About That Graphic

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The Hate Brigade is trying to stir up outrage over Jane Hamsher’s graphic showing Joe Lieberman in blackface. I didn’t see the graphic until this morning, and I still haven’t seen it in the original context. But this rightie blogger wants to “lure” me into the “fray.” I carry firedoglake on my blogroll, so I’m honor bound to apologize for anything on firedoglake that is inexcusably nasty.

Without seeing the context I can’t comment on the Hamsher graphic specifically. Context is all. When Spike Lee put his actors in blackface, what was he saying? Was he making a racist statement or a statement about racism? The latter, obviously. Lee turned old racist imagery back on itself to blast the racisms and racial hypocrisies still among us. Whether depicting someone in blackface is racist or beyond the pale depends on the message the graphic is intended to convey. Seems to me blackface is only racist per se to racists, who can’t see the difference.

Awhile back I defended Steve Gilliard’s use of blackface in a graphic, because in context there was nothing racist in what Steve was saying with the graphic. Pretty much the opposite, actually; the message intended by the proudly sable Mr. Gilliard was that an African American politician was pandering to racists. And Joe Lieberman is in fact stooping to some bare-assed race baiting, as Mr. Gilliard explains here. Holy Joe deserves to be slammed for it.

Old cartoon depictions of African Americans, like this one (from Puck, 1893) at the Library of Congress, are creepy. Is this poster, published in the 1890s, racist? You betcha. Blackface symbolized white dominance. These once-common images are shocking today. The people who drew them were saying something very ugly about African Americans. Spike Lee notes that such images are hidden away today —

C: About the montage at the end of Bamboozled, which shows how black people have been represented in America – why was it all old film and TV clips? Why didn’t you bring it up to date?

SL: I didn’t feel it was necessary, because there are movies that do that for me already – look at the black characters in The Legend Of Bagger Vance, The Green Mile, Family Man. I thought it was more important to deal with history, because there was a lot of stuff in those films that most people haven’t seen. In the clips of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney putting on blackface – if you see that film on TV today in the US, they cut that out. We found a cartoon where Bugs Bunny was in blackface, and we wanted to include that, but Warner Brothers refused to let us use it. I don’t think those clips should be buried. I think it’s good we see this stuff. It’s evidence of the misrepresentation of a people.

C: The film seems to make comparisons between gangsta rap and minstrel shows.

SL: I feel that gangsta rap is a 21st century form of a minstrel show, and the sad thing is, a lot of those guys don’t even know it. Rap music is huge, all over the world, but a small percentage of the people that buy it are actually black. And with excessive use of the N-word, a lot of young white kids think it’s OK to use that word, and they go call black people that word also.

As I said, blackface is creepy; it’s shocking; it makes us uncomfortable. I understand that whites don’t want to look at it, particularly whites who aren’t being honest with themselves about their own racism. But if you’re going to deal with racism, whether our society’s or our own, we have to look at this stuff. We have to acknowledge it and pass through it and get beyond it. Racists can’t do that. Instead, they shut their eyes and call us liberals racists because we’re able to look, and process, and turn racism back on itself.

Spike Lee’s point in “Bamboozled” was that the entertainment industry is still stereotyping African Americans. When Steve Gilliard puts Michael Steele in blackface, he’s saying that Steele is still shackled by the racism that blackface has come to personify. And I suspect that’s what Jane Hamsher was saying about Mr. Lieberman.

Update: More distinguished and erudite commentary from Tbogg.

Update update: La Lulu is having a fine time throwing charges of racism at the leftie “nutroots” and smearing Ned Lamont by association. Let us remember some of La LuLu’s past efforts, such as the time she obsessed over her fear of scary black people, as I discussed here:

In one of her most brilliants posts yet, Michelle Malkin calls the suspects “black Muslim radicals” and provides us with an overview of recent terrorist threats coming from black Muslim radicals, going back to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and including the Beltway snipers and black Muslim inmates in Folsom Prison. She even takes a swipe at “the old school black Muslim thugs (and Jesse Jackson pals) of the Chicago-based El Rukn.”

And then she says … get ready for this … “Bob Owens catches the Democratic Underground already playing the race card.”

Awesome. You don’t have to parody Malkin. She does it herself.

