What Bad People Do

A bar owner in Georgia has created a controversy of unknown dimensions by having the tee-shirts shown here printed and offering them for sale.

[The bar owner] who began selling the shirts in late April, has said they are not meant to be racist. He said he thinks the Illinois senator and the character "look so much alike."

Bill Nigut, southeast regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said Norman is being disingenuous.

"He can pretend he doesn't understand what the message of that T-shirt is, but he knows full well that's an offensive and demeaning stereotype used to insult African-Americans," Nigut said. He called on citizens not to buy the T-shirts, but stopped short of calling for a boycott of Norman's business or denying him to speak out.

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We have 3 things to say about this:
1. Barack Obama is too fine a gentleman and too accustomed to insult to be likely to make any sort of an issue of this.

2. Disdainful caricature is a fine American art. Have you seen the depictions of George Bush as a chimpanzee? They're everywhere. See:

3. The use of ape-ish pictures to represent black people in America is a raw act of racism respected by ignorant people of ill-will whose contribution to society is poison. Most of them are slowly dying out. There will always be some. The difference in the examples is the difference between humor and hatred. People of judgment will be able to tell the difference at a glance.