My hope is they refrained from giving this man the press he so obviously craves to stick it to him. I’ve noticed the media being very careful not to let some of the viler expressions of racism get the limelight, probably wisely. We haven’t seen such discretion from the press since the years before Nixon.

Now that I think of it, I’m glad they aren’t reporting it more widely, it can only hurt Obama to be seen as a figure of fun. There is no upside for him with this story getting out and the artist in question really is small potatoes. But revenge is sweet and now the “artist” is still anonymous and a pariah, well done jackass.

See this article:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/assassination-artists-trail-of-deception/

These pictures of the girls, the book cover, the other stuff is something he put up after the fake websites. He bought storefront space (not a real gallery) and paid for it himself to put this up for two days and draw attention to himself as an artist.

When I first saw it, the message I got was “racism is alive and well and no Black girl or women is ever outside of it–even these daughters of a powerful Black man.” I thought the artist was sort of trying to say that, but mostly trying to get attention.

Turns out he was pretty much exclusively trying to get attention. I am a complete supporter of freedom of speech and what not, and I think the best thing to do with something like this is give it the bad review it deserves as somewhat unimaginative and egomaniacal.

I too am the mother of young, Black daughters and yes, it just hurts to see that picture. It even hurt when I thought the artist was probably trying to be sympathetic (in an albeit painful way). Now that I know it was more or less a publicity stunt by a mediocre artist, it makes me mad.

Still, it’s really nothing but bad art. We shouldn’t let it distract us from actually working to change the country for the better for the women and girls who are such easy targets for uncreative people.