Here's the release we got on Wednesday:

[Alleged victim], a 25 year-old graduate student who lives in Manhattan was attacked yesterday (Tuesday, July 15th, 2008) at 8.30 P.M. outside of the 14th St.-Union Square subway station. ["Victim"], who was at the time listening to music with her iPod, was wearing a pink t-shirt bearing the slogan "Obama Is My Slave". Four African-American female teenagers approached her and one of them started to curse her because of her t-shirt, screaming at her, and then push her. ["Victim"], who was shocked, started to walk away from the group but was followed by the girls. The same one who cursed her, pulled her earphones and another girl spat on her face. ["Victim"] ran away from them and called the "[Bad designer]" store on [LES] where she had purchased her t-shirt and complained about the attack to the employee who was working in the shop at that time. The employee agreed to give ["victim"] the owner's, [bad designer's], cell phone number and the still shocked ["victim"] told him about the attack and informed him she was thinking of suing him "for all he's got". [Bad designer] in return told her that he was very sorry she had been attacked, but that she could not blame him because as he told her "No one made you buy the t-shirt". ["Victim"] said that she would come the following day and demand a refund for the t-shirt, which cost her $69. [Bad designer] told her that he doesn't give refunds because it is against his store policy. This made her even more agitated and she started to scream at him saying that he should be "ashamed of himself". [Bad designer] asked her for her phone number saying that he would speak to his lawyer and call her back. Yesterday at 10 PM when I, his publicist, called ["victim"] she was extremely upset and told me that she had spoken to her parents and decided to take [bad designer] to court.

* To speak with [alleged victim] about the incident, you can reach her at phone number: [redacted]
* To speak with [Bad designer] aka [prick], you can reach him at phone number: [redacted].
* A picture of [Bad designer] aka [prick] wearing the "Obama Is My Slave" t-shirt can be found at: [Hell]

Sincerely,

Lauren Levy
[Bad designer's] Publicist.

What's wrong with this picture? The guy is supposedly getting sued, and his own flack blasts out a press release with all the alleged dirty details, including the contact info of the girl who is supposedly suing him. Any reporter who's ever seen a press release related to a lawsuit knows that there's no way on earth one side will be happily passing out the other side's contact info and encouraging journalists to call them. And Metro says the "victim" didn't return any of their calls. Which didn't stop them from putting this on the front page.

There are only two possibilities: Either this whole thing is a hoax; or, the girl did get assaulted, and the bad designer and his creepy flack decided that this race-baiting was just the thing to get his face in the paper. Either way, what a bunch of scuzzballs.

Metro: you fools.

[Radar]

The Big Fuss The secret—the the thing that has so many literal-minded idiots terrified at things like that New Yorker cover—is simple: you don't need to mock the man, you can mock the aura surrounding him. Barack's messianic tendencies have been greatly exaggerated but there's no topping that Rolling Stone cover with the halo. So when The Onion put Obama on the cover of Tiger Beat, it was funny because it was an absurd exaggeration of the truth (see how that works?).

Filth & Fury Plus Obama's strongest supporters are showing themselves to be severely humorless, and that's funny! The gradual shift from constant outrage over matters that probably justify outrage—the mood of the Bush years—to this new era of outrage-for-the-sake of outrage is a scary omen for the future of liberalism in this country and also a great punchline.

Dos and Don'ts

Don't: Try to cleverly call him effete. Looking at you, Maureen! The guy dresses nice, sometimes, but he doesn't actually have those effeminate signifiers that everyone seems to think other male Democratic politicians possess. So stop fucking calling him "Butterfly" because that makes no sense.

Do: Call him "elite!" It's funny because he represents an aspirational black middle class and so we have to put him and his wife back in their place! Haha no, seriously, it's funny because making fun of Harvard is funny. Don't make latte jokes though, it's not 1997.

Don't: Make fun of his funny name. It's painful when Slate does it, yes, but even the reliable Daily Show writers fall into the trap. "Baracknophobia" is not the level of punmanship we've come to expect from you guys. It is funny to call him "Barry," though.

Do: Make fun of how people are terrified of his funny name and his foreign background. When faced with polls that suggest Americans do truly believe that Barack Obama was raised by The Iron Sheikh and spent his school years snorting the remains of 9/11 victims, all you can do is laugh and contemplate a life a sea.

Special Cases: Black comedians. Can they make fun of Barack Obama? Sure! But other black people will get even angrier about it, depending on the material and the audience. Of course, you knew that already.

Note to Cartoonists: Yes, his ears stick out. Good work catching that one.

In Short: Yes, so far, there is nothing "buffoonish" about Barack Obama. And that is a good thing, for people who enjoy laughing at things that are actually funny! But please, please, please, white people—don't whine about not being allowed to make fun of him because everyone will get mad at you. Just think about it for a minute! If your joke is funny, make it! If it is not funny, make one (1) different joke.

