The University of Mississippi — Ole Miss — is going to have a new mascot. And, the students voted on whether or not the students should have a say in the mascot (tip: Paul Mitchell). Yes, they voted on whether to vote. Now, I’ll admit that I’ve attended meetings to schedule meetings, but I have never voted on voting. I need to think about that.

Anyway, Ole Miss has said goodbye to Colonel Rebel. Because he’s racist. I mean, look at him…

So, who should replace Colonel Rebel? The leading candidate is Admiral Ackbar. Yes, the character from Star Wars. Really.

But, George Lucas will never agree. So, what’s Ole Miss to do?

I have some ideas.

Burl Ives would be a good choice…

They’d replace the “From Dixie With Love” as the fight song with “Jimmy Crack Corn.”

Another idea would be Harland Sanders, a successful southern businessman…

They could even pass out fried chicken at the games. Fried chicken isn’t racist, is it?

If southern characters are eliminated — because of the reminder that Ole Miss is actually in Mississippi — there is a character from up north that might work. I’m thinking about Sam The Snowman from
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer…

They could sing “Holly Jolly Christmas” at games. Or “We’re A Couple Of Misfits.”

However, there is another possibility. What about an historical character that would be closely related to those that decided to get rid of Colonel Rebel to begin with. Who? Why, Leon Trotsky, of course…

Any of these would be suitable candidates for the job of mascot at Ole Miss. Unless you have another idea?

Everybody’s favorite nutbag, Keith Olbermann — who was fired from ESPN in 1997 for being a dick — wants to know

Where are the people of color at the Tea parties?

The fact that an NBC person is asking this asking this is, well, ridiculous. Michelle Malkin has pointed out for some time just how White NBC is.

However, suppose someone else — someone honest and with integrity — were to ask the question. How would I answer it?

Well, I could point out the Black man — identified as “an unidentified man” — at the Tea Party rally in Arizona who was carrying an AR-15. You may recall that NBC’s Contessa Brewer showed a close-up of his weapon, but not showing any skin (so you couldn’t tell he is Black), as she narrated: “there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.”

Of course, there were Blacks present at the Tea Party in Columbus, GA on Independence Day. Blacks were in the crowd, as well as leading the protest.

But, that was in Georgia, where Blacks make up 30% of the population, as opposed to New York’s 17%.

Maybe I shouldn’t bother to get into such a discussion on how many Blacks are involved in the Tea Party protests. Maybe NBC shouldn’t be the Peacock Network, but instead, be called the Pea-brain Network.

I wouldn’t have expected this from koolaid-gargling hyper-liberal Maureen Dowd, but she actually criticized Obama’s handling of the Panty Bomber:

If we can’t catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid, a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who didn’t check bags, whose visa renewal had been denied by the British, who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen, whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list, who can we catch?

“Well, Tom, I just plain don’t like black people.”

Here we have a classic irresistable-force/immovable-object problem since criticism of Obama is racist, but nothing liberals say is ever racist.

So which side wins?

Well, the tagline of MoDo’s piece is:

Heck of a job, Barry.

Which is an allusion to GWB’s complimenting FEMA director Michael Brown’s handling of Katrina by saying:

“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,”

And what do you get when you use a “code word” (in this case, “Barry”) to call America’s first mocha-skinned Commander in Chief “Brownie”?

RACISM!

Irresistable Force FTW!

Are they accusing Obama of being Buddhist?

I think someone’s pulling a Tawana, here.

Some people are angry that Glenn Beck called Obama a racist.

I’m not.

Because it’s true.

You see, it turns out that Officer Crowley and Professor Gates are both Irish.

And Obama is inviting them to the White House for a beer.

Which just perpetuates the stereotype of Irishmen as brawling drunkards.

Which may be true, but it’s still offensive.

In 2008, after Time Magazine headlined an article about Obama winning the South Carolina primary “Obama’s Rout Rejiggers the Race“, they were met with a storm of criticism for using the word “jig”, because it’s racist.

During Obama’s answer to that irrelevant softball on the arrest of Professor “I’ll talk to your MAMA outside!” Gates, Obama used the word “jigger” to describe the act of a black man forcibly entering a house:

“There was a report called into the police station that there might be a burglary taking place. so far so good. Right? I mean, if I was trying to jigger in — well, I guess this is my house now so it probably wouldn’t happen. Let’s say my old house in Chicago — here I’d get shot.”

I wish Obama would stop hatin’ on the African-American community.

Racism makes me sad.

