Jackson Free Press

Yes, on a food stamp, with his head attached to a donkey's body and surrounded by fried chicken, watermelon, ribs and Kool-Aid. See for yourself:

The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles.

The October newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated says if Obama is elected his image will appear on food stamps -- instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The statement is followed by an illustration of "Obama Bucks" -- a phony $10 bill featuring Obama's face on a donkey's body, labeled "United States Food Stamps."

The GOP newsletter, which was sent to about 200 members and associates of the group by e-mail and regular mail last week, is drawing harsh criticism from members of the political group, elected leaders, party officials and others as racist.

The group's president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club's meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

"It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don't want to go into it any further," Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn't think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

"I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else."

She said she also wasn't trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: "Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!"

The article goes on to say that a black member of the group said she cried for 45 minutes after reading the email.

Previous Comments

ID

139294

Comment

BTW, in the last section of the article, the author describes an incident where the Sacramento County GOP had an image of Obama and Osama in Laden together with a quote of, "The difference between Osama and Obama is just a little B.S." It also said to waterboard Barack Obama. Also as an aside, a Tampa GOP fundraiser was circulating a joke about killing Obama: The joke concerns a group of school children discussing the definition of “tragedy,” as opposed to “great loss” or “accident.” The punch line comes when one child says that if an airplane carrying Obama and his wife, Michelle, “was struck by a 'friendly fire' missile and blown to smithereens,” the event might be a tragedy, “because it certainly wouldn't be a great loss, and it probably wouldn't be an accident either.” I feel like I stepped into a time machine and traveled back to 1960.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-16T21:41:18-06:00

ID

139295

Comment

Great link, L.W. Thanks. I saved the Obama Bucks food stamp to my files. Next time I make up a batch of business cards I'll have it on the back. Maybe I can use it to get some free government cheese and a big can of peanut butter.

Author

HardTravelin

Date

2008-10-16T21:58:31-06:00

ID

139296

Comment

Don't forget the hot sauce, HardTravelin. We looooove hot sauce!

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-16T22:01:29-06:00

ID

139298

Comment

Diane Fedele was Keith Olbermann's "Worst Person In the World" for today. It's laughable how people get caught doing something so patently racist and somehow don't get what the fuss is all about, then they justify it by saying "My best friends are black", etc, as Fedele said about voting for Alan Keyes.

Author

golden eagle

Date

2008-10-16T23:12:09-06:00

ID

139300

Comment

There's too much of this sort of thing going on in the Republican Party right now. Most of it doesn't make it to print newsletters, but until the Party embraces its "black and tan" roots, this sort of thing will continue. I will give Barbour props: He campaigned pretty heavily in District 2 last year. But until this represents a sustained effort, and one shared by a majority of party members (so that we don't have to go "Yay! He actually went to a black part of the state!" every time a Republican candidate does), and until this produces a new, integrated generation of Republican leaders, the racial isolation that produces this sort of bigotry will continue. Frankly, I wonder sometimes whether the Republican Party will go the way of the Federalist Party before it does what it needs to do to stay competitive on a long-term basis in a multiethnic, 21st-century America. But I guess that's up to the party leadership. Fedele deserves every bit of notoriety that she gets, IMHO. The quote in the second to final paragraph makes it pretty clear what she was up to, and it wasn't just edgy humor gone awry.

Author

Tom Head

Date

2008-10-17T00:04:55-06:00

ID

139304

Comment

Tom Head, the republicans aren't going to change and become multi-ethnic and inclusive. That's why they're republicans..they can be openly racist amongst each other and it's no problem. Hot sauce all around, L.W. I'm buying this round.

Author

HardTravelin

Date

2008-10-17T02:20:31-06:00

ID

139312

Comment

I got this email today; What does OBAMA read? He almost, but not really, reveals his agenda for America during his (hopeful) presidency!! Does this pose any concern to you??? Can you imagine how the media would be acting if this was McCain's or any Republican's photo? Obama...is reading "The Post-American World" -- it's a Muslim's view. Pray for our Country! I haven't read the book so I looked it up and found this: http://www.newsweek.com/id/40211#?l=1540999423&t=1541038678 The author is an editor at Newsweek... oh Horror! and the book is about how America can maintain it's position as the rest of the world rises in stature. What a diabolical plot! I don't know about McCain but I can only imagine the shock and awe if the media discovered the book in President Bush's hand. I, personally, would be stunned if I found out he read anything at all of substance.

