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
Ozzie,
Did you know Albert Einstein could also do basic math like me?
This msg looks a wreck at times like with this topic, just ask the puppy in the picture. 🙂
http://jonathanturley.org/2013/08/07/humans-look-so-weird-this-way/
I had watched this news report previously. I watched again twice. What specifically is considered racist? I’m trying to understand here.
Go, Squeeky, go.
The whole thing is complete racist pot-stirring. Every rodeo has this sort of silly mockery, it’s a country entertainment venue with animals. What do you expect – a Christmas Mass? The MLK-victim mentality training on display for all. Pot-stirring ad infinitum.
Elaine, What a great job! I think this is the first time somebody has EVER changed their mind on this blog. Kudos to you and Mike A.
.
Gene, I’ve read them. That is why your “let them figure it out” stance puzzled me.
Well nevermind. But now that Oky’s awake, maybe he’ll read the update on the Hastings story. Not that that will do any good either.
Squeaky,
You’re good….
Also, I think it was the announcer that pushed it across the line.
Having now seen the tape, I’ll have to agree that this was beyond simply wearing a mask. So another “What Mike A. said.”
We have to put up with a certain degree of reaction due to the hundreds of years of persecution of blacks in America. The pendulum swings both ways, however, blacks are unjustly targeted and unjustly given a free pass depending on the profile of the situation and the issues. The ignorance of the rodeo clowns is there in all people of all races. When a black man calls his friend a (am I even allowed to print it) n@*^%) is that disrespectful when a white man can lose his job or his life if he uses it? For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s just physics. It may not be just or right. It may be overblown. But it is physics. Perhaps if the white man sucked up a little injustice and really tried to understand what it has been like for the black man for centuries, this equal and opposite reaction would be lessened. Who knows,
“And I give the NAACP a pass on this one. They have to have had it….five years of flinging poo at our president because he is the same color as they are. I’d break, too.”
Huh??? I haven’t heard anybody criticize him for being black, And, I didn’t see any racism on Mike A’s post the other day, either. What I have seen is a lot of race-baiting, either intentional or from force of habit, and some shock from people who are discovering that the trite and banal “Racial-Victim Posturing” drama is getting jeers, hoots, catcalls, and rotten veggies, instead of glowing reviews.
Maybe that is what looks like racism to them???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Riled up? Not in the slightest. I just observe the nature of the thing.
Also, I think you are conflating the citizens ability to discern yellow journalism and the impact of the very same monied interests that control MSM have upon the campaign and legislative processes. While related, they are not the same thing.
Or do you think before the Information Age that monied special interests had no way to attempt to sway the minds of the populace? Propaganda has been around since the dawn of the written word. We discuss both the nature and history of propaganda quite frequently around here. Search the site for the term “Propaganda 10”. You’ll find a series of columns on that subject.
Ditto what Mike Appleton said.
Humor 101:
If you can’t tell the difference between
a joke & being the joke you might need to go Clown School! 🙂
http://www.clownschoolsf.org/index.html
Gene, I’m glad something about this has gotten you riled up. And you did say: What I want has nothing to do with it
I think it is beyond yellow journalism. Let’s not go back 100 years. I know about 50 years ago and yellow journalsim was “The National Enquirer” and (most) everybody laughed at it.
Today it is Fox News (most watched network?) anti-vax, creationism in science class and entire state legislatures who deny climate change. Not to mention WMD. Those are the consequences of “sorting through the chafe”..
I’m not laughing
Regardless, political free speech – even when you don’t like it, especially when you don’t like it – is protected. Using race as a vector of political attack is just as protected as point out that using race as a vector of political attack is both shameful and stupid. Now, that being said, was such a thing appropriate in the workplace? And make no mistake, this was in the rodeo clown’s course and scope of employment. No. The vast majority of business, politics and religion should be left at home.
Rodeo clown mocks Obama at Missouri State Fair
By Elwyn Lopez and Ed Payne, CNN
August 12, 2013
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/12/politics/missouri-obama-rodeo
Excerpt:
(CNN) — A rodeo stunt at the Missouri State Fair has come under criticism after a clown donned a Barack Obama mask and stuck on a broom that descended from his backside.
The stunt took place during the bull riding competition on Saturday night.
Rodeo announcer Mark Ficken, president of the Missouri Cowboy Rodeo Association and a school superintendent, announced a special guest: “President Obama.”
Another voice is heard over the loudspeaker working up the crowd and saying, “We’re going to stomp Obama now.”
“As soon as this bull comes out, Obama, don’t you move,” the second voice said. “He’s going to getcha, getcha getcha, getcha.”
“Hey, I know I’m a clown,” the second voice said. “He’s just running around acting like one. Doesn’t know he is one.”
The stunt sickened Perry Beam, who came to the fair in Sedalia with his wife and a student from Taiwan to “give him a little piece of Americana.”
Beam likened the atmosphere to a Klan rally.
“It wasn’t clean; it wasn’t fun. It was awful; it was sickening,” Beam said, “It was racist.”
The student, Jameson Hsieh, recorded a video of the incident, but had little to say afterward.
“He didn’t say anything. We rode all the way home in silence,” said Beam, who lives 50 miles away in Higginsville. “We were just ashamed, and he didn’t ask any more questions. I think he had seen enough. It is just disgusting.”
Condemnation came from organizers and politicians alike. The Missouri State Fair Commission called it “unacceptable” and said the clown has been banned “from ever participating or performing at the Missouri State Fair again.”
Ozzie,
I didn’t say I wanted nothing to do with it. I point out yellow journalism around here all the time. I consider it a civic service. I also don’t think anyone is untouched by the consequences. The sheer volume of chafe one has to sort through to find the wheat can be a daunting thing, however, that the volume of the wheat has also increased often well serves to counterbalance that cost.
And that last bit? Was just fightin’ words. If I were a fascist like that Koch’s I’d insist that the only true journalists work for the monied interests of the mainstream media. Why? Because money creates a certain degree of control over the flow and content of information and he who controls the money controls the information. One only needs to look at what gets priority in most MSM outlets to see the strings of money attached by both the parent corporations and by advertising dollars.
Fair enough Elaine….. And thanks for the carlin clip…. White goes deep… But i do like my kakhi……
Gene, do you really want nothing to do with it? And do you think you will remain untouched by the consequences? I’m pretty sure that’s how the Kochs feel about the rest of us. I wouldn’t have put you in that category.