Posted on 10/14/2007 8:15:46 AM PDT by jimbo123
A RACIALLY insensitive moment from Bill Clinton's boyhood is coming back to haunt him. It's a postcard the future president sent his grandma Edith Cassidy in 1966 showing a black youth eagerly polishing a gigantic watermelon, titled "Hope, Arkansas - Home of the World's Largest Watermelon." Clinton, 19 at the time and a sophomore at Georgetown University, wrote: "Dear Mammaw, Thought I would send you one of your cards just to prove I'm using them! My tests are over and I'm just starting the second term. Hope you are well and happy . . . Love, Bill." Online auction house rrauction.com, which is selling the card Wednesday, calls it "a throwback to the outrageously broad portrayals of African-Americans of a century earlier." It notes Clinton wrote it "in the midst of the most active civil-rights movement in American history," and would go on to become "one of the greatest champions of racial minorities among modern American presidents." A Clinton spokesman didn't get back to us.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
This is the kind of crap, worthy of du and media matters, that gives us a bad name. Trying to make something out of nothing just for the deceit of it.
(note to Bill O'Reilly: this is a .jpg of the postcard in the story and does not represent the opinions of Free Republic nor its members)
Clinton was nice to his Grandma. Yeah, that’s shameful. /s
Sneaky, Bill, very sneaky. You knew this would be a big deal 40 years down the line, so you preemptively passed the blame to your Grandmother.
There must be lots of slow learners out there.
I wonder if Bill sent this before or after he allegedly watched whites burning black churches back in Arkansas?
It’s just a little bit desperate to reach back to a postcard from 1966 to try and paint Clinton as a racist. This will have all the impact among African Americans as the silly accusations against Rush claiming he doesn’t support the troops. The history of both men is there for all to see and cheap shots won’t change anyone’s opinion.
Footnote: Damn it hurts to defend Clinton in any way shape or form but this is ridiculous.
Yes, it demonstrates that we’re not politically savvy enough to distort what was actually said and get away with it. we don’t have the requisite talent for dishonesty that’s required to be a successful leftist.
This, after he protested Rosa Park’s treatment when he was 3 years old?
“I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired.”
Love ya
Hillary
Grotesque is the word I would use for it. Grotesque but oddly humorous.
So why do it? Bill would never do it for you.
And yes, it is ridiculous but the Left had no trouble trotting out pictures of opponents in blackface from skits or parodies they did a long time ago.
Good for the gander, no?
Sad how the Clinton cultists are spinning his racism as a youthful indiscretion. Isn’t that how they spun KKK Byrd’s indiscretion as a recruiter for the KKK?
From the text, it sounds like the old bat gave him a bunch of these cards and he sent her one back to make her feel good.
I have far better reasons to loathe him and his partner in treason crime.
It done illustrates the shame in that the poor black chilluns ain’t gots no SCHIP and has to do some work for a nickel with which to buy health insurance!
Who's "us"?
This is a NY Post article. Are you suggesting it is inappropriate to note its publication and comment on it?
What a complete and utter crock.
Clinton’s racism towards blacks is fair game for exposure. He panders to them for their votes, yet mocks them behind their backs for their color. Are you an apologist for KKK Byrd and the crossburnings he/his recruits attended, too?
So why do it? Bill would never do it for you.
I don’t require a quid pro quo from someone if I decide to say I think an attack on them is wrong. Why would I even expect Clinton to do anything for me? In fact the most shameful thing to me about my 20 years of service in the military is that it’s his signature on my retirement certificate. Nevertheless, I think this is a little over the top.
That’s stupid. His grandmother gave him the cards and he used one to send to her to “prove he used it”. That’s rather endearing, not racist.
Lots of people put on a disgusting sweater or put out a atrotious knick-knack received as a gift, when we know the gift giver is likely to see it being used.
Grasping at straws.
I’m white and Irish. That could just as easily be me on a hot summer day. Big deal.
The Clinton presidential library will purchase the postcard . . . with money donated by China . . . and it will never be seen again.
Encouraging his grandmother’s racism towards blacks is endearing? You’re joking, right?
What if she had sent him a cross to burn? Would that be endearing, too?
Calling that racist IS racist.
Apparently not so over the top that an online auction house would refuse to sell the postcard.
Yeah, making a mountain of this is a reach but, then, so were speeches from the floor of the Senate condemning a willfully misunderstood comment about “phony soldiers”.
(btw, thanks for your service to our country).
Last year my local paper published a photo of a little black girl eating a huge piece of watermelon on a hot summer day. It created a firestorm of LTTE complaining about how racist that was.
One could say the same thing if he ate Aunt Jemima pancakes in 1966. Just about as much validity.
BTW, how many of us ate Aunt Jemima pancakes in the day when the box looked like this?
Too funny!
If this were a prominant Republican candidate do you think the media would care?
So why doesn't Bubba have the 'nads to just come out and say that. That's the story to my mind, his refusal so far to comment. Gutless wonder. The Toons're busy conducting a focus group no doubt, or are just planning on ignoring the story because they know that the MSM won't touch it.
This is one time I side with Clintoon.
No. I thought afterwards my comments might be taken that way. Absolutely appropriate to post (as if my judgement matters anyway). I was just agreeing with others the first time this was posted that it is a far stretch and not worthy of us (conservatives in general, freepers in particular).
Sorry for any misunderstanding.
I’m no fan of The ‘Toon’s, but what is racist about the postcard? The only thing racist about it I can see is that some are calling it racist, which gives me insight into their minds which appear to be racist.
[ . . .(Clinton) would go on to become “one of the greatest champions of racial minorities among modern American presidents.”]
LOUIS FARRAKHAN: . . .”Although black people looked at Bill Clinton as a black president, he did less for black people than other presidents. We lost the safety net under his administration, for welfare mothers. We lost a lot. But his charisma, no one can take that away from Mr. Clinton. His ability to use language in many ways has attracted the hearts of black people. And the more the establishment beat up on him with his inappropriate behavior, the more black people understood his weakness, and forgave him, and came around him.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=2938016&page=2
In other words, Clinton was considered black because he was a dynamic communicator and was corrupt. Never mind that he balanced the budget* on the backs of African Americans.
*He also balanced the budget by dangerously reducing the military.
Wait, this can’t be true. As a little elementary school kid, he and a friend rode in the back of the bus to support Rosa Parks. There is not a hint of prejudice in Bill Clinton. He had sex with black crack cocaine hooker Bobbi Williams. That has to say something.
I don’t get your point.
And no, it’s not funny. Not even clever.
But I don’t see the connection you’re making to my comments.
It’s an ugly card both on the social and the artistic levels. As nice as it was for Clinton to try to please his grandmother, he was old enough to know how awful the card was for anyone to see. Imagine what the black post office personnel thought of the sender and receiver of the card.
Who’s that chick? She’s kinda cute!
Exactly. It shows further what a pathetic liar Billy and Hillary are. All the rot he said about riding in the back of the bus, and the church burnings were just ways to ingratiate himself with his current audience. Just like Hilly with her baby sitting Mexican chilrun as they worked in the horrible agricultural fields in Park Ridge Il.
What’s wrong with a picture of a black kid polishing a watermelon? It’s a huge melon and he obviously wants to sell it for more $$. People still clean and polish pumpkins for the same reason - guess they’re victims, too.
So now there’s something wrong with a cute girl dressing up like Aunt Jemima? On FR, no less?
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