Blue Collar Muse

[…] Blue Collar Muse is correct. This is also wrong. And, having been convinced by ACK that a reprimand may be an acceptable level of punishment, if I knew this staffer’s name, I’d publish it too, and ask they be reprimanded. It’s a matter of respect and courtesy, damn it, for human beings. We’re all different in some way or another. […]

Yes, but the problem with your analogy is that those pictures in this email are actually funny. If the Obama thing were funny but racist, then (at least for me) the whole issue would be different. I can see where one forwards a funny racist thing against Obama, and the only reason not to do so would be your desire to be PC, or not to fan racism. But the only reason to forward a non-funny racist Obama thing is racism.

To reiterate, I am not saying that the Obama email is not funny because it is insensitive or shocking or whatever — it is just that there is no joke there, except “a black guy is president.” OK . . . still waiting for the punchline. At least the “barack the magic negro” thing was a parody of a popular song, which entails some humor.

@ JDNash -

Interesting take. Racism is OK as long as it is actually funny. Hrmmm …

People laughed at Letterman’s jokes about Sarah and Willow Palin, does that make them acceptable in your eyes?

I find it equally telling that someone might actually find such things funny than that such humor is or is not acceptable to them based on whether or not they found it funny.

By your logic, the GOP pic both was and was not Racist, depending on whether or not one laughed at it.

But that tends to be in line with the situational ethics reasoning that marks a great deal of thought from the Left.

BCM,

I get that you are trying to make a point, but how are these emails “worse”? Because it hits on different groups?

@ Sean Braisted -

Worse in the characteristic of “volume” or “amount” or “degree”.

The Dem begins with Racism and goes on from there to include what, in his opinion, were funny exploitations on a variety of other things.

Worse as in if I steal one thing but you steal a half dozen things, while we both are guilty of theft, yours is “worse” than mine.

It’s a commonly recognized process.

Still no name. Still False equivocation.

Could you give us hints? House or Senate? Male or Female? It could make the wait more fun…

BCM, we can’t do a damn thing until A) you produce the name of the staffer and B) the senator or representative for whom he/she works. Until you do, this is all BS.

I don’t believe you have anything.

[…] Blue Collar Muse has posted photos from an email sent by someone associated with an unnamed Tennessee Democratic Representative. Blue Collar Muse does not report that information but reports the email makes fun of child abuse, the elderly and people with disabilities. At the same time that story was breaking, in what can only be seen as a historic case of irony, a Democratic staffer sent an email that was even worse. […]

Posted. I stand by my word that both sides shouldn’t be doing stuff.

[…] employee sent racist email. Much hullabaloo about GOP being racist. Now, it’s the Democrat’s turn. Christian has some details on who it’s associated […]

So, Roger Abramson has discovered that Mr. Graves is not an employee, but an intern. A college kid, as opposed to a 20-year state employee.

Enough said.

Thank you for your diligence in bringing this to light. I posted a couple of times at Michael Silence’s blog on the Goforth posts there, pointing out that the self-same liberals that were just shaking with the outrage over it all were mostly dead silent while many, many conservative people have been attacked viciously by the left, giving specific examples.

Not surprisingly, liberals kept to their usual childish level of discourse and proceeded to call me a racist, a liar, a whiner … yet not one word to refute what I said, or even to try to excuse the actions of those such as Letterman or Playboy.

I see that even here they refuse to confront the actual issue without names, without proof … making paltry excuses because the Goforth picture wasn’t as funny as these are - which makes ugly attacks like this less disgusting?

Now that you have satisfied one of the main demands and provided a name, it will be interesting to see how these folks deal with it - like grown ups, or like the childish moral retards that they are.

Hang in there … and good work!

I would just love to see any evidence whatsoever that the content in question was sent out via state email (seems unlikely given that interns are not given state email accounts). Even if it was, to whom was it sent? I guess we’ll take it on your word that the email was “circulated.”

Blue Collar Muse,

Re your post #6:

I never said that racism is OK if it is funny. I said that there is not necessarily moral equivalence there, and my moral outrage meter is not an on/off switch. I would not forward either of those emails.

Nevertheless, the point that I was attempting to make was that there is a difference between (1) forwarding a joke based on traditional comedy elements that is at the expense of a minority group and (2) forwarding a “joke” in order to make a point about a minority group (e.g., someone like that should not be president). You may think that both are irredeemable, but my point is that they are different, and I cut more slack to the former category.

The pics in this new email are very different from each other in this new email.

Pic 1: This comes by far the closest to being analogous to the Obama thing. But this is based on a traditional comedy staple – the idea that accents of all kinds ( southern, northern, urban, waspy, Canadian, non-native speaker) are funny. I don’t find that comedy particularly funny, because I don’t usually find physical humor very funny, but it is nonetheless a comedy staple. I am open to the argument that this one of the four is irredeemable, it is not based on any idea along the lines that Asians are bad, or that they should not be appearing in public, or that they should not be president.

Pic. 2: This one is not objectionable. This does not make fun of parents or parenting, or any group (except perhaps unruly kids). It expresses frustration with raising children in a “wouldn’t if be great if . . .” way. I suspect that you do not have kids, or you have very thin skin if you truly find this one offensive.

Pic. 3: Yes, it is comedy at the expense of old people with Alzheimer’s, but it is still funny for reasons that are only tangentially related to the fact that the person is old/ill. There is a set up, a twist, and you have to figure it out, and then you “get it.” Look my grandmother died of alzheimer’s and it is a serious issue to me, and I would not forward the picture, but it is still funny to me on a slightly uncomfortable level.