This is also the same woman who went on a rampage because U.S. newspapers wouldn’t publish racist caricatures of Muslims, remember.

Update update update: See Steve Gilliard on Lieberman and the racist College Republicans.

BIG Update x 4: Don’t miss David Neiwert.

42 thoughts on “About That Graphic”

  1. Good comment, Barbara. I read the rightie blogger post and wondered what his point actually was. That the left is actually full of racists who try to cover this up but adopt the symbols when useful? I haven’t read firedoglake or the Huffington post in the last couple of days so haven’t a clue what my reaction would have been. I also guess that Ms. Hamsher was pointing out Lieberman’s hypocrisy.

  2. I read the rightie blogger post and wondered what his point actually was.

    Something about blackface makes modern-day racists go into spasms. I think it makes them real uncomfortable. Heh.

    Generally symbols have no intrinsic meaning; what a symbol means can change over time. There are still people who argue that the peace symbol (scroll down) has some sinister origin and really stands for something anti-Christian and evil (see actual origin here). Depicting someone wearing a swastika would be an insult to most of us, but the people who created swastikas wore them proudly. Context confers meaning, not the symbol itself.

  3. I will every now and then buy cheap video tapes or DVDs of movies made in the 40s and 50s. Stuff with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Bogart, etc. I picked up an old Bob Hope movie, which was just terrible in almost all respects, but which was blatantly racist in the role played by a young, black actor whose name I could not find anywhere. He was depicted as slow, slightly stupid and subservient to Hope. Hope would make explicitly racist remarks to the character. It was awful, but I can “see” people in suburban movie houses in the 40s and early 50s just laughing their damn fool heads off at this “humor.”

  4. Good post, but it doesn’t matter anymore whether we can justify this or not. Using blackface is like making a Hitler comparison: it stops the discussion dead in its tracks and makes further rational discussion impossible. Is that fair? No, but that’s the way it is. The righties will always run off squealing to the press, and the press will always take them seriously, and whatever point was being made will be lost. Argue “irony” or “satire” all you want, say the blogger or Photoshopper was black — it doesn’t matter. Whenever we do this, we lose.

  5. Jesus christ, righties are weird … without seeing the context I can’t say for sure it was not a racist image, but doesn’t sound like it … the creator of the image was trying to make a point that was not racist, and Lieberman in blackface made that point. Now … I can see an argument that the image was tasteless, or did not successfully make the point, or could be construed as racism with context stripped away … but to inspire the collective tizzy that the right has gone into over this??? Weird, just weird…

    -me

  6. It gets a little tricky trying to use a symbol of racism to convey the truths of racism. It could leave egg on your face, but that’s the risk you run, that some will misinterpret your meaning. I’m certainty not a racist. Why even some of my best friends are black.

  7. I haven’t seen the Lieberman graphic and I don’t really care to, but I do see a double standard here. If it had been a cartoon of Lieberman with a bomb for a yarmulke, by all consistent logic the image should become a rightie cause celebre. Oh wait– except righties hate Mohammed and love Lieberman.

  9. I would like to borrow the un-official motto of the Maha blog to address said righties: I AM NOT YOU BLEEPING MONKEY! You want someone to apologize start with yourself.After all the right has done to destroy this country in the past 6 years HOW BLEEPING dare they ask for ANYTHING ….they can kiss my white unhinged ass … I will even paint it any color they like.

    If the past 6 years are not enough to have you offended but a person in black make-up sets you over the edge YOU NEED HELP.You are one bushed up human being.

    The KIDS Israel killed? No big deal…but someone in blackface is what you have saved your outrage for instead???Don’t you see how very very fucked up that is???(sorry the bleep would not work) What is wrong with people???

    My advice for said rightie bloggers is that they spend more time being concerned with their OWN PARTY,, which is in such a mess they are going to be neutered in Nov…..

  10. I didn’t see the graphic, but Jane apologized for it here, while raising the ante – why are Republicans getting involved in a Democratic primary?

  12. I feel the need to comment on this. I did the see Hamsher graphic in its original context on HuffPo (as an aside, they didn’t see fit to publish me comment on the matter). It was offensive on its face, but the context explained her point, which I won’t belabor here; but with which I agree entirely.

