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Empty chair hanging = lynching???

A

Anonemous

Diamond Member
Leave that chair alone!

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...nchings-anti-obama-protests-gone-too-far?lite

At least two recent incidents in which empty chairs were hung from trees by rope have critics decrying what they say are racially offensive displays meant to symbolize the “lynching” of President Barack Obama.

In Austin, Texas, a homeowner hung an empty folding chair from a tree branch in front of his house and later attached an American flag to it. He reportedly told a Democratic political blogger who inquired about it: “You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you.”

In Centreville, Va., an empty chair with a sign reading “Nobama” was strung from a tree in or near a park. “In short, this appears to be a crude metaphor for the lynching of President Obama,” wrote the blogger who posted the photo.

The image of an empty chair has been associated with Obama ever since Clint Eastwood’s headline-grabbing, non-conformist speech at the Republican National Convention three weeks ago in Tampa, Fla. The 82-year-old actor-director talked to an empty chair as if the Democratic president were sitting in it, criticizing and mocking the “invisible Obama” for 12 minutes.

“When somebody doesn't do the job, you've got to let them go," Eastwood said before making a throat-slashing gesture.

In Austin, Katherine Haenschen, editor of Burnt Orange Report, a Texas liberal-leaning political blog, said someone forwarded her a photo this week of an empty folding chair hanging from a tree in front of a home in the city’s northwest. A few days later the homeowner apparently added a small American flag to the display, according to a picture taken by a neighbor and forwarded to Haenschen on Thursday. [Picture above].

Haenschen said she called the man who she said lives in the home with his wife on Wednesday night to express her concerns about the display. Here’s what she said he told her:

“He replied, and I quote, "I don't really give a damn whether it disturbs you or not. You can take [your concerns] and go straight to hell and take Obama with you. I don't give a [expletive]. If you don't like it, don't come down my street."

NBC News tried reaching out to the man for comment, but a telephone message left Thursday morning was not returned.

Haenschen said the display has apparently caused “great consternation” in the neighborhood.

“There are other neighbors up there who are Republicans who find this as offensive as anybody else does,” Haenschen told NBC News.

“Someone always wants to say, 'you’re making a big deal out of it, it’s just a chair.' But I don’t see how you can dismiss the racial message of lynching a symbol of the first African-American president. It’s really tough for me to see how folks might, after the Eastwood speech, not view this as a racially charged message and a symbol of a threat to the president’s life.”

Rosemary Edwards, chairwoman of the Travis County Republican Party in Austin, said she was not aware of the display. She said if anything racial is suggested by the display, it would be "deplorable."

In Virginia, a photo posted on Tuesday on Blue Virginia, a Democratic-leaning political blog, shows an empty chair with a handmade "Nobama" sign strung from a tree by a rope.


Courtesy of Blue Virginia A chair with an anti-Obama slogan hangs from a tree in Centreville, Va.
The blogger, who goes by the username “lowkell,” said photos of the display were taken with a cellphone by someone who was leaving the KORUS festival, an annual gathering organized by a local Korean-American association, at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville over the weekend.

“Obviously, it's beyond grotesque (it also boggles my mind that this was allowed to be put up, let alone to stay up, at a festival presumably visited by thousands of people - wtf?),” lowkell wrote.

Lowkell told NBC News the photo was forwarded to him by a source who "wants to remain anonymous."

The display was on private property neighboring the park, a park official told the Centreville Patch. The park is about eight miles from Centreville High School, where Obama appeared at a campaign rally in July. It was not known who put up the display.

The Secret Service said it was looking into the empty chair incidents. "The Secret Service is aware of this and will conduct appropriate followup," spokesman Brian Leary told NBC News.

Lynching, the killing of people, usually by hanging or shooting, by mobs who take the law into their own hands, occurred most frequently in the U.S. from the late 1800s through the 1950s. Most of the lynchings took place in the South, and most of the victims were black.
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Yeah, it's pretty clear what the dude's intention was, lynching a chair in his yard -- but the fact is, it's just a chair. He didn't break any laws, but I wouldn't have a problem with him getting a shakedown from the secret service just to assess any potential legitimate threats.

This doesn't really get my ire up very much, to be honest. It rather just tells everyone exactly how ignorant and uncivil these hick conservatives are. Can't win in the marketplace of ideas, so act out in appeals to bigotry and ignorance. This is the right wing. Get used to it.
 
Cerpin Taxt said:
Yeah, it's pretty clear what the dude's intention was, lynching a chair in his yard -- but the fact is, it's just a chair. He didn't break any laws, but I wouldn't have a problem with him getting a shakedown from the secret service just to assess any potential legitimate threats.

This doesn't really get my ire up very much, to be honest. It rather just tells everyone exactly how ignorant and uncivil these hick conservatives are. Can't win in the marketplace of ideas, so act out in appeals to bigotry and ignorance. This is the right wing. Get used to it.
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yep
 
Of course this is racially motivated. Why would anyone, especially a conservative, have any other reason to wish harm upon Obama.

What a bunch of race baiting, witch hunting, propaganda on the part of NBC news. Typical.

Only problem I see is that the rope seems to be missing its noose.

EDIT: This belongs in P&N.
 