[Hat tip: American Digest]

Based on the answer from the last picture I posted under this question, you might be tempted to answer “no”.

But the correct answer is “yes”, because this picture implies that African-Americans aren’t smart enough to dress appropriately for the task at hand.

VERY insulting.

Since I don’t want Eric Holder to think I’m a coward, I’m gonna talk about the “racist” email that got Staten Island Community Education Council member Salvatore Ballarino fired.

I’d like to show it to you, but – unlike the NY Post Chimp cartoon – it’s incredibly hard to find on the internet. Mostly what you get is the scary description:

The mock photo strip, sent Jan. 4 by Salvatore Ballarino, the borough president’s appointee to the volunteer board, features cartoon-like speech balloons drawn out of McCain’s mouth referencing lynching African Americans and equating African American babies with excrement.

The widely forwarded email also questions black fathers’ ability to support their families and states Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are always smiling, because they did not know they were black. After each “punch line” the cartoon-like strip shows a photo of Obama’s face, positioned in such a way to make him look stunned and dumbstruck.

Here’s a fake-but-accurate version of the one I’m going to discuss:

Now, the joke that has the NAACP in a bilious tizzy is not particularly funny or even clever. It’s just a lame pun on the word “support” combined with a negative stereotype about black men. If that’s all Ballarino had forwarded, I could see their point.

But the cartoon only uses the joke as part of a larger gag. The humor here is the juxtaposition of two serious, somber, dignified men in a formal situation engaging in a conversation utterly unbefitting such a backdrop.

The humor value goes up if you believe that John McCain is a closet racist, which would give it a “funny because it’s true” bonus. For normal people it’d be funnier if the white guy in the picture were an ACTUAL racist, like Senator Robert “Kleagle & Exalted Cyclops” Byrd, but you aren’t gonna find a picture of THOSE two together chatting amiably, so THAT comic’s not getting made anytime soon.

But even though I think this cartoon has some non-racist humor value for a certain audience, I still think it’s too lame to forward.

Why?

Weak sauce punch line.

In a REAL multi-panel cartoon, the nonplussed Obama image would be the pause before the punchline, and not the punchline itself. Ending the way it does, it makes it look like Obama got “got” by the evil racist cracker. The point is to make McCain look like a jerk, not Obama look like a victim. It works better if Obama now makes some attempt to restore normalcy to a VERY awkward situation. Ideally, the 5th panel would reinforce the earlier themes of Obama being composed and dignified, and having McCain obliviously spouting an even more racially insensitive remark. For example:

Now, I’m not saying any of this is either appropriate for or amusing to a general audience. I’m just taking the time to look past the racist tree in search of a funny forest, sowing seeds as necessary to reclaim the land that was clearcut by humorless liberals.

I think it’s what Eric Holder would’ve wanted.

UPDATE 3-6-09

Reader Joe was kind enough to forward me the original email that Ballarino was fired for forwarding. I’m posting links to the images so you can judge them for yourself.

Family tree

Excrement

Picnic table

Stevie Wonder

Pity that the same MSM who plastered contextless Abu Ghraib photos everywhere doesn’t have the journalistic integrity to do the same.

In the comments to this post featuring a video of Katie Couric calling the Vice President of the United States “the white guy”, Hapkido said “Couric’s comment was racist, plain & simple. I wouldn’t accuse her of deliberatley being racist, however.”

“I’d like you better if you were also a hermaphrodite.”

Which gave me pause.

How can a comment be racist if the speaker isn’t?

Maybe racist is the wrong word. Time to check the dictionary… which says it means “racially discriminatory”.

That’s a head-scratcher. Discrimination implies some sort of adverse action. Katie didn’t act, she just talked. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible for ANY words (or cartoons) to be racist by themselves, apart from other evidence of speaker intent to do harm.

It’s time to resurrect two long-neglected words to help us understand this situation:

Prejudice and bias.

The first is an irrational opinion against something, the second is an irrational opinion in favor.

In this case, I don’t think Katie was prejudiced. She sounded CHEERFUL about the presence of “the white guy”. She wasn’t like “curse Joe Biden for destroying the multiculturalism of this moment with his foul caucasity!”

No, she was HAPPY.

So I conclude that she is not racist, but merely has a bias toward seeing groups of politicians with varying skin colors and sex organs.

Now this implies that she would conversely have a prejudice against seeing groups of similarly colored & sexed politicians. Does this mean that if she ever saw a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, she would end both her life and career in a Columbine-like explosion of bullets and wrath?