Pic. 4. This one is not making fun of the “mentally handicapped” at all. It is making fun of the picture, or the event. It would be just as funny if the person standing there was a world class athlete. The point is that second and third place were apparently trees. And it is not even clear from the picture that the person is “mentally” handicapped.

Sean Braisted is reporting that the intern in question, though assigned to a Democrat, is actually a Republican.

Your tired “they do it too” line seems to have backfired on you.

You know - some racism is worse than others.

“Hahah, Asians talk funny” is, at least as presented by that macro, a pretty racist sentiment. It’s the sort of thing that people should roll their eyes at and frankly call offensive, not laugh over. (Particularly because the image in question just isn’t funny, to start with.)

But it’s ultimately not malicious. Stupid, yes. Malicious, no. The message isn’t “The Japanese are lesser than us good, white Americans because of their accents!” It’s “Hey, Japanese folks pronounce their L’s funny!” That doesn’t make it not racist, nor does it make it a good joke to send out from your government job.

The picture of the presidents with Obama, though, had a much darker, underlying message: “Hahah, this black guy thinks he can be president! Doesn’t he realize that presidents are white? Stupid black guy!”

One of those is a dumb joke almost totally irrelevant to the social and political structure of the modern day U.S. The other is a politically loaded jibe that jumps up and down on the most sensitive, racial issue in the nation, the long-term, structurally enforced inferiority of blacks’ access to American politics.

They’re both bad. Neither is funny. The twits who sent each of them should be punished. But the presidents picture is worse. And, yes, it is a more racist image that the “ROR” one. Because context matters.

@ Joe P -

I can understand your reluctance to post. After all, it’s hard to hold your own to as high a standard as you hold others.

I read your post from yesterday. You don’t provide any of the information that you ask of me except the list of recipients. Even that, regardless of when you say you had it, came only at the end of a series of Updates.

In the meantime, I’m unclear why you want me to provide you with information that is, and was at the time you asked, already available. Southern Beale admitted she received the email. We know who the guy was that sent it. And he has now resigned. You still looking for proof of the validity of my post?

Word is you are a pretty fair guy. I hope to keep that assessment of you intact by the time this is done.

Thanks for the response and for reading what i write.

You are right - i did not reprint the image, and only later added the names of those it went to — but i had posted zip about it until, as i said, i had in hand copies of what was sent and to who and Goforth’s response to the claims. I still have in my possession the info from the email should anyone ask about them, and as i said, i did wait until i had multiple confirmations of the reports about the email before i wrote about it — just as with your report.

whether i wind up supporting views from Left or Right or wherever all depends on the issue at hand. i don’t belong to a political party.

and now that i do have what i feel comfortable is enough proof about this email from Graves, i posted my thought about it and about the problems of government staffers sending out these bone-dumb, tasteless emails disguised as humor:
http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com/2009/06/so-which-state-workers-are-not-sending.html

blue collar mucus…..

Yep, you’re right. I assumed you were a Centrist because I didn’t think LWC or ‘coma would post to a Right Wing Scumbag’s site.

Joke’s on me. And you’re the joke.

Why don’t you man up and admit that you conservanoid shitbirds are the losers we always said you were?
And I wasn’t all wrong after all, was I?
You’re still too stupid to differentiate between Left and Democrat.

But hey, by all means continue your little electronic loserfest. Because we “the Left” have you under foot where all your ilk belong. And that is where you will stay thanx to sub-humans like Goforth.

LOL, what a bunch of clowns.

@ CaptainKona …

You seriously came to my place, a guest in my little corner of the internet, vomited your bile all over my comment section and then had the audacity to claim that I’m the loser …

I believe I’ll just let the two of our actions and words speak for themselves in this matter …

Interested parties can look around here as well as backtrack the link to your blog and decide for themselves …

i mentioned OpenPen’s post on the email debacle and the info on white supremacy groups to highlight how dangerously and easily differences can be exploited and turned into real weapons of destruction — and yes, it is a leap away from the two email cases discussed, yet shows our state has some real problems to address too.

The thing is both sides of the aisle have their faults. You can’t control every last staffer in the world. That said, the e-mail shouldn’t be sent from official accounts. That’s what personal e-mail is for…

So…

10:00- “Can the Left Be Racist…, too, or just the GOP?”
to
14:31- “As to his politics you decide.”
LOL.

Where’s the rest of your timeline?

Who defines funny, or racist, or offensive, or not?
It’s all personal. Some of the pictures at the top of this blog had me howling on the floor like a hyena. Others, not a peep. But I’m not going to go after and attempt to castrate the people who put them out there for all to see. I like to think that I’m mature enough to laugh at a good joke when I hear it, and ignore the rest.
And if it’s personal offensive, I’ll let the person being offended go on the warpath (i.e., Palin vs Letterman).

[…] one involved a Democrat staffer and was brought to light by a conservative blogger. It came a day after furor over a Republican staffer’s email was fueled by left-leaning […]

[…] it’s a forward from someone connected to your state government.  Whether you are a Goforth, Graves or a Hobbs it’s unprofessional. It makes our whole state look like a bunch of clod hopping […]

Great post, BCM.

I despise the ease with which left-wing automatons proclaim that their representatives are genetically incapable of racism. Once again, the Left has successfully defined an issue so that it only applies to conservatives.

But I’m very glad to see that no-one’s used the term “reverse racism” here, as that implies that racism can only be perpetuated by white people against non-white people. That’s accurate.

Just never mind Charlie Rangel, Sonia Sotomayor, Jeremiah Wright, James Clyburn, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, David Paterson and all the rest of the “reverse racists”