I know that it’s hard to admit and I’m sorry for all the pain that it causes you people when racism is pointed out to you. It must be tough, balancing the weight of privilege and using stereotypes. How do you all do it?

Chaffey Community Republican Women, it must be hard for your artistic and creative talents not to be recognized. I mean damn, you all dehumanized a presidential candidate and used numerous stereotypical food images in one small space, on an image of a program that people use so that their children don’t starve.

The group’s president, Diane Fedele, said she plans to send an apology letter to her members and to apologize at the club’s meeting next week. She said she simply wanted to deride a comment Obama made over the summer about how as an African-American he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

“It was strictly an attempt to point out the outrageousness of his statement. I really don’t want to go into it any further,” Fedele said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn’t my attempt.”

Fedele said she got the illustration in a number of chain e-mails and decided to reprint it for her members in the Trumpeter newsletter because she was offended that Obama would draw attention to his own race. She declined to say who sent her the e-mails with the illustration.

She said she doesn’t think in racist terms, pointing out she once supported Republican Alan Keyes, an African-American who previously ran for president.

“I didn’t see it the way that it’s being taken. I never connected,” she said. “It was just food to me. It didn’t mean anything else.”

She said she also wasn’t trying to make a statement linking Obama and food stamps, although her introductory text to the illustration connects the two: “Obama talks about all those presidents that got their names on bills. If elected, what bill would he be on????? Food Stamps, what else!”

Hmmm see Diane, the problem here is that your intention doesn’t matter, and anyway, most people who are outraged, don’t believe you anyway. Porque not many people complain about white people getting government help. That criticism is reserved for people of color who are portrayed as a “drain on the system”.

And Diane saying that you once supported another black person, is kind of like saying, “some of my best friends are….” It rings hollow. For you to say you don’t think in racist terms while using racist images is like saying ” I don’t see color” while using the N word. It makes no kind of sense.

And Diane, if it really was just food, like you say why not use um, quiche, and a bottle of wine, um and a lobster, or some brie. That’s all just food too? No?

Via / The Press Enterprise