LOL! That's fucking pure awesome right there! There's nothing wrong or illegal about it because it isn't a likeness. Genius.
 
DixyCrat said:
Is it possible that the same thing would be done if Hillary were president?
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I think hanging it from a tree definitely connotes a lynching of a black person, as opposed to a garden-variety hanging. No doubt this is why some people (e.g., spidey07) so admire this form of free expression.
 
Why do people see that a chair = obama, but cannot see hanging from a tree = fired. Why does it have to go all the way to lynching? Maybe someone should suggest a different way how to portray not re-electing obama with a chair in your front yard...

Stupid news telling me how to translate metaphors... I see what I want!!
 
SS Trooper said:
Why do people see that a chair = obama, but cannot see hanging from a tree = fired. Why does it have to go all the way to lynching? Maybe someone should suggest a different way how to portray not re-electing obama with a chair in your front yard...

Stupid news telling me how to translate metaphors... I see what I want!!
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Who woulda thunk it - someone calling himself "SS Trooper" is stepping forward to defend this. What a world!
 
I believe these people hate Obama because they hate his policies, not because he's black. There are plenty of people that do hate him because of that, but they need to stop portraying it as all of the obama detractors are racists.
 
...
All these years, a chair that was tied by rope or chains in a tree, was known as a swing, now this? 🙄
 
Triumph said:
I believe these people hate Obama because they hate his policies, not because he's black. There are plenty of people that do hate him because of that, but they need to stop portraying it as all of the obama detractors are racists.
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Well, it would help if his detractors stopped doing and saying such patently racist things.

I do not, by any means, believe that most Obama detractors are bigots (though some, like the chair-hanger, most certainly are). I do think, though, that racism plays a huge role in the way he is villified by his detractors.

It's one thing to say you disagree with the President's policies, but quite another to say he is a communist, or a Muslim, that he holds "anti-American views," that he intends to cede control of the US to a "world government," or that he is, at least potentially, the anti-Christ. Each of these is a view that has been fairly widely adopted by Republicans with respect to President Obama - see, e.g., http://www.livescience.com/8160-quarter-republicans-obama-anti-christ.html

I think part of the reason some Obama detractors are comfortable using terms like this is because he is so different from them. It's not necessarily that they consciously think, "I don't like him because he's black," just that they feel he is a different kind of person (partly due to his race, name, etc.), and thus find it easier to put him in a different, even evil category than their own. If he were a white guy with a traditionally western-sounding name I don't believe we would be hearing him described in these particular harsh terms. This rhetoric is, in that sense, racist in my view.

By the way, part of me thinks this is a good thing, because it brings him down somewhat from the messianic pedestal that some of his supporters have been inclined to put him on (e.g., when Oprah called him "the One"). I think if there were nobody openly challenging that from the other side it would frankly put his life in greater danger, because some wacko with a rifle would be likelier to view it as his duty to take down the false, black Messiah.
 
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Triumph said:
I believe these people hate Obama because they hate his policies, not because he's black. There are plenty of people that do hate him because of that, but they need to stop portraying it as all of the obama detractors are racists.
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Oh, I'm sure some of them hate him because of both. I'm sure some of them hate him just because he's black too.
 
Cerpin Taxt said:
Yeah, it's pretty clear what the dude's intention was, lynching a chair in his yard -- but the fact is, it's just a chair. He didn't break any laws, but I wouldn't have a problem with him getting a shakedown from the secret service just to assess any potential legitimate threats.

This doesn't really get my ire up very much, to be honest. It rather just tells everyone exactly how ignorant and uncivil these hick conservatives are. Can't win in the marketplace of ideas, so act out in appeals to bigotry and ignorance. This is the right wing. Get used to it.
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Could be construed as a hate crime, at least for the purposes of an investigation.
 
Triumph said:
I believe these people hate Obama because they hate his policies, not because he's black. There are plenty of people that do hate him because of that, but they need to stop portraying it as all of the obama detractors are racists.
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Kind of hard to stop the portrayal when the best way a detractor can think of to voice his opinion is to hang a chair, no?
 
I never understood what people were trying to accomplish with stunts like this. Even if I'm against Obama I can't see any point in it. These are the same kind of people who get chuckles out of truck nuts I guess.
 
Don Vito Corleone said:
By the way, part of me thinks this is a good thing, because it brings him down somewhat from the messianic pedestal that some of his supporters have been inclined to put him on (e.g., when Oprah called him "the One"). I think if there were nobody openly challenging that from the other side it would frankly put his life in greater danger, because some wacko with a rifle would be likelier to view it as his duty to take down the false, black Messiah.
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True, but the unfortunate side effect of that is the potential to spur on even more hatred. It only takes one idiot to provoke mob mentality or to float a stupid thought that gets repeated and/or taken literally by mindless followers. People are a lot like locusts...

A perfect example of that is one of your own examples, actually: those that call him a communist. Not only do they not know what the word means or entails, but it too can promote violence much like a "black messiah" would

Don Vito Corleone said:
because some wacko with a rifle would be likelier to view it as his duty to take down the false, [communist leader].
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The reasoning is as diverse as the people that blurt it out of their mouths.
 
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