    The MAJOR problem is that Jane, while not an official part of the Lamont campaign, is intrinsically tied to them as part of the “netroots” base. With all her experience, she should have known a hell of a lot better than to post something inflammatory like that less than a week before the primary. This being tossed around by the righties was a given. This being done on the same day that Lamont is hanging with Sharpton and Jackson is just awful. C’mon, how many times in the past month have we all ridiculed “tar baby” statements?

    I’m hoping she’s just tired from all the wonder work she has been doing, but now the damage is done. Aside from the local CT stations, at least (to my knowledge) the WaPo has picked it up, I heard Rush all a-stutter about it today and you know damn well it’s gonna be on cable talk tonight and tomorrow and on Timmeh’s show on Sunday.

    I’m sure it will all work out ok, but those kind of amateurish mistakes need to kept in mind in this emerging media.

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  14. I’m sure it will all work out ok, but those kind of amateurish mistakes need to kept in mind in this emerging media.

    I agree that we bloggers need to get used to being scrutinized. I doubt the flap will make any difference in the election, but we’ll see.

  15. Never realised before…How closely Lieberman resembles “Buckwheat”…

    Oh-Tay?

  16. I agree that we bloggers need to get used to being scrutinized

    The blogger who tried to drag you( Maha) into the fray conveyed almost a sense of vandetta by the way he crafted his words. You can believe that the eyes are on you, and the hopes are you present an opportunity for them to pounce on you.

    If you want to stir the bee’s nest…Just post that the Jew’s are responsible for all wars…I think that would bring them out in numbers.

  17. The blogger who tried to drag you( Maha) into the fray conveyed almost a sense of vandetta by the way he crafted his words.

    He’s pissed at me for banning him from commenting here, apparently. Small people hold big grudges.

  18. I have to agree with Shakespeare’s Sister and Steve M: the graphic was not just offensive but completely pointless. It was just a deeply stupid thing to post.

    None of which makes the faux outrage on the right by any means legitimate…but the foreseeability of that faux outrage does make posting the graphic even stupider.

  19. not just offensive but completely pointless

    Blackface originally was worn by white performers pretending to be black (and later was adopted by black performers pretending to be white performers pretending to be black) and continued to be worn by white performers in some venues, so I took it to mean Lieberman was pretending to be black. Crude, yes, but there was a point.

  20. Point to #18 & #19:

    Yes, she had a valid point. The point was lost in the picture. I just now got done listening to some nervous and sweaty little kid from Lieberman’s campaign arguing with Mike Barnicale and Al Sharpton about it on Hardball. For all of the points he was trying to make that missed the mark, I’m afraid his linking of Jane and the Lamont campaign hit the mark. Screw the righties on this, now Lamont has to spend valuable time running from firedoglake who have done alot of good for him.

    I’m done now – lol.

  21. Screw the righties on this, now Lamont has to spend valuable time running from firedoglake who have done alot of good for him.

    I’m sure Jane feels terrible about this, but if not this it would have been something else. That’s the rightie modus operandi — find some innocuous thing they can blow up into a phony scandal to misdirect media and voter attention. We don’t have to help them, do we?

  22. #12 – Hammer, nail, head.

    If bloggers want to play with the big kids they’d better start acting like it. Moulitsas learned his lesson a couple years back and now Jane has, too.

  23. Did I really just read someone trying to compare Jane Hamsher’s use of an offensive image to Spike Lee’s Bamboozled? That may be even more offensive than the image itself.

    And while I agree that the hypocrisy of the right with all their faux indignation is disgusting, but why isn’t anyone talking about the real anger that many on the left are expressing over this. You may not realize it, but there are a lot of us Black folk who consider ourselves lefties who are sick and tired of being played like suckas by the White liberal establishment. It’s one thing to see the way the feminist blogs have treated Nubian of Blac(k)ademic, but to see people rushing to defend racist imagery used to score political points?

    And for the record, Steve Gilliard doesn’t get a pass because he’s Black. His use of racist imagery was foul as well.

    I am one seriously depressed Black man right now. This is making me sick.

  24. Well Kevin, I read the post and all the comments again and I am not sure who “rushed to defend racist imagery”.

    You said Steve Gilliard doesn’t get a pass, yet you seem willing to give Spike Lee one? And since when do people need a pass?I am German…perhaps you feel I should say sorry for hitler???Perhaps I should say sorry on behalf of all women when one says something dumb…You see ,I personally didn’t rush to defend a soul, but you can all kiss my ass IF you feel I owe anyone a apology for anyones words but by own.I owe no one ANYTHING…and anything I do give has been earned, not demanded.As I said before I am not your monkey.

