There was a national controversy created recently when a rodeo clown, Tuffy Gessling, put together an act involving a President Barack Obama mask at the Missouri State Fair. The announcer reportedly called out “This bull’s going to get’cha, Obama! He’s gonna get’cha!” The reaction was fierce. Gessling was given a lifetime ban and the announcer, Mark Ficken, resigned. All clowns will now have to go through a “sensitivity training” course after the incident. However, The President of the Missouri Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Mary Radliff is calling for the prosecution of the key players for a hate crime. Radliff’s statements shows how broad this controversial crime has become and how it can now threaten free speech principles.
The criticism of this act is certainly understandable. It was stupid and disrespectful. However, some have questioned the need for the lifetime ban as opposed to an apology or being dismissed from this rodeo. I have seen presidents mocked and portrayed at many fairs and rodeos. I saw one fair where clowns chased around a guy in a Reagan mask during his presidency. I recall various events with people in Clinton masks. Presidents are public figures and people love to make fun of those in high places. I am not dismissing the fact that some have a deep hatred or racist view of the President. Clearly, many in the audience were hostile to Obama and loved the notion of his being chased by a bull. I am not sure what the sensitivity training will convey. Is it a lesson not to use presidents or politicians as clown-like characters. That has been done in circuses since ancient Rome. Is it not to use African-American celebrities?
We can disagree on what is the appropriate level of punishment. (I do feel that the display had an overtly political and disrespectful character that should be the subject of discipline). However, calling this a hate crime reaffirms the long-criticism of this criminal provision as a threat to free speech. As noted in a prior columns, free speech appears to be dying in the West with the increasing criminalization of speech under discrimination, hate, and blasphemy laws. To understand this threat to free speech, you need only read the interview with Ms. Radliff: “I think that a hate crime occurred,” Ratliff told KXNT Radio in Las Vegas Thursday. ”I think a hate crime occurs when you use a person’s race to depict who they are and to make degrading comments, gestures, et cetera, against them.”
So that is the crime now? Making degrading comments or gestures about a person’s race? That would criminalize a huge array of speech in the United States. In this case, Radliff objects to an act of being “disrespectful to our president, whether he be black, white, Hispanic, Latina.” She has called for the Justice Department and Secret Service to go after the rodeo clowns for their “discriminatory practices against our sitting African-American president.”
I fail to see the need to round up our rodeo clowns or criminalize parody. I do not like the use of actual people — whether presidents or not — in such acts because I feel it is mean-spirited and disrespectful. However it is not a crime. Moronic, yes but criminal, no. They are rodeo clowns which are by definition rather moronic.
What do you think? Should this be a crime? Do you believe a lifetime ban is appropriate for this type of display?
Source: CBS
Nick,
I’m beginning to think you’re racist….
Only kidding….
Nick,
That’s the way the justice system works now…. They label you once and forever….
Elaine,
I’ve been labeled racist by one on here for not supporting Obama…. I did not trust him from the start…. Nor did I think he was the best qualified…. I still don’t…. One of the best boss’s I’ve ever enjoyed working with and for was much darker than Obama…. We still have a friendship…. Would wearing a Moe, Larry or Curley mask make me anti semantic….
Elaine, I find this argument you, Nal, and SWM making paternalistic. Why is it “not unreasonable” to assume it is race-based? Is someone who ridicules a black prez assumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence.
Gene,
Nick wrote: “Nal, Your guidelines make it tantamount to making any protest of a black prez racist…”
Too be clear, I was agreeing with nick about this episode not being racist.
“Radliff is using the incident to garner political attention for the NAACP. However, the NAACP should pick its political battles more thoughtfully. Radliff’s actions are an embarrassment to an organization with a proud history.”
Nal gets to the heart of the matter. The call for invoking hate crime laws to prosecute is a ridiculous and badly thought out attempt to garner publicity. This person represents only the Missouri NAACP. Who knows what she is trying to accomplish within the organization to advance herself and naively thought this would be helpful. That people back a worthy cause, does not mean that they themselves are worthy of support.
That said I’m am really getting tired of those who are in denial about racism in this country. The issue that constantly astounds me is not the many valid critiques against President Obama, rather it is the stupidity and racism inherent in much of that critique. There is so much that this President deserves criticism for, yet many of his critics focus on silly and extraneous issues, such as his citizenship and religion. That this President who is a moderate conservative by any measure of his performance is being called a communist and/or fascist reveals a mindset that goes beyond political critique.