Author

WMartin

Date

2008-10-17T08:41:13-06:00

ID

139313

Comment

Once again, after watching Palin's performance at the Farce on Minnesota I came on here and told y'all there are many white women just as crazy and racist as any racist white man. I further told you that many white women haven't distanced themselves from the racist white man at all. Many people got mad at me and accused me of being the angry black man. This kind of thing doesn't surprise me a bit. Again I say republicans, conservatives and racists are too frequently the same people. Not always but frequently or usually. I just hope we can overcome some day, some way, some how, some time and to some extent. Thank you guvner Palin for doing what Ronald Reagan did for the white male a couple of scores agao - making many white women proud of their racism and look foolish trying to explain it away.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-17T09:04:24-06:00

ID

139319

Comment

Thanks for the clip, WMartin. I guess they're freaking out over the book's author, Fareed Zakaria, because he has a "scary" name and is an Islamic scholar. I didn't see anything "scary" on his Wikipedia page: Zakaria is generally regarded as a political moderate or centrist.[1] In foreign policy terms, he is a "realist" (i.e., someone who believes that American foreign policy should be guided by a conception of its national interest). His first book, From Wealth to Power, argues that countries that grow rich and powerful inevitably expand their sphere of interests abroad. He sees America as a reluctant great power in the late 19th century because it was a strange creature – a strong nation with a very weak central state. Zakaria is an advocate of free markets, both at home and abroad. He believes that America should embrace globalization and free trade. He is an internationalist, writing consistently in favor of American engagement with the world, multilateralism, and efforts to help alleviate global poverty and disease. He has often argued that helping countries to modernize their economies and societies is a more secure path to development and liberty than pushing for elections and democracy. His second book, The Future of Freedom, develops this latter theme more fully. Zakaria argues that democracy works best in societies when it is preceded by "constitutional liberalism," which he defines as the rule of law, rights of property, contract, and individual freedoms. He has written that historically liberty has preceded democracy, not the other way around. He has argued that countries that simply hold elections without broad-based modernization–including economic liberalization and the rule of law–end up becoming "illiberal democracies". For this reason, he has been critical of the manner in which the Bush administration has pushed its democracy agenda forward, relying on elections in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon as the solution to those countries' problems and minimizing the building of the institutions of law, governance, and liberty. After the 9/11 attacks, Zakaria wrote a seminal cover-story essay for Newsweek entitled "The Politics of Rage: Why Do They Hate Us?". In it, he argued that Islamic terrorism has its roots in the stagnation and dysfunctions of the Arab world. Decades of failure under tyrannical regimes, all claiming to be Western-style secular modernizers, has produced an opposition that is religious, violent, and increasingly globalized. Because the mosque is the one place where people can gather in an Arab country, that is where the opposition to these regimes grew. Because Islam was the one institution that could not be censored, it became the language of opposition. He argued for a generational effort to create more open and dynamic societies in Arab countries, thereby helping Islam enter the modern world. In a June 11, 2007 cover essay, Zakaria criticized "fear-based" policies on terrorism, immigration, and trade, arguing that beyond George W. Bush the world needs an open and confident United States.[2] They're probably calling him an "aye-rab" too (as if being of Arab descent is inherently evil), but he was born in India.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-17T09:44:10-06:00

ID

139320

Comment

As a poor colored boy born and reared in Mississippi, I didn't realize we blacks had all this time and interest for planning and scheming on how to redistribute wealth or get get revenge from whites. All the blacks I know are too busy trying to ink out a living, and feed, clothes, educate and protect their families. I won't even mention rapping and playing cards and dominoes. Any spare time left is spent going to church, fishing, hunting, meditating and trying to figure out how to get Mr. Charlie foot off our necks or carcass off our backs. I do understand white folk's fears, though. A reading Negro is a dangerous Negro. LOL.

Author

Walt

Date

2008-10-17T09:55:11-06:00

ID

139322

Comment

Is that there wiki pedia part of the left wing media cabal? LOL I am frankly quite ashamed of my white brethren who forward this kind of ignorant b.s. around the internet. I had to reply back and tell them how stupid they were making themselves look. So I can't really blame Walt for being an angry black man it pisses me off too.

Author

WMartin

Date

2008-10-17T10:19:24-06:00

ID

139331

Comment

Um, Fareed is freakin' HOT.

Author

Lori G

Date

2008-10-17T13:57:24-06:00

ID

139333

Comment

I heard McCain on CNN giving a speech today in which he said The crowd went wingnuts. It would be funnier if they weren't a little scary. We know the image those words are intended to conjure. I guess Willie Horton will be on next. I also saw on CNN where they hung an effigy of Obama in a yard in Georgia or somewhere similar with a Star of David on top of his head. That is kinda freaky. Fareed probably pals around with terrorists (sarcasm).

Author

FreeClif

Date

2008-10-17T16:15:18-06:00

ID

139334

Comment

the best part of the article was when it referenced a woman named Aquanetta Warren. I'll bet her sisters name is White Rain.

Author

bill_jackson

Date

2008-10-17T16:18:19-06:00

ID

139335

Comment

Yes, Aquanetta isn't a common name, but I assume that both her parents agreed on the name. In contrast, a guy in Tennessee named his newborn daughter Sarah McCain Palin behind his wife's back. The name they both chose before the child's birth was Ava Grace.

Author

LatashaWillis

Date

2008-10-17T18:39:38-06:00