived in the USA - and even more obviously, know little about the social dynamics or symbols of racism here. And yet you presume to speak with authority. Why? You've only succeeded in making yourself look ignorant and foolish. Take the cotton out of your ears, and stick it in your mouth.

obama and hillary wer protesting the war, and spiting on soldiers who wer coming home

Dude. It's time to put down your Bill O'Reilly Signature Model crackpipe.

I didn't see it as racist at first. I initially thought maybe it was a kind of dumb way of saying Obama accepts evolution.

However, the more I think about it, I can certainly see the racism. I just never thought of calling someone a monkey to be associated with blacks. Hopefully that means I'm not a racist.

As a child, I regularly heard adults refer to African-Americans as "jungle apes." This was in Florida, but the people who I heard use the term had their cultural roots in middle class neighborhoods in Missouri and Illinois. That's the cultural and political contest here. The shirts are being distributed at a bar known for extreme right-wing view posted on signs in front, and the shirts apparently came from some guy in Arkansas. Not to knock everyone in Arkansas, but my first encounter with the state was showing up at a gas station just after a carload of white guys had used baseball bats to attack a carload of black guys. So yeah, the shirt is racist, and if you didn't intuitively get the monkey-black man connection, count yourself lucky to have missed this kind of redneck slime.

Obama's pastor is a racist, it took Obama 20 years to denounce him. Maybe people are following his example and will take 20 years to denounce this shirt. I am not saying its right, but this is the type of thing you can expect of Georgia.

WJW.

In re: to the people saying that it may be a good sign that some people didn't "get it" at first --

I didn't "get it" at first, but I don't see that as a good sign, or even as a sign that racism has vanished from my life. In Santa Monica (where I grew up) and Chicago (where I live now), people generally don't use slurs like "monkey," etc, and thus this association didn't immediately come to mind when I saw the shirt; but that doesn't mean racism doesn't exist there. It just takes less overt forms -- condescension, self-segregation, etc. A lot of people in more "progressive" areas probably have similar thoughts to the ones expressed overtly in Cobb County, but express them in more "acceptable" or "politically correct" manners.

So. How do we get from here to there? How do we get to the place where we can poke fun at a candidate who looks (or acts) like Curious George, without first needing to subject the act to an "ism" test?

In my opinion, unfortunately we don't. There are not always nice answers. I think it is too entrenched in our history. We can strive and work hard to reach that goal but there will always be assholes like this guy who will have the zeitgeist of the American population at least partially chained in the past.

That doesn't mean we stop trying.

If you people think racism is somehow "worse" in GA, you are misguided. I grew up in ATL and lived all over the USA (West Coast, Midwest, Northeast, Texas... and believe me people are racist assholes everywhere. The only difference I can think of is that white people in GA actually interact with black people on a daily basis.

Andrew :

I just never thought of calling someone a monkey to be associated with blacks. Hopefully that means I'm not a racist.

Racist is a particularly vile form of stereotyping - with the added constraint that it is always used to denigrate, rather than simply caricature.

I, being a scot, often act out a 'self-caricature' of 'och aye the noo!' and 'wheech, Mon!' -- especially when my aim is self deprecation (i.e. whenever I've been a pompous ass)

That's using a racist stereotype - but as self parody. (Race =/= color!)

The monkey==black thing: if done by Chris Rock is self parody. If done by an 'ignorant' white-boy, that's racist!

my 2c

Tony

They keep changing the article! Recently added:

Rick Blake, a spokesman for publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which owns Curious George, said Wednesday that the company didn't authorize the use of the character's image, but hasn't been in touch with anybody selling or manufacturing the shirts.

"We find it offensive and obviously utterly out of keeping with the value Curious George represents," Blake said. "We're monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to legal action."

Dude. It's time to put down your Bill O'Reilly Signature Model crackpipe.

Posted by: Kseniya | May 14, 2008 1:10 PM

Priceless...and absolutely true...

"In the case at hand, the fact several people claimed not to realize that monkeys are a derogatory symbol for African-Americans (at least if we take them at their word) may offer some evidence that the conventional practice of using and understanding it in this way has become less widespread and may even be on its way to termination. Nevertheless the fact that so many people still use and understand it in this way suggests that it has certainly not yet found its way to history's dustbin."

that in essence, sums up why i said i was glad to be ignorant of the slur. i'm not glad that i'm ignorant. i'm glad that me not being familiar with the term means it may be on its way out. apparently it isn't, since i'm one of the few that hadn't heard of the term. in fact, to be honest, when someone calls someone a monkey, i think of the british. i remember watching the bbc as a child and hearing references to children as "cheeky little monkeys." so when i hear monkey in relation to a person, i think "mischievous" not "black." i won't anymore though, now that i know the historical usage in this country.

i took insult at being called ignorant because if we're just considering the strict definition, we're all ignorant, since no one knows everything. most people use ignorant to be synonymous with stupid, and so i assumed that was what was going on here. i apologize for my misunderstanding of the term.

