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Obama Witch Doctor Display On Yahoo! Shows Free Speech Is Still Al

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I do, Nicky. "Coming soon to a clinic near you." The message is that Obamacare serves your health no better than a witch doctor, not that all black people are savages. If you think otherwise, explain yourself.

You're either being obtuse, or living on the Moon. Here's five things, can you guess what they have in common?

1. no different from monkeys

2. love watermelon, eat it with their hands

3. they're painted up savages with bones sticking out of their nose and lips

4. crazy about fried chicken

5. they're on drugs and welfare

That's right, they're stereotypes about black people. Here on Earth, we call people who use them racists.

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That's right, they're stereotypes about black people. Here on Earth, we call people who use them racists.

As stupid as I think the poster is (Obamacare is Romney's plan, after all), I literally don't know how else to portray a person as a witch doctor, with bones through the nose and extravagant markings like that. A witch doctor is to me a common way to imply bad medicine. I'd have to see more before concluding racist.

Edited by Eiuol
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If you're gonna ignore the obvious fact that this IS a racist stereotype, then it's not racist. If you ignore the existence of racist stereotypes, no metaphor or image is ever racist.

Let's say I walk up to a black person, call them a nigger. Now you pretend that all you know about the word nigger is that it comes from the Latin for black and means black skinned. As far as you know, I'm not being racist. But everyone who knows about the word nigger and what it's used for knows that I'm not simply pointing out the person's skin color.

There is no underlying logic behind racist stereotypes, they are entirely arbitrary. When someone repeats them, the only way to recognize that what they are doing is not an innocent metaphor or hyperbole is by acknowledging that it is a stereotype. You can't "deduce" that what they're saying is racist while ignoring the context of the language/culture they are saying it in. If that's the kind of "evidence" you're looking for, you're not gonna find it. The guy isn't just gonna come out tomorrow and tell you that he hates blacks.

But the evidence is pretty obvious. In western culture, putting a bone through a black person's nose is a racist stereotype, not a clever metaphor about the efficacy of their health-care plan.

Edited by Nicky
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As stupid as I think the poster is (Obamacare is Romney's plan, after all), I literally don't know how else to portray a person as a witch doctor, with bones through the nose and extravagant markings like that. A witch doctor is to me a common way to imply bad medicine. I'd have to see more before concluding racist.

True. It's not racist. It's protest and outrage - against individual rights being violated. We need more of that, in industrial quantities. For more - read the works of Ayn Rand. :)

Edited by Darrell Cody
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So what I'm hearing from you, Nicky, is that you aren't willing to justify your accusation. It looks to me like you missed the point (you probably didn't read the caption below the photo), and are unwilling to admit your mistake.

Is there a question, or something of substance you wish to add, in there somewhere? Or are you just using your moderator status to get away with a personal attack?

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I asked you to explain to me where the racism is. Repeating your assertions with an avalanche of snarkiness doesn't accomplish this. You can take my last post as a rejection of this kind of rudeness and another opportunity for you to man-up and admit your mistake or actually answer the question. If you want to pretend this is a personal attack, fine. Just keep in mind that you're not fooling anyone.

Edited by FeatherFall
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  • 4 weeks later...

Witch doctors are actual people who exist and act as healers/shamens in their tribes. The symbolism of Obama as a witch doctor can simply be construed as Obama wanting to play the role of a mystical healer, which is what he's doing in reality, in a sense.

The fact that witch doctors and Obama are both black are unavoidable, because they are both black in reality. One can portray Obama as a witch doctor in order to symbolize his role as a mystical healer without necessarily be alluding to black people as savages.

Then again, there is a very good chance that the person who made that image IS a racist. I'd put my money on it. But you can't determine that from the image alone.

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Witch doctors are actual people who exist and act as healers/shamens in their tribes. The symbolism of Obama as a witch doctor can simply be construed as Obama wanting to play the role of a mystical healer, which is what he's doing in reality, in a sense.

The fact that witch doctors and Obama are both black are unavoidable, because they are both black in reality. One can portray Obama as a witch doctor in order to symbolize his role as a mystical healer without necessarily be alluding to black people as savages.

Of course "one" can use it in other ways, there's nothing inherently racist about the image. I'm sure people in Africa use it in other ways all the time. But one can't use it in other ways in American culture. In American culture (and the West in general), that imagery IS unavoidably tied with racism, and virtually everyone knows that.

In western culture, one can't use that image to mean anything else anymore than one can tattoo a swastika on one's forehead and declare that it's the Chinese word for auspicious (which it is). If one decides to do that, everyone will know exactly what they're doing, and, quite rightfully, no one will buy into the excuse.

Edited by Nicky
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Bullshit, Nicky. Explain Diablo 3.

Witch doctors come from several continents. Some people cry, "racism," because they think that western ethnocentrism is inexcusable and they don't understand the difference between ethnicity and race. You still haven't explained why you do it.

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Of course "one" can use it in other ways, there's nothing inherently racist about the image. I'm sure people in Africa use it in other ways all the time. But one can't use it in other ways in American culture. In American culture (and the West in general), that imagery IS unavoidably tied with racism, and virtually everyone knows that.

In western culture, one can't use that image to mean anything else anymore than one can tattoo a swastika on one's forehead and declare that it's the Chinese word for auspicious (which it is). If one decides to do that, everyone will know exactly what they're doing, and, quite rightfully, no one will buy into the excuse.

I disagree with your claim that the image is necessarily racist in the context of American culture. When Diablo 3 came out, I did not see a single article or post, in any form of media, accusing Blizzard of being racist. It was not controversial at all. In fact, apart from the controversy around the obama/witch doctor image, I've never noticed much controversy over the image of the witch doctor in any other context. Maybe I'm just sheltered?

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