    Did you notice any rightie blog saying sorry for Janes words? Why not demand all bloggers apologize?Why just leftie bloggers? Why shouldn’t everyone who is a human American say sorry?Why limit it?Should whitie rightie blogs who ran the photo … just to show how bad it was*wink wink* be sorry??????

    Why not demand an apology from the person responsible?, if you feel one is owed you.I am sure Jane can speak for herself as to what she intended..

    You say Black folk are tired of being “played as suckas by the white liberal establishment” …perhaps you like the way the GOP treated the folks of NO better?I am really not sure how this photo equals the white liberal establishment”playin ya for suckas”, perhaps you were speaking of Liberman buying folks for $60?

    Minorities in this country are suffering worse than ever, thanks to the GOP…. how can you get more “played” than that?Look around at the suffering in this country alone and you can pass all of that up and instead be outraged by a photo on a blog?

    No wonder our country is such a mess.Thanks for teaching me a lesson this week.I am going to save my outrage…I have a feeling I am going to need it.

  25. Kevin, I’m sorry you are upset. But I sincerely do not think Jane Hamsher intended to send a racist message, but a message about racism. I think she used bad judgment with the graphic, but I also think people are overreacting.

    Symbols have no more power or meaning than whatever you choose to give them. If you choose to assign meaning to the graphic that wasn’t intended by Hamsher that’s your business, but that isn’t exactly her fault, is it?

    It’s a fact that racism thoroughly permeated white American popular culture for at least two centuries. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that many whites become sensitive to the most egregious imagery and began to reject it. So now film of Mickey Rooney in blackface is locked up in a vault, and the lawn jockeys are stored in basements where no one sees them. Well, that’s an improvement.

    But I wonder if we aren’t also allowing racists off the hook here. These days even bigots have figured out that bigotry is “bad,” so they find ways to justify it. One of their favorites is to deny how brutal and pervasive racism has been in our history. If African Americans feel alienated and angry, the bigots say, this must be because they have a “victimization complex.”

    Our collective memory of how bad it was is being suppressed. I think Spike Lee has a point; we need to drag the relics of racism out into the open, and look at it, and acknowledge it, so that we can get beyond it. It’s like Germans born after World War II need to acknowledge the Holocaust and not pretend it didn’t happen. Maybe as a society we’re not ready for that step yet, but it needs to happen eventually or it’s going to keep eating at us.

  26. Okay, I think I get it. If you’re offended by blackface, it proves you’re a racist. Very instructive, these blogs.

  27. I think I get it.

    No, you don’t get it. I’m offended by blackface, too, in some contexts. But it’s illogical to take offense at a racist image when the context and intent make it part of an anti-racist message.

    But since this is clearly over your head, you must be a rightie.

  28. Justme – You said Steve Gilliard doesn’t get a pass, yet you seem willing to give Spike Lee one?

    No, I’m saying that Spike Lee wasn’t trying to win political points with his movie. I actually agree with Maha that given the right context Blackface can be a strong statement. That’s not what I’m seeing here.

    I am German…perhaps you feel I should say sorry for hitler???

    I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Please explain and I’ll try to explain myself better.

    You see ,I personally didn’t rush to defend a soul, but you can all kiss my ass IF you feel I owe anyone a apology for anyones words but by own.I owe no one ANYTHING…and anything I do give has been earned, not demanded.As I said before I am not your monkey.

    Again, I’m confused. I don’t recall asking you or anyone BUT Jane Hamsher and The Huffington Post for an apology (well, and maybe a few of their defenders, I admit). I’m sorry, but until today I wasn’t aware of your existence. So no, you don’t owe me an apology for anything. My only question is where you are going with all of this.

    If you choose to assign meaning to the graphic that wasn’t intended by Hamsher that’s your business, but that isn’t exactly her fault, is it?