Matt Penfold @432

MartinSGill,
I think you are a stupid ignorant fuckwit with less intelligence than the remains of the cabbage sitting in my fridge.
[...]
Now please go outside and play whilst the adults have a chat.

Actually, I'm amused. You've proven to me what I suspected about you all along; that your mind is as closed to reasoned, intelligent, debate as someone from the Discovery Institute.

Rev. BigDumbChimp @380 (missed your post earlier)

MartinSGill, while I see the point you are trying to make but I think you miss the obvious point. We're having this conversation because of the shirt and because of who is selling it.

Taken on it's own to a completely ignorant person, yes the shirt is not racist. But we don't live in a vacuum.

Finally someone not blinkered by their cultural programming; or too fixated in their views to actually read, let alone try to understand, what I write. I agree that we don't live in a vacuum, and I'm not missing the obvious point, I'm just ignoring it to make my own point.

I see 3 possible reactions to this t-shirt.

1) "Ha ha, that put that ^$%£"! in his place" - You're a racist
2) "I don't get it." - You're not a racist.
3) "That's racist, ban it!" - You're culturally a racist, but have rejected that culture.

An analogy to a religion, say, putting a cross in the entry way to a school.

1) "That's good and proper and will help the kids." - You're indoctrinated.
2) "What's the deal, it's just some odd shape" - You've never been exposed to christianity.
3) "That's overly christian and has no place in a school!" - You're a cultural christian, but have rejected that culture.

In both cases 2 is an ideal that's unlikely in our societies. But the less racist/christian the upbringing and the less racist/christian the culture and society a person moves in the more likely 2 becomes.

To be able to recognise racism you have to have been exposed to it. The more you were exposed to it, the more easily you are able to recognise it. The fact that people don't get it is actually, in my view, a good thing. It means those people have not been as exposed to racism (or at least that particular slur) than those that do recognise it and that should be taken as a sign of progress.

Racism cannot be ignored, but there is also nothing intrinsically, implicitly racist in that t-shirt or the images on it. In a non-racist society no one would even notice it. You have to live in a racist society to realise that it's racist. Therefore the simple fact that you recognised it as racist is a condemnation of how/where/when you were raised. That you didn't recognise it means you were never exposed to that, which in turn hopefully (although not conclusively) means that the how/where/when you were raised was considerably less racist.

SC @444

You've missed my point completely. That sentence, as you've typed it, has meaning to us because we can read English, we form part of a shared culture that can make shared sense of those symbols. That meaning is offensive. To someone who doesn't read that language, who does not share that culture, it is merely some straight and curved lines. They will only understand it if you explain its meaning.

No, I haven't missed your point. You've failed to recognise that we don't share a common upbringing and hence have different cultural reference points.

8. Insofar as the failure to "get it" relects a weakening of the conventional practice of using monkeys as a derogatory symbol for African-Americans it is probably a good thing (although this may not reflect any diminishment of racist attitudes). Insofar as it reflects ignorance of historical and current racism against African-Americans it is a bad thing.

I've personally been to Cobb County, GA on numerous occasions, and I can personally testify that it is backwards, racist, and bible-belty in every way. Whites avoid black areas at all costs, and blacks don't venture into white neighborhoods. Everyone, particularly in Marietta, is completely segregated and isolated. It's truly a horrendous place where racism is rampant and widely accepted -- especially in the local police departments with which I'm personally familiar.

It's racist 64.60% 17001
It's fine 35.40% 9318

jenni,

On a thread about an expression of hatred towards a group of people who have been violently oppressed for centuries, repeatedly seeking out passages to assuage your own wounded ego is unseemly.

How is this racist exactly, and why do you care? Nothing better to do, I suspect?

#451 PA

Your 7 arguments/talking points are overkill to say the least. You must be an engineer.

I'm a tech, and if it looks like a monkey, acts like a monkey and smells like a monkey, there's a 99% chance it's a monkey.

Also, the fact that this idiot in Georgia saying that Hillary should have married OJ kind of makes it obvious he's a racist, therefore it logically follows that the Curious George/monkey t-shirt IS most likely a racist jab at Obama, correct?

Therefore, your 7 argument comment is just blather for the sake of blather maybe because you are bored, or maybe because you are trying to impress.

No offense, I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.

John Jacob, please read the 473 comments before yours before posting questions.

SC, if by repeatedly, you mean once, then yes. i've only quoted one person, and only because they more succinctly summed up what i've been bumbling around and trying to say myself. if that's unseemly in your book, so be it.