[Note: We forgot the credit the illustrator! Lukas Ketner drew this for Willamette Week.]

I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.

Rachel Sklar, who jumped on the story over at the Huffington Post, isn't buying it:

...it's got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama's campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism— well, here's your image.

Right, because if there's one source right-wing scaremongers love to cite, it's the New Yorker!

Jake Tapper of ABC News agrees with Sklar:

Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine's staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas.

But it's still fairly incendiary, at least as these things go. I wonder what the reaction would be were it the Weekly Standard or the National Review putting such an illustration on their covers.

Intent factors into these matters, of course, but no Upper East Side liberal — no matter how superior they feel their intellect is — should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast in emails and other media. It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing.

So participants in important political discussions, especially those who have loud voices by dint of talent, power or medium of publication, should tailor their self-expression in such a way that it can't possibly be misappropriated by extremists! Gee, that sounds familiar.

Well, this is the part in the campaign where we find out who among Barack Obama and his supporters truly do want to set aside the melodramatic hysterics that have cropped up around political dialog in this country over the past seven years, and who is instead destined to join the extreme right in opposing a long and proud American tradition of brazen free speech and rough-and-tumble dialog that have all too often been set aside in recent years in the name of sensitivity — patriotic or otherwise.

Or maybe I'm just touchy because these anti-French-defamation people weren't happy with my own caricature of stereotypes over the weekend. Whatever, talk amongst yourselves!

[Huffington Post]

Yes, of course! Throw the bums out for not spending money quickly enough! Damn this policy:

[LA Times, 23/6 via TV Newser]

Also, Michelle Obama used to babysit Jesse Jackson's son when he was a teenager. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, etc.

Video of Jackson's comments, either above or via this YouTube:

Apology:

For any harm or hurt that this hot-mic conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Sen. Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal.

In case there was any doubt Fox News will be repeating this thing incessantly, O'Reilly played it three times in the first four minutes of his show.

Video of O'Reilly saying Fox is holding back footage of Jackson saying even worse things, and speculating that Jackson is scared of Obama winning because if he becomes president that will mean racism is over and Jackson will be out of a job:

These guys are such pros at the art of the smear. You just have to watch and learn: First the gossip and insinuation (as with the non-existent Michelle Obama "whitey" video), THEN the goods, which are totally optional since you can do plenty of damage with just the insinuation part.

Fox has a fantastic story and gets to mock Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama finds the spectre of "militant," scary-to-whites black people distancing themselves from him without him having to sell anyone out! Seriously, will the white people who watch Fox News think, upon hearing this tape, that they are forced to side with Jesse Jackson? Will Bill argue that Obama has sold out the black community by calling for more personal responsibility and less reliance on the government, which seems to be what Jackson thinks?

Or will everyone just pile on Jesse, like always, and help Barry win over those blue-collar whites Chris Matthews thinks are so important?

WAS THIS WHOLE THING ENGINEERED?

Rupert Murdoch and Wendy Deng:

George Soros and girlfriend Jennifer Chun (misspelled caption, we believe):

Brian Grazer and Chosan Nguyen:

Financier Vivi Nevo and Zhang Ziyi:

So what's the reason for all these love connections? According to this Chinese culture site, "Age is a huge barrier to dating beautiful younger women in the western world, but it has very little significance in the eastern way of life. It’s known in the east that with age comes: Wisdom, Knowledge, Resources, Experience." Eh, maybe. Or maybe they just liked each other. Either way, three's a trend.

[NYDN]

Sanford Moore, whom Ad Age describes as an "industry gadfly," took the opportunity to slam every white-person excuse that ad agencies tend to offer for having a lack of black employees:

There are simply not enough black people interested in the industry. "We can find black people when we want to take money from black people," he said, pointing out that when general market agencies need help with minority work — and need to prove they have minorities on the account — they can produce black talent seemingly out of thin air.

Black people get frustrated and leave because of lack of support; there's no one in middle management. "There are men sitting in this room who'd jump at such jobs," answered Mr. Moore. "And where are all those interns from the 1970s and 1980s? Where did they go?"

We need better training for minority students; we need to establish a pipeline. "White people don't have a pipeline. They don't need a pipeline. Advertising is the last business where undereducated white people can make money. ... Advertising is made up of the bottom 12% of any MBA class. ... They get paid while we get screwed."

Contrast that with the media industry: full of overeducated white people who can't make money.

[Ad Age]

Jeff Bercovici points out that the April cover of Vogue with Lebron James (a black man) was the magazine's worst-selling April cover since 2001. They tried! Scrap the experiment! The world isn't ready for black people in fashion!