    I almost don’t want to go here because I know the minute I mention the intentional fallacy someone is going to accuse me of being an academic (that’s a bad word, if you didn’t know). One idea that I keep trying to get people to understand is that saying or doing something racist does not make one an outright racist. It doesn’t matter if Hamsher intended to be racist. Hell, I don’t think that Hamsher is a racist. That’s not what I’m trying to get across here. Firedoglake is still on my blogroll and I will continue to support her and her blog. What pisses me off is the way she is trying to diminish the damage that she has done rather than simply admiting that she fucked up. I’m not going to let that stand.

    Did you notice any rightie blog saying sorry for Janes words? Why not demand all bloggers apologize?Why just leftie bloggers? Why shouldn’t everyone who is a human American say sorry?Why limit it?Should whitie rightie blogs who ran the photo … just to show how bad it was*wink wink* be sorry??????

    Actually, that is what I’m demanding.

    You say Black folk are tired of being “played as suckas by the white liberal establishment” …perhaps you like the way the GOP treated the folks of NO better?I am really not sure how this photo equals the white liberal establishment”playin ya for suckas”, perhaps you were speaking of Liberman buying folks for $60?

    Minorities in this country are suffering worse than ever, thanks to the GOP…. how can you get more “played” than that?Look around at the suffering in this country alone and you can pass all of that up and instead be outraged by a photo on a blog?

    See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I’m sick and tired of liberals playing the “but…but, the conservatives do it too! Why aren’t you complaining about them?” line. Funny how this only comes up the few times I complain about liberals. If you were at all familiar with me and what I have to say, you’d know that I spend the majority of my time going off on conservatives. Yet every six months or so when I find something that I disagree with done by a liberal, people like you are ready to jump on my ass and wonder why I’m not giving it to the conservatives like I’m giving it to liberals. Whatever.

    I wish Malcolm X wasn’t right, but he was, and things haven’t changed one bit.


    In this deceitful American game of power politics, the Negroes (i.e., the race problem, the integration and civil rights issues) are nothing but tools, used by one group of whites called Liberals against another group of whites called Conservatives, either to get into power or to remain in power. Among whites here in America, the political teams are no longer divided into Democrats and Republicans. The whites who are now struggling for control of the American political throne are divided into “liberal” and “conservative” camps. The white liberals from both parties cross party lines to work together toward the same goal, and white conservatives from both parties do likewise.

    The white liberal differs from the white conservative only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor; and by winning the friendship, allegiance, and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or tool in this political “football game” that is constantly raging between the white liberals and white conservatives.

    Politically the American Negro is nothing but a football and the white liberals control this mentally dead ball through tricks of tokenism: false promises of integration and civil rights. In this profitable game of deceiving and exploiting the political politician of the American Negro, those white liberals have the willing cooperation of the Negro civil rights leaders. These “leaders” sell out our people for just a few crumbs of token recognition and token gains. These “leaders” are satisfied with token victories and token progress because they themselves are nothing but token leaders. –Malcolm X

  30. It’s a fact that racism thoroughly permeated white American popular culture for at least two centuries. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s that many whites become sensitive to the most egregious imagery and began to reject it. So now film of Mickey Rooney in blackface is locked up in a vault, and the lawn jockeys are stored in basements where no one sees them. Well, that’s an improvement.

    But I wonder if we aren’t also allowing racists off the hook here. These days even bigots have figured out that bigotry is “bad,” so they find ways to justify it. One of their favorites is to deny how brutal and pervasive racism has been in our history. If African Americans feel alienated and angry, the bigots say, this must be because they have a “victimization complex.”

    This is one of those moments where I completely agree and disagree at the same time.

    I hate to admit it, but I read Michelle Malkin on a daily basis, and so I’m well aware that the indignation over this incident (as well as her followers) on her part is nothing but bullshit.

    But I just can’t see the connection between Spike Lee’s discussion of racist portrayals of Black people and Jane Hamsher’s use of Blackface imagery to score political points.

    What bothers me is that I think most of what you are saying here is right on the money, but it also seems as if the left aren’t willing to apply it to themselves.

    You write “Our collective memory of how bad it was is being suppressed. I think Spike Lee has a point; we need to drag the relics of racism out into the open, and look at it, and acknowledge it, so that we can get beyond it.”

    Yeah, exactly! That’s what I’m getting at here. I see Jane’s and Steve’s use of racist imagery as relics of racism, only now it’s being used to support the cause of the left. And so yeah, I’m willing to drag it out into the open and acknowledge (and confront) it.