If you could kindly explain why quoting someone else who is like-minded is wrong--not on other threads apparently, only on ones dealing with oppressed peoples--i would appreciate it.

Do you think they'd sell this one for me? Or this one? I could use some extra money...

How is this racist exactly, and why do you care? Nothing better to do, I suspect?

If you'd bothered to reading the fucking thread you might have figured that out by now. But, I guess it makes more sense to jump to the bottom, make a nonsensical statement, and run away without actually taking part in any kind of serious way.

MartinSGill @ #469,

The argument to which that blockquote was responding was that the meaning and offensiveness of "Kill All the Jews" was obvious to anyone. My point in response was that this is not true. Language, like visual imagery, is culturally specific. You've merely reiterated my point and attempted to pass it off as your own. Nice try.

Look at the red A on the side of this page. If I wear that image on a t-shirt, is it then just the letter A on a t-shirt, or is it a statement about my beliefs (or lack thereof)? I mean, it's really just a letter. According to you, not even that - just some lines. No reason for anyone, ever, to interpret it in any other way, right?

Your "3 possible reactions" are also laughable, but I have to go out, so I won't be able to join in the laughter. Alas.

It's racist because the guy knows it's racist and sells them anyway. End of argument, guilty as charged.

@475
"Also, the fact that this idiot in Georgia saying that Hillary should have married OJ kind of makes it obvious he's a racist, therefore it logically follows that the Curious George/monkey t-shirt IS most likely a racist jab at Obama, correct?"

No, it makes him a misogynist.

jenni,

I stand corrected. The quotation was a single incident in your "bumbling around and trying to say" that you've been persecuted here and that it is essentially the same as being subjected to racism. That's unseemly.

Andrew said:

"However, the more I think about it, I can certainly see the racism. I just never thought of calling someone a monkey to be associated with blacks. Hopefully that means I'm not a racist."

No, it does not make you a racist. It mean you were ignorant of this racial slur, but you have thought about it, read what others have said, and realised it was. No blame attaches to you.

Jenni said:

"i took insult at being called ignorant because if we're just considering the strict definition, we're all ignorant, since no one knows everything. most people use ignorant to be synonymous with stupid, and so i assumed that was what was going on here. i apologize for my misunderstanding of the term."

I will admit to ignorance about a good many things. I know very little about baseball for example, other than the basic rules of the game. However I am aware that I am ignorant about baseball (although not glad or proud of the fact) and do not make comments about baseball, such as giving an opinion of who the best player of all time was. I have been know to offer a comment that in the UK the game is called rounders and is played by schoolgirls. That however is nothing more than joshing of my American friends who follow the game.

MartinSGill said:

"No, I haven't missed your point. You've failed to recognise that we don't share a common upbringing and hence have different cultural reference points."

So Americans have no shared culture ? And America and Europe have no shared culture ? The slave trade in America was not carried out by Americans and Europeans ? You seem to be inhabiting some place where the reality the rest of face has gone missing.

I think you are not being honest, and suspect you harbour racist sentiments but are attuned enough to social mores to know that coming straight out and calling Obama a black bastard who is not fit to be president is not acceptable, so instead you decide to go all weasel on us.

Tony said:

"I, being a scot, often act out a 'self-caricature' of 'och aye the noo!' and 'wheech, Mon!' -- especially when my aim is self deprecation (i.e. whenever I've been a pompous ass)"

I am English, and were to call me a sassanach bastard with a smile on your face I would know you were intending it to be any kind of racial slur. Were you to so with a scowl on your face, I would know it was meant as one.

As I and others have been pointing out, context is important. Like calling a friend who is taking the piss out of you a bastard is not an insult. Calling someone with whom you are having an argument a bastard is.

What happened to, "it's free speech and at least the racists are labeling themselves for us?" That's the typical response for the rebel flag license plates. If it's on a t-shirt it's somehow worse?
Hey, I'm all for it. If some guy makes money off of racists, let him. So do all the rebel flag companies and KKK uniform and patch places and ain't nobody complaining about them.

i am very embarrassed to be a resident of the state of georgia after seeing this shirt. fortunately, i live in athens - a little blue island in a sea of red. our obama signs and placards are displayed with pride and not ignorance. i can't believe this would ever be seen as acceptable in any context. then again, i can't believe that the media coverage of either clinton or obama would stand unquestioned on a national level as racist and misogynistic as it has been throughout this campaign season. thanks for bringing this to public attention - we must fight racism and misogyny where ever we may find it and bridge a common goal of equality and upward mobility for all citizens.

"Hey, I'm all for it. If some guy makes money off of racists, let him. So do all the rebel flag companies and KKK uniform and patch places and ain't nobody complaining about them."

