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As reported by Art Pope Exposed yesterday and on the Blend, the Meck Deck, an official blog of the Art Pope-funded conservative John Locke Foundation, published a ridiculous and offensive post with a racially-charged and homophobic image of President Obama to go with author Tara Servatius’s piece this on POTUS’s opposition to North Carolina’s Amendment One, “Obama Goes Pro Gay Marriage to Get NC on Election Day.”
You won’t find the image on the site now, because after a flurry of Tweets and Facebook posts went out linking to the coverage, it quietly disappeared from the site without any explanation. But a screencap grabbed by Art Pope Exposed is evidence of the blatant racism and homophobia that courses through an organization that describes its mission in this manner:
The John Locke Foundation employs research, journalism, and outreach programs to transform government through competition, innovation, personal freedom, and personal responsibility. JLF seeks a better balance between the public sector and private institutions of family, faith, community, and enterprise.
Yeah, right. Freedom for everyone except people of color and gay folks.
The North Carolina NAACP’s Rev. Dr. William Barber, who wrote a powerful open letter to the state’s voters about why they should vote against Amendment One spoke about the Locke imagery of the President:
“We at the NC NAACP have learned of the disgusting picture of our President on the John Locke Foundation blog and website. What we have seen so far has both racist and homophobic overtones, both of which are contrary to the fundamentals of our democracy. It’s outrageous and it shows the kind of racialized, mean-spirited and divisive political attitudes that still exist in the South. On Thursday we will demand to know who authorized and developed such a racist and bigoted portrayal to be placed on the site of an organization that seeks to have so much influence into the shaping of public policy in NC. Whoever did it is completely over the line. It is reckless and dangerous. And should not only be an afront to the black community, the civil rights community, the LBGT community, but every North Carolinian.”
As I said in yesterday’s post, Servatius whined about Barack Obama’s political strategy here in NC on the Locke blog, complaining that the state has gone Purple and that the Obama campaign is targeting educated professionals (the “creative class”), and concerned that the GOP hasn’t targeted this demographic. The NC GOP has such disdain for the creative class that they cannot wrap their minds around the thought of moving to the center from the fringe-right to appeal to them. Servatius is someone to keep your eye on – Chris Kromm of Art Pope Exposed and director of the Institute for Southern Studies asks a pertinent question (my emphasis:
Servatius, a former right-wing radio commentator for Charlotte’s WBT AM, is a regular contributor to the Meck Deck and Servatius also runs the MeckDeck Twitter account, and authors a good share of their posts. How involved was Servatius in the decision to post the Obama image, and keep it up for two days? Last year, a Charlotte blogger noted that Servatius was a speaker at an event for the neo-Confederate group the League of the South.
UPDATE (12 PM ET): Locke Foundation blogger resigns. The President of the John Locke Foundation has put out a press release announcing it has drop-kicked Servatius, er, she resigned.
A freelance writer has ended her association with the John Locke Foundation’s Meck Deck blog today in the wake of criticism over an offensive illustration linked to one of her blog entries earlier this week.
Tara Servatius informed the Locke Foundation this morning that she wished to resign from her freelance writing for the blog, which focuses primarily on the Charlotte region.
The item posted Monday afternoon focused on President Obama’s opposition to the marriage amendment on North Carolina’s May primary ballot. The initial post included an image combining the president’s face with the image of a person wearing chains and high-heeled boots and sitting next to a bucket of fried chicken.
“I’m embarrassed and angered today,” said JLF President John Hood. “The illustration associated with this blog entry was offensive and utterly inappropriate for our blog or anyone else’s. A reader brought it to my attention Wednesday. I had it removed immediately, but the damage was done. I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier, and I’m deeply sorry it was on our website for any length of time.”
“The political discourse in our state and nation has grown increasingly coarse, unnecessarily personal, and destructively vitriolic,” Hood added. “This is the kind of episode that can only make the situation worse. We should be able to disagree about controversial issues without it coming to this.”
Hood agreed with Servatius’ decision. “Given the severity of the situation, this is the best outcome for all concerned.”
Chris Kromm of Art Pope Exposed noted above that she was hardly some freelancer, having represented the organization on Twitter and was the author of many blog posts and Hood explanations for that image’s appearance and disappearance fall flat. In his update:
Servatius clearly enjoyed a leadership role at the Locke Foundation’s Charlotte website. In addition to controlling the blog’s Twitter account, Servatius was also by far its most prolific contributor: A look at the three most recent pages reveals 15 of the last 20 posts were written by Servatius.
Hood claims that he had the image “removed immediately.” Yet the blog’s datestamp shows the Obama image was posted at 4:41 pm on Monday, March 19, and wasn’t removed until after 10 pm the evening of Wednesday, March 21 — and then only after a flurry of online criticism. Hood’s apology doesn’t address how the image was allowed to stay on the site by Locke Foundation editors, writers and readers for that stretch of time without anyone registering concerns.
This isn’t Servatius’ first brush with racial controversy. In a photo that appears to be from 2010, Servatius can be seen addressing a gathering of The League of the South, a neo-Confederate organization that is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center
18 Comments
It feels like I’m seeing more racist stuff than I’ve seen in my lifetime–and I’m 53!. What’s going on?
Is it the “free speech” crusade? Is it that they figure it’s ok ’cause the president is black?
Whatever… they’re completely embarrassing themselves–and the country btw.
