Racism, Lies, and Stupidity: Just Another Day at Free Republic
So the story that’s making the rounds today is the vicious comment thread that erupted at Free Republic in response to a photo of 11-year-old Malia Obama overseas with her family during the President’s tour of Africa. A reporter named Chris Parry, writing in the Vancouver Sun, reported the simple but ugly facts:
“A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion.”
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, “To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds.” . . .
Moderators of the blog left the comments – and commenters – in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.
“Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?” wrote one commenter.
“They make me sick …. The whole family… mammy, pappy, the free loadin’ mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin’, and especially ‘lil cuz… This is not the America I want representin’ my peeps,” wrote another.
Such was the onslaught of derision on the site that the person who originally complained about the slurs, a Kristin N., claims only one comment in the first hundred posted actually criticized the remarks as inappropriate.
I note again: she’s 11 years old. This breaks the record formerly held by Rush Limbaugh, who famously referred to then-13-year-old Chelsea Clinton as “the White House dog”.
The story got some play in the blogosphere, and, naturally, the Freepers and their allies immediately responded in characteristic fashion: with an interlinked smear campaign against the reporter who had printed their own words verbatim. (To my knowledge, no one addressing the issue has ever claimed that the quotes above are inaccurate.) The unbelievably stupid and bizarre falsehoods that this entailed are mind-boggling, even by winger standards.
Foster Kamer, at Gawker, posted a garbled story headlined “Hate Speech Against Malia Obama On Conservative Blogs Reported By Hate Speech Planting Journalist”, and claiming that “Parry, it appears, has advocated on his Daily Kos blog any number of egregious offenses, among them: posting hate speech on sites like Free Republic and blaming it on conservatives.”
The problem is that the link from the words “hate speech” goes directly back to . . . the exact same story at Gawker in which those words appear! No examples of such speech are given, and there is no other source cited except the circular link back to the claim itself. There is also no link or other evidence to back up the bizarre claim that Parry had been planting disinformation on right-wing sites.
The rest of this short passage consists entirely of incomprehensible “accusations”, such as that Parry blogs at DailyKos (this is, literally, given as evidence of . . . something), that he uses a pseudonym there, that he has revealed his own pseudonym (so . . . it’s not really a pseudonym, is it?), and that he has started some Web sites and Internet businesses. It’s simply impossible to understand what any of this is supposed to mean, but it is all offered as evidence in support of the inflammatory headline claim that Parry is a “hate-speech-planting journalist”.
Such is “proof” on the right wing. (And why is this clown at Gawker, anyway? Shouldn’t they just stick to anal-sex jokes?)
Nonetheless, these utterly contentless claims have been parroted on many right-wing sites, always quoting Kamer and never giving any evidence or further links. In other words, the smear job that is being ginned up against Parry for repeating the Freepers’ slurs in their own words is based entirely on one paragraph from a post so mindless it links to itself as proof of its own claims, offers no evidence of any of its otherwise scandalous smears, and consists almost entirely of irrelevancies breathlessly reported as exposes of some kind. And all of it swallowed and regurgitated with drooling incredulity by the deepthinkers of the conservative jackassery.
But some on the right wing have higher standards, thank God. Some do their research. Some delve deep into facts and substance, apply their lightning-like critical-thinking faculties to incisive effect, and bring to the light of truth what to lesser minds remains obscure. Such a paragon of right-wing intellect is the JammieWearingFool, who goes the extra mile and blows the lid off Chris Parry and his inflammatory hate-speech propaganda. He found the example in which “Chris Parry actually advocated attacking ‘negros’ and blaming the republicans for it. See this post at the Daily Kos by ‘hollywoodoz’, who is in reallity, as proven below Chris Parry of the Vancouver Sun. See it here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/9/10324/92702 [emphasis his, all his]“.