Logic says “yes”.

But that’s not a reason to confuse prejudice with racism.

No, because that’s a shovel.

We mentioned the other day that monkeys are now off-limits for humor. We pointed out that the left compared President Bush to a chimp often. But, after that cartoon in the New York Post, it seems that monkeys are now off-limits for humor. Because it’s offensive. And racist. Even when no racial comparison is made.

But think back. The left did more than compare President Bush to a chimp. Remember? They also compared him to Hitler. A lot.

But, according to a Fox News report, using Hitler in humor is now verboten.

…not everyone is laughing. The film itself was criticized for its humanizing portrayal of the Nazi dictator. Now some people are complaining about the YouTube parodies, which play Hitler up for laughs.

An umbrella organization representing Holocaust survivors in Israel asked YouTube on Tuesday to take down one of the spoofs, in which Hitler complains about the lack of parking spaces in Tel Aviv, according to The Jerusalem Post. The organization said that the clip was grossly insensitive to the feelings of elderly Holocaust survivors.

Which means, no more Hitler videos. No more watching Hitler meltdown over his XBox Live account.

They say you can’t use monkeys in humor.

They say you can’t use Hitler in humor.

Maybe all the good monkey humor has been used up. Maybe it’s now tiresome to make Hitler references.

You can still make fun of Jesus, though.

But only until the left gets tired of the references to “Obamessiah.”

Ok, so idiots are losing their minds about a cartoon.

Let’s help them.

Here’s a copy of the cartoon without words.

I’m not taking submissions on this one, but if you want play with it and post it somewhere, drop a link in the comments, otherwise just leave some words.

I’ll toss a few out there to get things rolling.

* Oh my God! You killed President Bush!

* Dude… your taser is in your LEFT holster.

* Nice group.

* It’s ok Bob, you HAD to shoot him. He was being racist.”

Racism abounds.

From liberals.

They’re finding racism all over the place. It’s amazing where people find racism. Frank J. pointed out how silly it is that people are calling a cartoon in the New York Post racist, because it has a monkey in it. Okay, chimpanzee. Still, you get my point.

So, are monkeys off limits for humor?

No more funny monkey videos?

That’d be a shame.

The good news, though, is that you can still use monkeys in political humor.

You can do this:

You cannot do this:

Any questions?

NY1 is a real TV station. The story – less so.

But I gotta admit, I bit for well over half the video.

The weirdest part is that if this thing goes viral, it might actually be self-fulfilling.

[Hat tip: Pamibe]

If we’re not allowed to make monkey-related comments about the President who has the biggest sticky-out chimp-ears since John Tyler.

SIDE NOTE: Rev. Sharpton doesn’t know the difference between “infer” and “imply”.

“Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?”

Some folks say that McCain calling Obama “that one” during the debate was racist.

Some folks say that McCain campaign is using “code words” to appeal to the racist vote.

Some folks are absolutely right.

Here are some of the code words & phrases used by John McCain during the debate:

“the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” – veiled reference to cross-burnings.

“I’d like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Sen. Obama’s name was not on that letter” – there’s the “T” word again.

“some of these organizations that are the watchdogs” – “dawgs” or “gangstas”. Degrading to inner-city youths.

“$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois” – sounds like “plutonium”, which Obama would sell to Iran because he’s a Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer.

“eliminate our dependence on foreign oil” – a black substance.

“we’re going to have to eliminate those that aren’t working” – A call for the genocide of the black welfare class.

“except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze” – subtle plug for Gov. Palin from icy-cold Alaska.

“establish priorities with full transparency” – an extreme form of whiteness.

“like nailing Jell-O to the wall” – The spokesman for Jello Pudding was Bill Cosby, a black man.

“The only bright spot” – almost as obvious as “transparency”.

“the smartest people in America” – “whitest”.

“he’ll impose mandates” – Obama will force men to have same-sex romantic relationships.

“Sen. Obama will fine you” – well, the FIRST letter of the word he meant was “f”…

“do the math” – which black people like Obama are too stupid to do

“like hair transplants” – blatant Biden dig.

“when to go in and when not, when American military power is worth the expenditure of our most precious treasure” – white people.

“That requires a cool hand at the tiller” – In a better America, Obama would be a slave out tilling a field.

“I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him” – it’s racist to use middle names.

“we hardly know where they are on the map” – a derisive reference to undocumented Mexican migrant workers

“I know what it’s like in dark times” – can’t believe he got away with THAT one.