26
Nov

Google stoops to their level, fights freedom

   Posted by: Swizec   in Uncategorized

In my usual fashion I’m a bit late to discover this bit of news, a day or so late. Naturally I still wanted to share my thoughts on the matter, I mean that’s what blogging is about, our narcissistic tendencies to shout into the void and see if anyone will hear it.

Last week an image surfaced on Google Image Search Results of Michelle Obama photoshopped to look like a monkey. It was first hit even, great SEO guys, you rawk!

But then a whole lot of backlash started flying in and Google seemed confused and didn’t know what to do. So they created an apologetic adsense thingy saying something to the extent “Yeah, these results are sometimes offensive because the internet is one big cesspool of insanity. Fuck it”

It was not enough, earlier this week the result was completely removed from any sort of search for “michelle obama”. However it can still be found through a bit of a Streissand effect when you search for “michelle obama monkey”

Here’s the image:

michelle-obama-ape

Now, some say this thing is incredibly offensive and goes far beyond political satire just because a black person is involved. Personally I don’t care, I think it’s specieist towards monkeys when either a black person or Bush is shooped into a monkey. Nobody seems to care about that though.

So I ask of you, why is it political satire to shoop a white person into a monkey and a horribly horrible sadistic act of racism when a black person is shooped? Isn’t making this distinction an act of racism in and of itself thus proving that anyone who actually cares about this matter is in fact a racist?

For final summation, a very smart man once said “I may not agree with what you’re saying, but I will fight to death for your right to say it”. Apparently said wisdom does not hold anymore on the freest medium of all – the internets.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 11:46 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 comments so far

3pike
 1 

I can’t find it!

November 26th, 2009 at 13:30
Moniqa
 2 

Great blog post! I think the question: why is it political satire to shoop a white person into a monkey and a horribly horrible sadistic act of racism when a black person is shooped? is a very important one to ask yourself and everybody else!

November 27th, 2009 at 11:00
Sebastien
 3 

I think every satire happens in a context, is associated with a cultural referential that you cannot just forget. When Bush was represented as a monkey, it was to mock his apparent dumbness close to the one of the monkey (I’m not saying he is dumb, I’m just saying the picture said he is). The association is direct and not so much loaded with history: everyone says he’s dumb, what animal is known to be dumb? It could have been a donkey, or a bat, but the most obvious was a monkey.

Now the problem is that the story is completely different for African American. Here the reference is not that she is as dumb as a monkey, the reference is clearly related to what generations of racists have shamefully claimed: that black people would not be human beings, that they would be an “inferior race”. And what is inferior to human beings evolution-wise in people’s mind? Monkeys. And what this image tries to say is something like “look, she’s just like the other ones”.

That’s how the same effect applied to different people doesn’t trigger the same reactions. Don’t forget the cultural context.

November 27th, 2009 at 11:06
Swizec
 4 

You say don’t forget the cultural context, but that’s exactly what the PC movement is supposedly fighting for! That everyone would think of black people as just another type of human, when the PC movement blows up over everything that could potentionally smell like racism they are artificially creating racist tensions where there might have been none to begin with.

Simple fact is: Humans are a type of ape. Stop being childish and just deal with it.

November 27th, 2009 at 13:27
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