Author
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Topic: McCain "Family" in People Magazine
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bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938
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posted 22 September 2008 06:12 AM
I found this on the blog resistracism.
quote: Here’s the cover image. That’s McCain’s entire brood. Two of his children were the biological children of his first wife; he adopted them. One is their biological daughter. He has four kids with his current wife. Three biological children and one daughter adopted from Bangladesh. That’s her sitting at Cindy McCain’s right in the lowest position.
quote: From the blog's comments: Bridget’s placement and the placement of all the McCain children seem to be quite strategic and telling. On the one side, you have John and Cindy with their “real” children. Fold the magazine in half and you’ve got the perfect family portrait - two White parents with their three White biological offspring with the caption “The Real McCains.” The fake McCains are on the other side of the spread. Of lesser significance are McCain’s other three White children - technically McCains, but not real McCains since they’re from a different marriage - placed on the other side of the sofa. Of least import, the most “fake” McCain, the obviously not White adopted one sitting on the floor.
Ick. resistracism's comments on the People cover resistracism's comments on the inside photo spread
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 22 September 2008 06:48 AM
With so many good reasons available to us to criticize John McCain, I just think it's really grasping at straws to suggest that there is some subliminal message contained in his family photograph. Typically, photographs for a magazine like this are posed by the photographer.You will note that the cover photo (seen by more people than the inside photo) exhibits no such characteristics of the apartheid that you are so eager to believe was intended in the other picture. [ETA: Although if you fold it diagonally, you can actually get all the females on one side of the fold and all the males on the other. Coincidence? You decide.] Subtlety is not one of the first 50 characteristics that spring to mind when considering the McCain campaign. There's plenty of stuff to hammer him on, without looking for transgressions that are plausibly deniable and just make his critics look desperate and petty. [ 22 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 22 September 2008 07:51 AM
I find this kind of "gotcha politics" really tiresome and counterproductive. Another example of it is in this thread.In fact, too much of babble is filled with people chortling and clucking their tongues over gaffes, candidate resignations, poll results, nudity, pot-smoking, strategic voting, speculation over strategic alliances after the election, and other topics that completely avoid an actual discussion of election issues. Just look at the list of current topics in the "Canadian Politics" forum. Most babblers seem to be more interested in trivia and conspiracy theories than substance. I fully expect to see someone breathlessly open a thread about what colour of ties Stephane Dion has been wearing. Any time someone actually does try to discuss substantive political issues, the thread is either ignored or it gets swarmed with NDP loyalists who insist that the Party and its Leader are correct in every detail, and anybody who disagrees is a shill for the Liberals. See in this regard the threads on Afghanistan and the Environment and the election. quote: If this thread is irrelevant than I suggest you don't post here.
I really wish you'd give this kind of shushing of dissenters a rest. Beleieve it or not, not everyone has to agree with you or shut up about it.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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ElizaQ
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9355
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posted 22 September 2008 08:00 AM
Of course there are many, many things that can be discussed about the McCain campaign. Whether this is a purposeful strategy or as BCG commented on a reflection on societal norms is a question and I don't see problem with people discussing it. The current campaign IS playing on race and their are numerous examples out there of these more subtle tactics. Most of which don't see the light of day, unless one digs deeper. The 'muslim' meme is being pushed again, through emails and through what appears to be a conscious effort to blanket comment and discussion boards with the question. It's noticbly picked up in the past weeks. This is coupled with stations like Fox doing 'fear' reports on the Terrorist threats to America and a pick up in that type of talk on Right Wing Radio. Over the past week millions of voters in swing states have received an DVD with there newspapers on, Islam an it's threat to America, that's been put out by a pro-Israeli Clarion Foundation. In Evengelical realms there's a whole, 'Obama is the Anti-Christ' belief floating around and pushed and the campaign is using that. They even put out an ad this summer with subtle messaging on the meme. His 'race' is interconnected with this one as well. Time Mag Article What's even worse and incredible is that Palin, in this realm is being pushed as the 'One' who has been picked by God to fight this anti-christ. So again you have the 'white' vs the 'black'. 'Light vs. dark' 'good vs evil' in a religious sense and as incredible as it may sound people are buying this as a basis for their vote.
