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Boring, Boring Racists


This was what I had to look at, driving to and from work, for around a month leading up to the election.  In case you can't make everything out, you have an empty chair at the base of what looks an awful lot like a hangman's pole, with a "Defeat Obama" sign hanging where a person would be.  So here, the empty chair can be (a) a nod to Clint Eastwood's performance art "think piece" at the RNC or (b) what someone would stand on as the noose is slipped around the neck at a hangman's pole or (c) all of the above.  This scene was surrounded with Republican ground signs, all flanking the centerpiece of ignorance and hatred.

After a few weeks, I got so fed up that I sent the pic to the Petoskey News-Review along with a letter to the editor, both of which went nowhere.  And a few days after that, I sent an email to 9&10 News with the following message:

On Resort Pike Road (between Intertown and Williams), there currently sits a scene captured in the attached photo of someone expressing his/her "political opinion" by showcasing racist imagery in a clumsy and ignorant attempt at what must be "social commentary" for the witless and charmless.  I've had to look at this inflammatory and offensive content to and from work every day for weeks now, and to my knowledge, no one has raised even one voice of dissent.  I'd love to hear what the architect of this sad and pathetic display would say in his/her defense, and I'd love for someone at your news agency to shine a light on this ugly darkness, in the hope that it might go away.  This is Michigan in 2012, not Alabama in 1962, and there is a profound difference between political dissent and racist bullshit.  I hope that your news agency can help educate the public as to the difference between the two.

 And once again, nothing happened.  I'm assuming that my use of "bullshit" in the letter may have disqualified it from serious consideration, but maybe it's just that no one gives a shit about what in my perception is clear and obvious racist imagery.  That's why I'm happy that the Presidential election went the way it did, with signs and slogans and empty chairs and empty minds making no real impact whatsoever.  The post has been cut down now, with no trace that anything was there at all. The aggressively infantile part of me (larger than I care to admit) wanted to find a Romney/Ryan sign and deface it with "R.I.P." and place it on the stump of the post, but that's not going to happen.  I have to be content with letting, in the words of Barack Obama, voting be the best revenge, with the knowledge that every passing year selects boring, boring racists out of the population forever.

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