Attack Poster of President Obama Recalls Racist Minstrel Shows of Slave-owning Times.

Attack Poster of President Obama Recalls Racist Minstrel Shows of Slave-owning Times.

From an April 25 article in Bedlam Magazine: Copies of a poster of Barack ObamaBarack Obama in Heath LedgerHeath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been appearing recently on empty walls and other surfaces around Los Angeles. It is not in the same category as the many benign take-offs on the Shepard Faire 'Hope' poster, such as the one by Australian James Lillis (more of a straightforward spoof that merely substituted a Shepardized image of Heath Ledger as Joker on the Obama poster).

That the poster has the overtones of a reverse Mistral show illustration, wherein a Black is displayed wearing white greasepaint, instead of the reverse.

Radio host Tammy Bruce posted some pictures of this odd creation at her blog Saturday (Aug.1st) morning.

As well as her visual attack on the president, Tammy Bruce, guest host for Laura Ingram's radio show, also had some harsh words for First Lady Michelle ObamaMichelle Obama.

Discussing the first lady's visit to a Washington D.C. classroom of March, 17th, Ms. Bruce incredulously recalled Obama's story about wanting to get A's in school and called her out on her usage of a supposedly "weird, fake accent."

"That's what he's married to," Bruce said, apropos of nothing, "...You know what we've got? We've got trash in the White House. Trash is a thing that is colorblind; it can cross all eco-socionomic...categories. You can work on Wall Street, or you can work at the Wal-Mart. Trash, are people who use other people to get things, who patronize others, who consider you bitter and clingy..."

Ms. Bruce is apparently of an impressive creativity when it comes to sensitivity toward balancing racist code words with more neutral terminology. It is an important factor in order to disguise her racial agenda.

In this instance, of course she had to be sure and insert a neutralizing term like ‘colorblind’ into her diatribe, that allowing her to play a race-reversal with the word, trash. After all, to an uncritical mind, the very fact of her having used the phrase at all proves she isn’t being racist – right?

In standard American English, calling anyone trash almost automatically implies that they are White people, as in white trash. In this case, the Obamas have been made out to be the bizarre-version of the lazy, uneducated, trailer park dwelling White trash stereotype; dark skinned, hard-working, fully educated, socially aware Blacks living in government subsidized housing (the White House).

The former employee of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger even goes so far as to assign attitudes and language to the most powerful Black man in the world and his wife when she writes that they are, “people who use other people to get things, who patronize others, who consider you bitter and clingy...”

Someday someone somewhere will come forward and say that either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Obama used them, or patronized them, who considered them bitter and clingy – and the Obama’s will very likely be guilty of the charges. It’s actually quite clever of Ms. Bruce to condemn the First Family by accusing them of engaging in behavior that everyone is guilty of at one time or another in their lives.

Bruce's own website describes her as "an openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty "progressive feminist" who has voted for presidents as diverse as Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan, Bill ClintonBill Clinton and George W. Bush.

“When was the last time you saw a first lady feed the homeless and it was not Thanksgiving?,” asks
Joni L. Reynolds on thedailyvoice.com, “When have you seen a first lady visit DC schools on more than one occasion? When have you seen a first lady bring students to the White House kitchen or students to help plant a vegetable garden?”

The African-American mother, writer of the blog called Ebony Mom Politics concludes, “You have not seen it because this is the first time it has happened. It is acceptable to criticize Obama's policy decisions, but to call him and his family trash crosses a line that should not be crossed.”

On the matter of the Minstrel show look of the posters, Wikipedia.org defines the minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was a form of nineteenth century American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface.

Minstrel shows lampooned black people in mostly disparaging ways: as ignorant, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, joyous, and musical.

Oh, and as for that hoary, old specter of the dreaded Socialism that the Irrational Right just loves to dust off and shake in front of everybody's face two or three times a year; Americans should look around themselves, the US has been socialist for the last eighty years or so.