I think a link to her actual “apology” is in order. It is anothe case of “I didn’t think it was racist” and “Regrettably, I didn’t think about the racial implications of the picture when I posted it. I simply don’t think in those terms. Unfortunately some people do. To me, fried chicken is simply a Southern Cuisine”.
She is a genuine tool.
http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/blogpost/10892399/
Does anybody ever think that this type of shit is done to purposely rile up the democratic base so that they go out and vote for obama? Really, who can deliver more for them: obama, who the vast majority of so-called liberals/progressives support no matter what the hell he does, or romney, who is almost certainly sure to rekindle the “values” and “principles” of those so-called liberals/progressives? The answer to that question is pretty damn easy in my opinion.
Z
I should be clearer, when I write: ‘who can deliver more for them’ the them is the 1%.
Z
Well I suppose it’s possible.
Regardless, potential obama voters have to decide who is more important, the interest of obama himself or the interests of the people whom he’s elected to serve.
I’m 66 and I’ve never seen anything like this, in “print” at least. From time to time I still hear folks about my age down here use derogatory terms for those who are “other” (Black, Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, etc., etc…) but almost invariably they’ll look guilty and apologize. The vileness and vitriol and pure, unadulterated hate and nastiness that has become common on the web, possibly because it’s done anonymously, has horrified me.
I’m in my late 50′s and I think this is emblamatic of the last of a dying breed. The overt KKKers, White Citizen Councils, The Colonial Club(S.Africa), and all the rest of the in your face haters who want to put minorities, the LGBT movement, etc on notice that the beatings, shootings, are headed to an alley or country backroad near them. White trash, rich or poor makes no difference, just have to bully and abuse someone. Or, they just won’t feel subhuman enough.
You’d hope that would be part of their thought process.
Z
That’s why I’ve been wondering if the GOP is starting to branch out in their Things To Demonize as part of the corporate-bigot alliance that started out as the “Southern Strategy”.
Even after this clarification I can make no sense out of your comment.
While incoherent it seems to imply (1) “a vast majority of so-called liberals/progressives support Obama no matter what he does.” This statement is laughable. I don’t know any liberals/progressives who are not seriously pissed-off at Obama, and you can verify that by reading any issue of The Nation published in the last year. I will admit that many of us plan to vote Democratic anyway; somebody has to protect the SCOTUS and (2) This outrage was concocted to “…rile up the democratic base so …”. I’m not grasping how that’s supposed to benefit the 1%.
It’s not the last of a dying breed. It’s a more blatant and, if possible, vicious brand. This is not coming from 80 yr olds.
I have lived under Jim Crow and in the deep south most of my life. The racist rage and oppression has not gone away. It is not past history. We simply have yet to deal with it.
The fact that so many good people think of it as a past history thing worries me and underlies my rants on the articles about the travesty visited on the Trayvon Martin family.
Starting to branch out? Seems to me they’ve had a dragnet out for things to demonize since I can remember.
Amen. I live less than a day’s drive from a KKK HQ in a storefront on a main street.
They were beginning to seem a little subdued until we elected Barak Obama. Now they are in full cry. They have learned to do the GOP coded messages thing, but the guts of the issue is the same as ever.
I intended this as a response to Phoenix Woman but you are right too RM
You are correct. They are behaving pretty much the way they did toward impoverished whites during the depression. I think across the country they are more about class and the poor even than race. Of course in the south the embedded racism once peculiar to the region was good pickings politically once the Civil Rights laws were passed.
Not! Are you keeping up with the political landscape of Michigan? The GOP loves to talk about the lazy welfare poor, but everybody in Texas as well as everybody in Wisconsin knows who they are (or should I say who they’re talking about.)
Once my big brother was raving about welfare. Not that unusual for this part of Texas I’m sorry to say, When I had had all I could stand I told him that it wasn’t welfare. “If we were talking about a pretty little blond with three blue eyed kids whose husband had just been killed in a wreck you wouldn’t have a problem with welfare at all.” That shut his mouth like I’d kicked him in the chin.
Guess I was being too parochial. But it has seemed to me historically the GOP is about wealthy ruling elite with a compliant workforce that accepts shameless wages and working conditions. But now the racism has really spread like a virus to become part of the definition of those who are poor and therefore deemed lazy and dependent everywhere. Of course the immigration of the cheap labor by African Americans to Michigan, Ohio and that region did compete with white labor.
It is more complicated than either of us is likely to describe it all. I just wanted to make the point that the economics is a large component in the racial policies of the GOP.
No smoke without fire.
I don’t know why you think it is incoherent, but I’ll spell it out a little slower for you: most SO-CALLED liberals/progressives will support … make excuses for … obama no matter what the hell he does (and if you think that most SO-CALLED liberals/progressives have similar views as the majority of folks that post on this blog, then I don’t think that you are capable of understanding what I’m trying to convey no matter how slow I go). I certainly don’t see any movement against him from any SO-CALLED progressive groups even though if a republican did them they’d be marching on the streets and protesting right now. And the democrats in congress would also be putting up a lot more resistance to the things that obama has been able to get them to go along with if a republican president tried them.
So, since romney and obama have very similar agendas: dutifully representing the 1%’s interests, why would the 1%ers want romney over obama if obama is more effective at furthering their goals? So, it’s in the interests of the 1%ers to get the democratic base all pissed off and energize them … something that is lacking from the base so far compared to 2008 … to help obama win the election … which helps themselves.
Z