By: Adam C. Smith
Source: tampabay.com
The image of President Obama looking like Batman’s arch villain the Joker in the movie The Dark Knight–has turned up on a Pinellas GOP Facebook page. The State Rep. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg has denounced the image, and Pinellas Republican leaders have distanced themselves from the social networking site, disapproving of the image.
“If there had never been a period of time in this country when African-Americans in order to be funny played Stepin Fetchit-type roles in greasepaint and members of the majority population had not used such caricatures to make a people feel inferior or as buffoons, then maybe some folks could look at it for some pure artistic humor,” Rouson said.
But where some people saw a picture of a black leader put in white face, others merely saw a public figure looking like Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
Pinellas GOP denies link to Facebook page with image of Obama as Joker