I’ll save you the trouble. If you follow that link, what you find is a post from almost 4 years ago about the issue of Michael Brown’s failures during Hurricane Katrina, written by somebody other than Chris Parry. Partway down the comment thread, somebody remarks that they can never remember how to spell “Connecticut” and wants a mnemonic for that; that kicks off a silly thread in which people post various mnemonics for spelling different words and phrases, some of them as jokes. That is where you find “HollywoodOz”’s (Chris Parry’s) one and only contribution to the entire thread. That is where you find what JWF, and apparently every winger who links to him, regards as evidence that Parry “advocated attacking blacks and blaming republicans [emphasis his, again, natch]“. Here it is in its entirety – a post in a “silly mnemonics” thread that constitutes “advocating attacking blacks and blaming republicans”, and “advocating . . . hate-speech-planting . . . and blaming it on conservatives” – are you ready?:
Bloody
Useless
Sack of
HatredCan
He
Eat
Negro
Eyes
YetBlaming
Republicans
Only
Works
Now
(“BUSH CHENEY BROWN” – get it?)
That’s the proof. You can see it, right? You can see where he “advocated attacking blacks and blaming republicans” – can’t you? You can see the part where he says you should engage in “posting hate speech on sites like Free Republic and blaming it on conservatives”- right?
Possibly you can if you’re unbelievably stupid, have the reading comprehension of a second-grader, and care nothing for the truth – or if you’re a right-winger (but I repeat myself . . .). But this is what passes for intelligent commentary in the winger sandbox. This is what they rely on to insulate themselves from their own words – words like “ghetto thugs”, “street trash”, and “monkey sounds” aimed at an 11-year-old girl. Because Parry once posted that . . . whatever it is, it’s invalid for him to point out what was posted just this week at Free Republic. Because his poem contains the word “Negro”, it’s just as racist as calling a black child a monkey. And because somebody once said something that – again, if you’re simply impossibly stupid, and a liar – could be called racist, you have no obligation not to be racist yourself. Because, really, who would expect that of you, if you’re this kind of person?
UPDATE: Yep, Free Republic itself has latched onto this insanely stupid, made-up accusation as a desperate defense of its own content:
BOMBSHELL & FREEPER CALL TO ACTION . . .
Freepers, get the word out loud and wide. The Vancouver Sun “journalist” Chris Parry that defamed Jim Robinson and FreeRepublic is none other than radical left blogger “Hollywoodoz” at the Daily Kos. In addition to writting for the Vancouver Sun, Chris is a frustrated and failed internet entrepreneur, having launched many websites and blogs, all of which have virtually no traffic, following, or success. Chris also writes movie reviews, though these are pretty lame.
Chris Parry actually advocated attacking “negros”. . . [you know the rest . . .]
There follows 10 screens’ worth of contact names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses for virtually every media outlet you can name – all apparently eager to exonerate Freeper racists by breaking the story that Chris Parry writes “lame” movie reviews, and no doubt welcoming a choreographed onslaught of outraged conservatives demanding that they do so or be guilty of “liberal media bias”.
America: this is your right wing. You let them run the place for 28 out of the last 40 years. This is who they are. This is how they think and act. And they’re still out there.
FURTHER UPDATE: When I pointed out, in a comment at JammieWearingFool, that there was no substance to the charges he makes, he deleted the comment but didn’t retract the charges.
[...] Lean Left | Just Another Day at Free Republic [...]
Any politician who thrusts their children into the limelight is the person totally responsible for any caustic remarks made about their children. There is a reason why David Letterman doesn’t allow his own child to be photographed and thrust into the public spotlight. As far as Barack Obama is concerned it was he who flipped off Hillary Clinton as can be seen on a very popular video. His audience at that moment laughed and thought his caustic comments and actions were funny and cute. It doesn’t matter if the aggressor is hard left or hard right because if you throw your child into the boxing ring , then expect that you could receive a few caustic hits on that child.
When I pointed out, in a comment at JammieWearingFool, that there was no substance to the charges he makes, he deleted the comment but didn’t retract the charges.
That’s pretty much what would occur at Free Republic as well, from experience.
It’s not about facts, or the truth. It’s about feeding red meat to the angry extremists.
Facts and truth get in the way.
Linda, there’s a HUGE difference between being the host of a late night television show and being president of the US. No comparison. Children of the president could never be hidden from view in the way Letterman does. And, if the Obama’s did that, you can guarantee that the outrage would be verbalized. I can see it now. Can you imagine the outrage on the right wing blogs at tax payers money being spent to hide Obama’s children from public scutiny? The cries of “what’s he hiding?” to “our money is being wasted on that?” would be deafening.
Letterman chooses as he does because he has the option. As many entertainers do.
But, a president? The peoples servant? Not a chance.