  31. What bothers me is that I think most of what you are saying here is right on the money, but it also seems as if the left aren’t willing to apply it to themselves.

    I’m going to start another post/thread to discuss some of these issues, but I want to address this one point — I honestly don’t see what it is we’re not applying to ourselves. I’m genuinely baffled, in fact. Can you be more specific what “it” is we’re not applying?

  32. That Malcolm X quote offends me, deeply. He/you are saying I’m actually lieing about some of my most deeply held beliefs. That the only reason I SAY I care about racil justice is to use it as a ‘football’ in the wars against the republicans. Well, sorry, but no. I believe what I believe and if you or Malcolm want to try to tell me I’m lieing, you can both fuck off. ‘Scuse my french. It just pisses me off when people try to tell me I don’t actually believe what I actually believe.

    -me

    Translation: My nephew wishes to express disagreement with the opinion stated in Comment #28, specifically the quote attributed to Mr. Malcolm X . The quotation attributes intentions and views to my nephew (as a white man) that do not reflect his actual intentions and views. He believes this attribution to be unfair, and he feels somewhat disgruntled. — Aunt Maha

  33. I find it unfair to take the instance of a Black man, one who has made a career out of disecting race in America, one who put other Black people in Black face to make a point about not only the entertainment industry’s portrayal of Black people, but also the ways we Blacks will ALLOW ourselves to be portrayed, and then try to use that as a justification for a White woman putting a White man in Black face (however satirical the intent may have been) to make a political point. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of the “well Black people call each other niggers, so why can’t I call them niggers too?” line.

    It doesn’t shock me one bit that the issue of structural racism, which is far more present in contemporary discourse than intentional racism (no one intends to be racist anymore, except for maybe Michelle Malkin), makes people upset. The discussion requires that people look beyond their intentions and dig deeper into how their actions may effect others. It also requires that you recognize that every critique is not a direct attack on YOU, personally. The Lieberman/Lamont race proves Malcolms point all to well, whether you want to admit it or not. How many serious issues concerning the Black community have been raised by Lieberman in this race? He’s just throwing blanket and unjustified attacks at Lamont and running around with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in order to scrounge up the oh-so-coveted Black vote (see! I have Black friends!). And now this whole Hamsher/Lamont thing?

    So you can tell me to fuck off all you want. The fact that your reaction is to tell me to fuck off rather than to take seriously what at least two Black people feel is a continuing problem in contemporary political discourse tells me that this discussion is going nowhere.

    I’m leaving this discussion with a quote from Changeseeker, a White woman who says it better than I can (go read the whole post, ” For White Folks: How To Become An Ally (Part 1),” it’s quite good.

    Am I trying to be rude here or hurt your feelings or something? After all, you’re reading this because you want to be an ally for people of color, right? Shouldn’t I be a little kinder, a little more thoughtful, perhaps, of your good intentions? The answer is: no. You don’t deserve special kindness for making some tiny effort to face reality. It may not be your personal fault that institutionalized oppression in the name of racism against people of color has made sure that people who look like you and I have the most of the best and the least of the worst. But since you have benefitted from birth because of it–whether you realized it or not–you’ve already gotten all the special treatment you should expect. And given the fact that this system is not going to disappear any time soon, you’re going to continue to get benefits anyway, even if you don’t want them. (And let’s be real about that, shall we? Are you sure you’re ready to give up all that privilege when you’ve never experienced life any other way so far? Hmmm…?)

  35. Oh please someone tell me that the commnet I just left which isn’t appearing went into moderation.

    It did not go into moderation. I’m very sorry. I don’t know what the problem is.

    Update: I found it and unspammed it.

  37. I am not a republican and I am fiercely pro-Lamont.

    That said, there is absolutely NO justification for Jane Hamsher’s use of that graphic. Jane Hamsher may not have [consciously] intended to use a racist graphic, but the fact that she did use one that is so blatently so says as much about her unconscious as Mel Gibson’s drunken tirade says about his.

    And the fact that she did so all –as she and the Lamont campaign agree– all on her own, without even running it by a couple of her friends in the Lamont campaign, shows that she is infected with hubris of the worst kind. No pause, no reflection — no considering of how such an action might not only affect the Lamont campaign, but the black people the image ridicules. (& comparing LIeberman to a minstral performer — who were, after all, originally black btw — speaks volumes about how she feels not only about Lieberman, but about black folk on some level).