Of course, the best solution to all of this would be to let black people be models in high fashion magazines as a matter of course, just like everybody else. No need for a special occasion to run topless Naomi Campbell photos. And as pointing-out machine Bercovici also points out, Vogue's worst-selling issue of the year so far had Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover. Failure brings us all together!

[Faded Youth, Mixed Media]

"No disrespect to my man Barack, but I [bleeped] with John McCain. He greeted me like a god," Jeezy, who has endorsed Barack Obama, tells Vibe magazine. "The fact that he acknowledged me was crazy. I said, 'I'm Young Jeezy, and it's rough out here.' He blew me off at first. I was like, 'Nah, for real. It's rough out here, so what you gonna do to change it?' . . . And he gave me a look back, like, 'I know.' "

Now that McCain has the support of the drug trafficking industry, we may just have to vote for him!

If only Obama was better at race-baiting.

[P6]

[via Adfreak]

[Full speech available here]

(Audio via Politico)

Note also that Bernard says the Democratic presidential candidate's wife is "very different from Cindy McCain, very different from Laura Bush, very different, in her presence, from Hillary Clinton..." Gee, how is she different? I'm trying to think of some common difference from all these women and coming up blank! (Or, more accurately, blanco.)

Related: the Huffington Post reports that Hardball pulled the original promo for its Michelle Obama makeover show when it decided it was "inappropriate" to imply she's going to start wearing a high-cut miniskirt and stiletto heels. (Image at right.)

Under its editor, Franca Sozzani, Italian Vogue has gained a reputation for being more about art and ideas than commerce. Ms. Sozzani also doesn’t mind controversy.

She said that, as an Italian, she has been intrigued by the American presidential race and Mr. Obama, which was one source of inspiration when she and Mr. Meisel began discussing, in February, the idea of an all-black issue. Also, she was aware of the lack of diversity on the runways in recent years and the debate it fueled last fall in New York, where Bethann Hardison, a former model who ran a successful agency, held two panel discussions on the topic.

Ms. Sozzani said the issue was not a response to criticism that she, too, has under-represented blacks or portrayed them as stereotypes.

It all sounds very progressive, and is enough to make one long for the days when America was known for its optimism, and the Western Europeans, all too often, for xenophobic fear of immigrants, relative religious intolerance, and for being too cynically stuck in their ways to engage in genuine, constructive racial dialog. How the tables have turned.

[Times]

(Steven Meisel photo via Times)

It begins with Cal Thomas, the Fox contributor, trying to sort of make some point about media representation of black people. But all he ends up saying is that BLACK WOMEN ARE ANGRY AND DOMINEERING ALL THE TIME. It's kind of sad, actually, how he accidentally said the opposite of what he was maybe trying to say? But in valiantly trying to talk about race, the newsmedia generally just reduces everything to a series of offensive cliches and stereotypes, as the Daily Show clip demonstrates. It's just odd that even though we hear so much about how aggrieved Michelle Obama is, she always comes off as nicer and calmer than, uh, Andrea Peyser.

I have spent the afternoon trying—with all the honesty and courage and humble introspection that is called for in this historic moment, with America poised to finally cast off its original sin and move into the full realization of those ringing words in the Declaration of Independence—to think about the terms black folks use when talking among themselves about white people.

I could barely move my pencil tip. Probably because black folks spend a lot less time talking or even thinking about white people than most white, right-wing reactionaries and their black counterparts dream in their hot little dreams. I had trouble, and, after hours and hours, the best I could come up with was this:

In totality, the list is: "White folks, white, white people, they." And in niche situations, mostly in the past: "Ofay, The Man, redneck, cracker."

Disgraceful, honestly. Our racist country deserves better.

[via Breitbart.tv]

1. Baby Mama.Hateful fear-mongering neo-fascist moron Michelle Malkin—who we thought had given up on Fox after her beef with Geraldo?—popped up the other day to abuse Michelle Obama. The on-screen chyron, inexplicably, referred to the candidate's wife as "Obama's Baby Mama." Because he's black, and that is a term black people use, you see. Because they have so many children out of wedlock... unlike the Obamas.... Really, it makes absolutely no fucking sense. Whatever.
Result: A producer admitted to exercising poor judgment. See, he accidentally judged black black people to be irresponsible and all-the-same. Whoops!

2. Madrassa!
So you know those racist crazy emails the relatives you don't like that much send you? Those emails ended up at Fox, and they did a whole news story on it! Fox reported that Barack Obama secretly attended a Muslim Madrassa, which is secret Islam-talk for "terrorist school for Islamo-fascist tots." In fact he went to a secular public school, but it was in Indonesia, where, as we all know, people speak funny crazy terrorist talk instead of Christian English.

Result: As seen in the clip above, CNN took Fox to task in a heartening segment correcting all the rumors. Steve Doocy, though, just acted like an ass when it came time to "apologize."