That anyone thinks it’s funny or fitting to make those remarks about Obama’s kids is madness and angering. Someone really ought to remind them that the Bush twins were no beacons of good behavior. Of course, that would assert that the people under discussion, those who would say things like “wonder when she’ll get her first abortion” are rational normal human beings who would respond to reason, which, given their statements, seems unlikely. The only thing to do is pity them because they evidently have nothing better to do than say vulgar things about 11 year olds on the internet.
Oh, and Linda, while I’m not a fan of the Obama’s and I have little agreement with KTK on most matters, I will call a spade a spade.
“Any politician who thrusts their children into the limelight is the person totally responsible for any caustic remarks made about their children.”
They didn’t “thrust” their children into the spotlight; the spot light is on them because the are the first family. It’s not like they have much of a choice, let alone control over stuff like this. Would you rather they treat their kids like Michael Jackson treated his children in public, all blankets and masks?
I will call a spade a spade.
Out of all the colloquialisms…
/ducks
Just playin, SB!
Digg beat me to it.
Any politician who thrusts their children into the limelight is the person totally responsible for any caustic remarks made about their children.
Bullshit. Utter and complete moronic claptrap.
If someone makes “caustic” (“Caustic?” How’s that for trying to downplay the facts?) remarks about a child – especially when they do if from the comfortable safety and anonymity of a comment thread – it marks them as a sniveling lame-ass wimp without the guts to go after their real target.
And when those “caustic” remarks are actually foul racist bilge spat out by a gang of half-witted mouth-breathers, the responsibility is all – all – on the speakers and those who enable them by allowing it to stand.
To suggest, to even vaguely hint, otherwise is a disgrace to logic and basic decency. But since Freepers lack both, I suppose such disgrace will cause them no upset.
Hey, why ya gotta hate?
…the responsibility is all – all – on the speakers and those who enable them by allowing it to stand.
Just a question about this portion of your comment, Larry. Are you advocating that the moderators of the site delete the comment; is that what you mean by “allowing it to stand?” I would have mixed feelings about that part.
On the one hand, the existence of such comments creates an enabling environment positively reinforcing those sentiments and encouraging and emboldening others to broadcast such tripe. Not to mention the pissing contest such a dynamic often fosters, a can-you-top-this off lewdness. So, that’s obviously bad.
However, censoring the comments doesn’t do much to cease the existence of such feelings. In one respect, I think it’s better to have those feelings out there. Let the world know that these are the type of people who frequent this site. This is a place where bitter, heartless racists congregate, and those who write here if not cater to, at least appeal to such a demographic. To hide somebody’s ugliness doesn’t protect the world from it, so it may as well be out there for all to see.
I think LarryE probably meant allowing it to stand unchallenged, though I don’t purport to speak for him. Don’t delete the comment, but don’t ignore it (or pile on), either.
No, digg had it right: I meant don’t leave them up.
It’s my understanding that it is a moderated site. One of the whole points of having a moderator is to have the option of removing posts that violate certain standards – a way of saying, if you will, “my place here may be a sort of open forum but it’s still my place and that kind of talk will not be allowed here.”
On my own site, it says “Comments here must be reasonably relevant and reasonably civil. Trolls and comments that are merely personal slams on me or another commenter will be deleted without hesitation or warning.” I would have no more hesitation deleting a racist comment than I would telling somebody who used such language in my home to get out of my house.
If I’m wrong and it’s unmoderated, then forget the “enable them” part; having crap up is what you accept when you have unmoderated comments. But if I’m right and it is moderated, then leaving comments like that up is a choice, one which, in fact, does enable the cretins.
Yes, Free Republic is “moderated” (in the same sense as graphite mixed with uranium). I know this because I once (in my very naive youth) signed up for the site in order to make a friendly comment explaining that they were in fact mistaken in thinking that atheists secretly worship Satan and that in fact we just don’t happen to believe in the things usually called gods. Two days later, all of my comments and my account were deleted with a notation about violating terms of use.
(And since I just pulled a Digg in obscure references: In nuclear reactors, you add a “moderator” to slow down the radiation from the uranium so that instead of whizzing by too fact to be caught, it instead gets noticed by the other uranium, which gets all fidgity and makes its own racist comments, leading to a meltdown and public spectacle. It’s just like the freepers.)