No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world BadmanDan @lemmy.world 6 mo. ago

Did Obama Becoming President Make People Hide Their Racism?

It felt like it was uncool to have even a touch of racism when Obama got elected and through his presidency. But since the MAGA movement, I feel like subtle and out-right racism has increased. Like a gateway was opened.

Am I trippin?

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Evidence it sent racists into a tailspin of racism:

Assertion that he was not actually American citizen, born in Kenya.

Assertion that Michele Obama is actually trans and their daughters are adopted. Joan Rivers just made it worse. Treating black women as "masculine" has been a long and well-worn racist trope.

Tan suit. Don't have to say much more about this one. Tons of people have worn tan suits without being hassled about it. I wonder why they hassled Obama specifically about it?

In early July 2010, the North Iowa Tea Party (NITP) posted a billboard showing a photo of Adolf Hitler with the heading "National Socialism", one of Barack Obama with the heading "Democrat Socialism", and one of Vladimir Lenin with the heading "Marxist Socialism", all three marked with the word "change" and the statement "Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive".

Google is doing a pretty damn good job of throwing these ones down the memory hole, but there were a massive number of photoshops of Obama as a monkey. I also remember conservatives acting like it wasn't a big deal because there had been a photoshop of George W. Bush as a monkey floating around since around 2004.

This was when he was running for President and while he was President. Those are just examples off the top of my head.

I don't even like Obama. He let war criminals off the hook and then legalized and codified the worst excesses of the War on Terror under Bush.

But it's clear as hell that his mere existence made conservatives lose their fucking minds and they've never come back from it.

Also, at least two of these examples have full fucking wikipedia pages for the controversy alone. It sent conservatives into such a tailspin that we have to have encyclopedia entries about these events.

EDIT: Only somewhat related, but after 4 years of Obama, the racists were fucking furious at a film like Django Unchained. So many who were like "I like Quentin Tarantino, but I'm not watching some shit that is racist against white people!" Yeah, they only like Tarantino films filled with white people dropping the N-bomb repeatedly.
- Holy! Never knew any of that. I wasn’t on social media that much during his presidency, so whatever the news showed is what I saw. And obviously they weren’t showing this insanity at the forefront. Thank you for this, gonna check it all out.
  
  Plenty of internet photos of white people wearing shirts that said things like “put the white back in the White House” or “It’s called the White House for a reason.” Racism was rampant and on public display.
  
  Literally a Romney voter in 2012.
  
  I always thought of romney as the republican's plan C. If White Supremacy fails, and More White Supremacy fails, then they might try Quieter White Supremacy.
  
  Ewww
  
  There it is. The other shirt I couldn’t find, but I remember seeing it on a shirt someone had photographed on a motorcycle rider.

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