Once again too we see a false equivalency set up by comparing the lampooning of the Left towards Reagan and the Bush’s to the racism shown in the Obama criticism. Try Googling the statements of Rush Limbaugh alone about Obama to see that this is far more than merely political take-downs. What this denial of the racial content of some of the race-based Obama criticism is just that….the psychological defense mechanism of denial of ones racism.
nick,
I think you misread what Nal wrote: “If white people ridicule a black President, it is not unreasonable to suspect some of the ridicule is race-based…” His guidelines don’t make any ridicule of a black president tantamount to racism. I agree with Nal. I think we have seen some people in this country who disliked Obama from the start–and not just because he’s a Democrat.
I have to agree with nick, nal. I see nothing racist about this regardless of if the crowd reacted in a racist manner or not. Now if he’d been wearing a t-shirt that said something like “Prez Darkie”? Okay. But parody is a long standing recognized form of political protest and those rubber masks of pols have been around for all of my lifetime and most of the lifetime of our older commentators. Would anyone be pissed if he’d been wearing a Nixon mask? Nope. Racism is a real problem, but overstating it and crying wolf does no one any favor.
Nal, Your guidelines make it tantamount to making any protest of a black prez racist, as long as someone believes it is raced based. As I said previously, I don’t find anything about this racist. Did some racists in the large audience take inordinate pleasure, almost certainly. That does not make it racist.
And what seamus said.
Hate crime.
Really.
I don’t think simply wearing a parody mask qualifies. I’d go so far a to call it protected political free speech. Would the employer be within their rights to reprimand the employee and tell him not to wear masks of politicians again? Sure. But that’s as far as it should go.
Because if thinking Obama is a clown is a crime, ya better be seeking my prosecution as well.
Good luck with that.
Bill Pickett…. A black man….started or was one of the founders of the Texan Rodeo…. My god you uppity white folks….
nick spinelli:
Not necessarily. It would depend whether the ridicule was based on the President’s race. Same is true for Obama ridicule. If white people ridicule a white President, it’s unlikely to be race-based. If white people ridicule a black President, it is not unreasonable to suspect some of the ridicule is race-based, as happened in Arizona recently: Anti-Obama protesters get racial in Arizona.
Well nick…. The clowns can come to Texas they’ll fit right in….
Rep. Stockman invites Obama rodeo clown to perform in Texas
By Ed O’Keefe, Published: August 14 at 4:45 pmE-mail the writer
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(AP)
A conservative Texas lawmaker is inviting a rodeo clown banned from the Missouri state fair to perform in the Lone Star State instead.
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) says that the unidentified rodeo clown and his colleagues have been unfairly targeted by liberals “to create a climate of fear.” He invited them to come perform at a fair in his southeastern Texas district instead.
“Liberals want to bronco bust dissent. But Texans value speech, even if its speech they don’t agree with,” Stockman said in a statement issued by his office Wednesday. “From Molly Ivins to Louie Gohmert and every opinion between Texans value free and open political speech. I’m sure any rodeo in Texas would be proud to have performers.”
Missouri state and fair officials reacted swiftly over the weekend after a rodeo clown donned a mask of President Obama and asked people if they want to see the president “run down by a bull.”
State Fair officials labeled the show “inappropriate” and said it “does not reflect the opinions or standards” of the fair.
Stockman said Wednesday that the reaction was typical of liberals.
“The liberal reaction is straight out of (Saul) Alinsky. They want to crush dissent by isolating and polarizing anyone who questions Obama, even if it’s a rodeo clown with a harmless gag,” he said. “The idea to create a state of fear and make people afraid to trivialize Obama. No one tried to personally destroy the rodeo clown who wore a George H.W. Bush mask.”
Stockman represents a new district in the southeastern corner of Texas that was created as a result of population growth tabulated during the 2010 census. He was first elected to Congress in 1994, but only served on term, and was reelected last year. He’s an outspoken conservative critic of Obama, who said in January that he was willing to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president if the White House implemented new restrictions on firearms through executive action.
Follow Ed O’Keefe on Twitter: @edatpost
I think it’s funny… Hilarious,… It’s ok to wear a Clinton mask…. Or Ronnie …. Or GW….. But as soon as you put on an Obama mask…. You’re a racist…. Why???????
So, Only a white President can be ridiculed by having a bull trample them? Well, SWM, that is racist. But, you will never see that through your prism.
nick S, The idea of an angry bull trying to trample and possibly kill a black man while the crowd roars seems racist to me.
Hate crimes should be abolished. Is it worse to kill someone because of their race or worse to kill them because you want to steal their sneakers? When we start convicting people of inferred motivation, political correctness has gone too far.
Radliff is using the incident to garner political attention for the NAACP. However, the NAACP should pick its political battles more thoughtfully. Radliff’s actions are an embarrassment to an organization with a proud history.
The NAACP is a racist organization, People don’t remember the Regan and both Bush clown masks