Really ?

You know of no one cares that the Confederate flag is used by southerners in the US as a shortcut way of indicating their identification as people who consider blacks to be inferior to whites ? Or of no one who cares that the hood and gown of the KKK indicates someone who wants blacks to be denied basic human and civil rights simply on the basis of their skin colour ?

What a sheltered life you lead.

MartinSGill,

I see 3 possible reactions to this t-shirt.

1) "Ha ha, that put that ^$%£"! in his place" - You're a racist
2) "I don't get it." - You're not a racist.
3) "That's racist, ban it!" - You're culturally a racist, but have rejected that culture.

1) agreed.
2) No it means the person is ignorant of the racist connotation of this T-shirt. Doesn't mean the person is not racist. Now if after having read the comments on this blog the person still decides that the T-shirt is fine, then it's hard to hide behind the excuse of "ignorance" anymore, is it ?
3) No, it means the person understands the racist connotation of this T-shirt because he knows very well that the association monkeys / african-americans has never been one which was paved with good intentions and condemns it. Condemning this association does not mean in any way shape or form that this association makes sense. What is this "cultural racist" thing ?

Why are you so confused ?

MartinSGill apparently wants us all to believe that memes don't exist for him. For him, this is something to be proud of.
When he sees a shirt like the one above, racist propaganda never enters his mind.

He sees the drawing of a lightning bolt and never does he think that there might be dangerous electricity about.

An image of a cigarette surrounded by a circle with a line drawn through it? Never would have though he shouldn't be smoking there.

Not only is he proud of this, but isn't interested in learning about these things and looks down on us that do recognize them.

Must be a very interesting life.

Having grown up in the Southern 'Bible Belt' I find it interesting that many of those who associate Blacks with primates are many times the very people who vehemently deny any belief in evolution.

I thought that it was a commentary on curious george, the president that thought that going to war with Iraq was a good idea. and that Obama is the hope for the future. But then again I am completely biased. I really like monkeys, and really don't like Bush, and see Obama as a person that could be charicatured far better than as a monkey, although he does have big ears. Apparently his wife really likes his ears.

i thought the many collages and comparisons of george bush and monkeys was great (just google "george bush monkey")! but if i saw this very similar comparison as racist i'd wonder if it was actually my own concern with racism that was leading me to think it was racist (or my eagerness to see others who might not support obama as being racist). in fact, both bush and obama have unusually big ears that do resemble those of monkeys (ask any little kid to draw a picture of one of them and you'll see a very monkey-like caricature in the center of the page). but george demands more realistic monkey comparisons (and many more of them as the collages depict) just because his expressions are truely so monkey-like. obama gets just the one cartoon figure that almost everyone loves. i may end up in the minority here but the comparison almost seems fair to me.

i've heard MANY MANY a racial slur, but have never heard a black person called a monkey. EVER. if that makes me culturally ignorant, i could care less.

It makes you lucky.

My first thought was "what the hell does curious George have to do with Barack Obama?"

I should note that the diminishing popularity of a particular racial slur or symbol has absolutely no bearing on the popularity of the sentiment that inspired it.

For example, "Honky" has all but vanished, while "cracker" just seems to get more and more popular. One can't look at the departure of "honky" and conclude that no one hates white people anymore.

ckd,
apparently, big (but cute) ears.

Thing is, one of the main arguments used (by me as well) when religious people object to certain depictions of their faith is that " you do not have the right not to be offended". Why does this not apply here?

Because it has no bearing on whether something should be CRITICIZED, only on whether it should be PROHIBITED.

How the fuck can people who are smart enough to find a computer's power switch possibly be confused about the difference?

Hey, I'm all for it. If some guy makes money off of racists, let him. So do all the rebel flag companies and KKK uniform and patch places and ain't nobody complaining about them.

First, it's his right to sell them, and I support that right. But it is also my right to call him a racist bastard.

And if you think no one complains about the KKK or the Confederate flag and those who sell them, well you haven't visited my home state of SC recently (or if you have you weren't paying attention).

Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it isn;t happening.

I didn't get what the problem was until you mentioned racism. I think it's only racist when it's in the presence of people who grew up where racism was prevalent and when attention is brought to racism possibly being found in the image.

Also, for all I know, it was created as a pro-Obama, let's laugh at old racism to show we are over being being personally limited by being offended by images T-shirt.

i've never understood the sentiment behind "honky" or "cracker"... i have no idea what "honkey" is but i do know that most crackers are white... why hate a cracker? they're yummy. why hate a monkey? they're cute. why are these then considerd terms of hate at all? these kinds of social constructions in terms of language i hope are dying out just because they don't make much sense as the population becomes more educated.