3. Assassinate Osama!
Former Washington Times editor Liz Trotta: ""And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. Well, both, if we could." Ok, Liz! You fucking nutcase.
Result: She apologized. That was about it.

4. Lynching Party USAThis one's actually a little tricky. Shouty mad-man Bill "FUCKING THING SUCKS" O'Reilly suggested to a caller that we (we?) should not organize a lynching party and go after Michelle Obama. It is actually on odd case, because Bill—who was astounded to learn recently that some black people use silverware just like grown-ups—used incredibly racially-charged language in what was actually an utterly uncharacteristic defense of Michelle Obama. But Jesus, Bill, "lynching party"? Maybe you shouldn't have done it live.
Result: The requisite apology, complete with the typical failure to take responsibility for his own goddamn words (he blames Clarence Thomas! So many high-tech lynchings, these days, what with the internet not having been taken back yet and all).

5. Terrorist fist-jab. Interchangeable blonde hostess E.D. Hill (right) opened a segment on the meaning of the "body language" behind Barack Obama's affectionate fist-bump with his wife by calling it a "terrorist fist-bump," an insane characterization comparable only to the craziest of anonymous online commenter discourse.
Result: E.D. Hill gave a disingenuous half-apology. Then, oddly, her show was canceled. This particular slur, while idiotic and disgusting, was not much worse than the rest of the ones presented here. So... sea change on the way? We've been wrong before, of course.

[AP, Salon]

Conscious rappers touch on this now and then, but are much more interested in telling us that black criminals are victims of the system. A recent example: "Black Thought" on The Roots' new album tells us, "It is what it is, because of what it was, I did what I did, 'cause it does what it does."

OUTRAGEOUS.

So: indeed, it's "not all like that." But if the folks known as the hiphop generation are learning their politics from "conscious" rap, there is little hope for our future.

Oh, John McWhorter, that's where you're wrong. The hip hop generation has a message for you: "I know I can/ Be what I wanna be/ If I work hard at it/ I'll be where I wanna be." Dig it, old man!

[NYS]

BONUS: The guy featured in the ad, Thomas Hill, was himself persuaded to join the Marines by an ad!

"I was watching TV with some buddies when this commercial came on — a guy on a white horse locked in battle. Then, when he jumps off the horse, his suit of armor becomes dress blues. He's a Marine," he recalls. "I knew right then and there, I wanted to be that guy."

The "body-language" expert admirably attempts to explain the crazy gesture in a reasonable way, and E.D. basically ignores her. It's odd, to us, that E.D. skipped calling the gesture "black" and went straight to "terrorist," but Fox's modus operandi usually involves less straight-up domestic racism and more generalized fear of The Foreigner.

(Courtney Hazelett, take note! No one would've gotten on your case if you'd just criticized Spike Lee for hating America, not for being uppity.)

[Via MediaMatters]

In the game, which makes its debut today, Bianca, a good-looking assistant designer at an urban fashion house, finds herself — and her new 2009 Camry — enmeshed in a world of espionage. A $5 million print, radio and online campaign that will run in media primarily consumed by African-American women aims to drive the target demographic to iflookscouldkill.com, a site where "fashion and espionage collide," said Susan Bonds, president of 42 Entertainment.

Naturally, Bianca's unwitting involvement in spy tradecraft will be assisted by Camry's onboard Bluetooth, navigation and push-button ignition system, all features that will be "seamlessly integrated" into the content, Ms. Bonds said.

Why Camry hasn't caught on with African-American women is something of a mystery.

Probably not enough espionage!

[Ad Age]

[News Of The World]

"If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I'd like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist," he said. "I'm not making this up. I know history. I'm a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II."

"Not everything was John Wayne, baby..."

"I never said he should show one of the other guys holding up the flag as black. I said that African-Americans played a significant part in Iwo Jima," he said. "For him to insinuate that I'm rewriting history and have one of the four guys with the flag be black ... no one said that. It's just that there's not one black in either film. And because I know my history, that's why I made that observation." [HuffPo via OhNoTheyDidn't]

"Has he ever studied the history?" he asks, in that familiar near-whisper...

"He was complaining when I did Bird [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else." As for Flags of Our Fathers, he says, yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

Lee shouldn't be demanding African-Americans in Eastwood's next picture, either. Changeling is set in Los Angeles during the Depression, before the city's make-up was changed by the large black influx. "What are you going to do, you gonna tell a fuckin' story about that?" he growls. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like Bird, I use 90% black people."

Eastwood pauses, deliberately - once it would have provided him with the beat in which to spit out his cheroot before flinging back his poncho - and offers a last word of advice to the most influential black director in American movies. "A guy like him should shut his face."

Knowing Lee and how much he hates confrontation, I'm sure he'll let these comments about "a guy like him" just slide right off, and this whole "controversy" will fizzle out quietly.

[Guardian]