Offensive Politics

Recently I've heard conversations about the inappropriate nature of a recent (and unapproved, I might add) slogan that says: "Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a Governor." What I find most unnerving about the conversations labeling such a slogan as blasphemous and offensive, is that they imply that religion is off limits for humor and satire.

I find this unnerving because this afternoon I returned from lunch where we had a lovely, intelligent, and productive conversation about religion, ideology, politics, feminism, and other issues worthy of discussion to read a story about "Obama Waffles." The waffles invoke two major stereotypes: the racist imagery of Aunt Jemima combined with the head coverings worn by Muslim men.* The mixes were sold at a forum co-sponsored by American Values and Focus on the Family Action. To be fair, the forum later discontinued sales of the waffle mix (after 3 days): saying they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material." The creators had this to say about the problematic images:

"We had some people mention that to us, but you think of Newman's Own or Emeril's — there are tons and tons of personality-branded food products on the market. So we've taken that model and, using political satire, have highlighted his policies, his position changes.

So here's my question, are we going to label this as blamphemous or is it okay to make race and religion the subject of satires as long the religion isn't Chritianity. For all of those who cried fowl at the unauthorized Jesus Christ was a community organizer slogan, I challenge you to demand aplogies for this as well. If religion is off limits, then shouldn't everyone's religion be off limits, especially when that satire is used to falsely perpertrate the image of Obama as Muslim, when he is not, and never has been. And if he were Muslim, would you protect his religion from satire in the same way you object to Christianity being used in satire?

Politics are dirty, but the rules should be the same for both parties.

*I struggled with the question of whether or not to place the images on my blog, and I have decided that the racism in the images is too great for me to reproduce here. If you wish to see the images, please click on the Obama Waffles link.