From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 22 September 2008 08:04 AM
It's not about finding someone to blame for being racist. It's about how people consciously or unconsciously think. I have no idea whether there was a conscious effort to say, "Hey, let's put the only person of colour in the family way down in the bottom corner of the picture and everyone else in the top half - and let's get her to sit on the floor while everyone else is seated or standing." I don't know. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't. But even if there wasn't, just the fact that they unconsciously decided that this composition is pleasing to the eye, where the one person of colour is marginalized in both photographs, is something that is valuable to note. And if it WAS conscious, then obviously the blame is shared between the photographer who posed them, and the family, particularly McCain, for going along with it.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 22 September 2008 08:11 AM
quote: Originally posted by Michelle: I have no idea whether there was a conscious effort to say, "Hey, let's put the only person of colour in the family way down in the bottom corner of the picture and everyone else in the top half - and let's get her to sit on the floor while everyone else is seated or standing."
Thank you. Michelle. And neither does anyone else.This is such a stupid game. That's why it reminds me so much of the "subconscious" nonsense that Wilson Brian Key and Vance Packard made a fortune out of back in the '70's. It started out with an attempt to draw a line between the "real" McCains and the adopted ones. I guess that one is simply too indefensible, so people are now focusing on the one racialized person in the photograph in order to find the hidden meaning behind her placement. It would be just as possible to draw inferences from the fact that she is one of the closest people to the mother in both photos. I'm sure that if the People Magazine photgrapher had stuck her in the back behind the couch or behind the parents that would be a cause for condemnation as well. Maybe the Bangladeshi daughter is the shortest person: photographers always want to put the short people in front. Like I said, it's a stupid game. I'm convinced McCain is a racist, but I don't need to speculate about how he feels about his adopted daughter in order to prove that.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938
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posted 22 September 2008 08:11 AM
M, as hard as it may be to believe, this isn't "gotcha" politics. It's something that struck a chord in me, and I posted it. I'm allowed to do that.Suggesting you post elsewhere with your negativity and condescension isn't shushing you, it's trying to make space for responses from people who actually want to talk about what the thread is about. Your issues with babble and NDP politics and trying to get to more substantial levels have nothing to do with this thread, or me and don't belong in this thread. Star Spang, the issues of interracial adoption are huge and vast. There have been threads about it on babble which offer lots of sides of this issue, with links. As to the issue, many of the points about "family" link to the Tim Wise article that Michelle posted here.
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005
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bigcitygal
Volunteer Moderator
Babbler # 8938
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posted 22 September 2008 08:31 AM
Stop Dog Whistle RacismVery cool blog on racism in the US election. I've not ever heard of the term "dog whistle racism" before. Learn something new everyday. quote: StopDogWhistleRacism.com is a non-partisan research project of the Center for Social Inclusion that examines the way that race figures implicitly in many political discussions. For 50 years, political figures have introduced tacit appeals to racial hostility – references to “law and order,” “welfare queens” and other implicit evocations of racial stereotypes – into political discourse. But while there has been much commentary and analysis around specific instances, rarely is there an effort to educate the public about the pervasiveness of the problem The aim of this site is to document the full scope of symbolic racism in our political discourse by bringing collecting and preserving news and commentary on Dog Whistle Racism, elections, and policy.Dog Whistle racism – also known as symbolic racism – is political campaigning or policy-making that uses coded words and themes that appeal to conscious or subconscious racist concepts and frames.
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005
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Scott Piatkowski
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1299
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posted 22 September 2008 08:36 AM
Some useful history on the role played by McCain's daughter in the 2000 primaries.Dirty Tricks, South Carolina and John McCain quote: Eight years ago this month, John McCain took the New Hampshire primary and was favored to win in South Carolina. Had he succeeded, he would likely have thwarted the presidential aspirations of George W. Bush and become the Republican nominee. But Bush strategist Karl Rove came to the rescue with a vicious smear tactic. Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain...if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh. It worked. Owing largely to the Rove-orchestrated whispering campaign, Bush prevailed in South Carolina and secured the Republican nomination. The rest is history--specifically the tragic and blighted history of our young century. It worked in another way as well. Too shaken to defend himself, McCain emerged from the bruising episode less maverick reformer and more Manchurian candidate.
From: Kitchener-Waterloo | Registered: Sep 2001
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ElizaQ
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9355
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posted 22 September 2008 08:39 AM
quote: Originally posted by bigcitygal: Stop Dog Whistle RacismVery cool blog on racism in the US election. I've not ever heard of the term "dog whistle racism" before. Learn something new everyday.
Great find! I've been reading references to the term but wasn't exactly sure what people were talking about.
From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005
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Boom Boom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7791
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posted 22 September 2008 11:30 AM
Virginia has my favourite slogan:Besides Winchester and Richmond, I've also been to (gorgeous) Alexandria and Fairfax in Virginia. Never Charlottesville. Is Charlottesville really nicer than Alexandria? I love the Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester - I'd love to return.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004
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