The Critical Browser: Anti-Obama Chain E-Mails
A literary reading of the nutso ravings your uncle is forwarding at this very moment.
Douglas Wolk
The New Republic
Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Relatives are wonderful. You can count on them to forward you all kinds of interesting political documents--especially, these days, letters about Barack Obama and his sinister intentions. There are quite a few of them making the rounds; some focus on his connections to Islam, some try to dig up examples of him showing open disrespect to Mom and apple pie, some retouch or recaption photos to make him look stupid or dangerous. Obama's mentioned them himself, and called them "a dirty trick that folks are playing on voters."
They vary in levels of smeardom, from attacks on his policies to simple character assassination to allegations that he may be, oh my God, who knows, an actual assassin. But a few themes recur: The deepest fears of the "forward this to all your friends" crew seem to be that Obama is somehow un-American, that he's actually a Muslim and therefore by simple logic wants to blow us all up, and, most of all, that he's one of those terrifying low-class dark-skinned types. (A photo going around of Obama in 1986 with members of his extended family identifies a black woman in a striped dress as "Washeteria.")
One of the more interesting emails, which seems to have surfaced in mid-April, concerns the idea that Obama is personally behind electoral unrest in Kenya. Now, the assertions in the message credited to Celeste and Loren Davis are all kinds of false; you can go to the generally reliable snopes.com for a thorough debunking, although Loren Davis, questioned about the message by PolitiFact, stood by it. Snopes has a useful page of Obama-related rumors; word is also going around that the Senator was sworn into office on a copy of the Quran--nope--that he hates "The Star-Spangled Banner"--false--and that the "Book of Revelations" describes the Antichrist as being Obama-esque--sorry, but thanks for playing. (In the words of the British satirists Half Man Half Biscuit: "If you're going to quote from the Book of Revelation/Don't keep calling it the Book of Revelations/There's no S, it's the Book of Revelation/As revealed to St. John the Divine.") And, as it turns out, the Davises have written some things promulgating highly unusual viewpoints before, such as that the five-pointed stars on the American flag are part of a Satanist plot.
(Continued here.)
Douglas Wolk
The New Republic
Published: Thursday, May 15, 2008
Relatives are wonderful. You can count on them to forward you all kinds of interesting political documents--especially, these days, letters about Barack Obama and his sinister intentions. There are quite a few of them making the rounds; some focus on his connections to Islam, some try to dig up examples of him showing open disrespect to Mom and apple pie, some retouch or recaption photos to make him look stupid or dangerous. Obama's mentioned them himself, and called them "a dirty trick that folks are playing on voters."
They vary in levels of smeardom, from attacks on his policies to simple character assassination to allegations that he may be, oh my God, who knows, an actual assassin. But a few themes recur: The deepest fears of the "forward this to all your friends" crew seem to be that Obama is somehow un-American, that he's actually a Muslim and therefore by simple logic wants to blow us all up, and, most of all, that he's one of those terrifying low-class dark-skinned types. (A photo going around of Obama in 1986 with members of his extended family identifies a black woman in a striped dress as "Washeteria.")
One of the more interesting emails, which seems to have surfaced in mid-April, concerns the idea that Obama is personally behind electoral unrest in Kenya. Now, the assertions in the message credited to Celeste and Loren Davis are all kinds of false; you can go to the generally reliable snopes.com for a thorough debunking, although Loren Davis, questioned about the message by PolitiFact, stood by it. Snopes has a useful page of Obama-related rumors; word is also going around that the Senator was sworn into office on a copy of the Quran--nope--that he hates "The Star-Spangled Banner"--false--and that the "Book of Revelations" describes the Antichrist as being Obama-esque--sorry, but thanks for playing. (In the words of the British satirists Half Man Half Biscuit: "If you're going to quote from the Book of Revelation/Don't keep calling it the Book of Revelations/There's no S, it's the Book of Revelation/As revealed to St. John the Divine.") And, as it turns out, the Davises have written some things promulgating highly unusual viewpoints before, such as that the five-pointed stars on the American flag are part of a Satanist plot.
(Continued here.)
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