Sweet suffering Jesus...

[rivka]

Fox News described Michelle Obama as Barack's "Baby Mama."

Just a couple days after the whole "terrorist fist jab" incident.

This election is just going to keep on digging out the ugliest, ugliest depths of the American psyche, isn't it?

It's fucking embarrassing to even share a country with some of these people.

Edited to add: In the middle of a charming full-on rant, Scalzi offers this concise summary of the issue:

Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News have a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men.

My psychic prediction: If this can't be buried - and I doubt that it can - expect to see the right wing attempt to turn it around with bluster about "the real issue" being all those African-Americans who have children out of wedlock, and calling for Obama to denounce the "social pathology" of his people.

I am too sensitive of stomach to actually Google "the real issue" and "social pathology" to see if I've already been proven right.

Comments

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

Country? How about planet?

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just... wow.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, my God, FOX News. I can't even. Who suffers these idiots to LIVE, much less puts them on air?!

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Seriously embarrassing. On one of my boards, someone asked about a comparison chart for Obama and McCain. The crap that emerged during the discussion was appalling. But I did take some comfort in the fact that, by the end, the most willfully ignorant people had decided to write in Ron Paul.

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

I just went and held up my fist and asked galagan to bump his fist there. I guess now we're terrorists; I expect my membership card and Hezbollah handbook to arrive in the mail shortly.

It's shitty "political" coverage like this - the fact that this passes for political coverage these days - that's kept me far far away from the election this go-around. I just can't stand it.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Nod. Though, on the plus side, sometimes the hatred has to hit critical mass before it generates enough ugliness to cause folks to recoil from it.

Kind of like a boil coming to a head, with all the poison concentrated in one place, so it can be lanced and drained.

But damn can it get painful waiting for that to happen, and the lancing isn't always that much fun, either.

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

I expect the response to mostly resemble that of the tool named Jay in thread you linked: to deny that it's racist and condescendingly opine that you black folks and liberals look for racism just everywhere, and anyway how is it different from a few bloggers calling Cindy McCain a trophy wife? Etc.

[ailbhe]

Oh. My. God.

Oh my *god*.

Really? Wow.