@Sudo:

The difference between free speech and hate speech is in rhetorical effect.

Hate speech has as its object the purpose of motivating people to treat some group or person differently for traits that they cannot control or are allowed leeway for by freedom of conscience.

Actually, I don’t think this is hate speech necessarily, except for it’s wingnut-wurlitzer promotion of the “How-do-we-know-he’s-not-a-secret-Muslim-Wouldn’t-that-be-a-disaster” meme and the religious and race-based hate intrinsic to that.

However, hate speech is also about context. And in this case, I think the box (which I haven’t been able to see very well–stupid work computer) is just the tip of the iceberg.

And while I’m not some kind of cartoon expert, I’d say the one on this box does resemble the “pickaninny art” that should have passed along with the Civil Rights Act. Aunt Jemima doesn’t look like that, not since her latest makeover in the nineties, anyway.

A Muslim might allow terrorists to waltz into our country even if they’re KNOWN terrorists to train to take over airplanes and fly them into buildings!
A Muslim might try to introduce theocratic, anti-science curriculum into our schools.
A Muslim might take away our liberties without us even realizing it by eating away at our privacy and suspending habeas corpus. Because, you know, they don’t love freedom like we do.
A Muslim might start using federal money to promote his own religion above others through social programs.

No, we certainly wouldn’t want that.

I am a Muslim. I’m not so much offended by the implication that if Obama were Muslim he would be unfit to lead as I am worried about our future in the U.S. It makes me think we have a long way to go before we get the acceptance that others groups in America have. I don’t want any special privileges for Muslims but I think everyone in the U.S. should be able to run for office if they feel they are good candidates.

A caricature like you might get at Six Flags is not the same as one that may be used to exaggerate ethnic differences in a country and in an election where racial bigotry has already reared its ugly head.

Intent has a lot to do with what is OK. This can be notoriously difficult to assess. Unless you have previous history.

Republicans have a track record for cynically exploiting the lurking racism in this country. It is certainly not lost on them that an embarrassingly large percentage of Americans have openly admitted to being so bacwards, ill bred, and hateful that they would never vote for a black candidate. Period.

I am not sure it is ever OK for serial race baiters to go old school as if there were a statute of limitations on stupidity.

Of course, anyone is free to make any statement or use any kind of art they want but the choices may betray ignoble intentions, reveal ethical shortcomings, and lead to fully justified criticism.

During a slow period, while all the Values voters were inside listening to Sean Hannity harangue Barack Obama for an hour, I wandered down to the vendors area. Most of the stuff there was the same old christianist propoganda. There was lots of christian nationalist literature, lots of Palin gear, some McCain gear, and lots of anti-Obama material. The same old stuff, all pretty disgusting, but hard to get too excited over because, sadly, we are just so used to seeing it. But my jaw dropped when I spotted that big Obama Waffles poster.

It seems from the comments that some readers were unable to recognize the racism. The same people would also probably miss, or refuse to acknowledge the racism embodied in the word “uppity”. I prefer to think that this may be due to a lack of historical perspective.

Having grown up in a racially segregated small city in the Texas panhandle in the ’50s and ’60′s, I immediately recognized the type of racially derisive caricature, known as “pickaninny” art, that was common in those days. There was nothing subtle or innocent about it. Some of the kids here have never seen it so they don’t recognize it. Many of the younger readers were born after MLK was shot and don’t know how awful things were in those days. We had every reason to hope that such things were part of an extended and ugly and shameful period in America that had been thrown on the trash pile of history.

Sadly, no.

Count on good solid christian republicans to bring it back to rear its ugly head at the ironically named “Values Voters” convention.

Values? Not any values I need in my life.

BTW – we also showed this box to a number of black attendees and passers-by to see if we might be off base in seeing racism. Everyone we showed the box to had the same reaction – drop-jawed shock and unanimous agreement that it was indeed flagrantly racist.

If you’re all for movies like Religulous, desecrating wafers, and whatever else, then you should have no problem with some idiot mocking Obama.

One is some sort of an object, other is a person. Big difference.

The boxes shouldn’t have been removed because they were racist, but because they are frickin’ stupid and espouse outright lies and ignorance. That much, at least, is evidently demonstrable.