    In politics and in life, actions have consequences. It is the Icarus’ of the world, like the self-absorbed Lieberman and his equally self-absorbed nemesis Hamsher (ironically) that don’t get this.

    And the comparison to Lieberman is not really so far-fetched. We tend to become obsessed with people and situations which exemplify those qualities which we ourselves are afflicted with.

    The right is notable for its inabitlity to recognize this dimension of life. On the left, we forget it or ignore it at our peril.

  38. sunrunner: Self-absorption takes many forms.

    And the comparison to Lieberman is not really so far-fetched. We tend to become obsessed with people and situations which exemplify those qualities which we ourselves are afflicted with.

    My impression is that would be rigidity and judgmentalism in your case.

  40. ok ,, holy crap……I am only addressing the comments I made Kevin, so please don’t be angry if I skip the ones that were not mine….

    And Maha, I am so sorry your words were confused with mine… I really really am.Just to be clear Maha is the smart one….I am an idiot compared to her and will never be worthy of being compared…I am here to learn and I am trying.

    I am not sure how Steve Gillard or Jane scored political points using such images….but I respect your right to your feelings on the matter….

    I was trying to ask where is the cut off for who owes whom an apology.Is it all bloggers, all Americans,, all readers,,, who?Just white women bloggers with a beauty mark?..I personally am bothered by the trend in society of any certain groups demanding blanket apologies … I don’t owe anyone anything, nor do they owe me anything …When rush limbaugh stays something sexist I don’t feel the need to here a “I am sorry ” from men and I personally don’t do blanket apologies for crap I didn’t do.. but thats just me…….

    I am not sure to do with the next question and even though I wrote it I will pass on a reply given the fact I think you had mistaken me for maha….if you wish to talk about it further and I am wrong I will be glad to answer somehow if you wish.

    I have a blog… nobody reads it but I have one… If I read correctly you ARE demanding all bloggers apologize for Janes image.If that is true I say, respectfully, NO SIR I will not.Despite the fact I would NEVER use the graphic myself I still will not say I am sorry for it. I am sorry your feelings were hurt, and I do understand why.I am only called to account for myself , the only other I apologize for is my pets should they have a accident.I am sorry to let you down if you feel I owe you something I cannot give.

    Wow, Jump your ass????Holy crap … far be it from me to “jump ” anyones “ass” when they take a image from a blog and turn it into being”played for suckas by the white liberal establishment”… who exactly is the “white liberal establishment”? btw?….are they the ones smoking all the pot at Berkeley that righties are always talking about?

    Then you rail on me for defending the left. Well let me tell you it is easy for me to defend the less of two evils.The two evils don’t even seem to be on the same level. I don’t even belong to a political party so I have no “political gain ” at stake when I say that the left is NOT perfect… But they have done more to further the cause of AMERICANS of all gender,color and faith then the right EVER WILL.And sadly I will point to Durfur and right here at home NO and ask you who is in charge and who has done nothing?The right controls every branch of our government and all they have offered up is never ending war and even if we stopped the war today, never ending debt to match… hows that workin for ya?So yes I will defend the left because I can compare this last 8 years to Clintons time and SEE things were not perfect then by far, but they were a hell of a lot better for us ALL.Even an uneducated woman such as myself can see that.
    I stand by what I said…you,we can’t get more played than that..I respect your right to disagree.
    4 times now I have read the post AND the comments…who here told you to f*** off ?I can’t find it anywhere..why have such a chip on your shoulder that you declare people will tell you something like that?
    Still I don’t question your right to feel anger.. if you feel it, then it’s valid to me….but can’t we agree the real time suffering in Durfur and Iraq and NO (among other places) being ignored is more of an outrage?We could all go a long way to healing those old wounds with our actions in those areas, for starters.Lets face it we as a country, and we as the world need to do a lot of healing..to turn our backs on the suffering of real people to focus outrage on an image seems like cruelism if not worse,, but that is just me and I am a nobody and as you pointed out I didn’t even exist until this post so go back about your too smart for me discussion and let the suffering continue. PEACE

  42. Pingback: The Mahablog » About That Graphic, II

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