Orange County Republican party official Marilyn Davenport has sort-of apologized for sending out a racist picture of President Obama depicting him as a chimp being held by his chimp parents.
Here is the "apology" in its entirety:
I'm sorry if my email offended anyone. I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth. In no way did I even consider the fact he's half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people tried to make this about race. We all know a double standard applies regarding this president. I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them. One only has to go to Youtube or Google Images to see a plethora or lampooning videos and pictures of Obama, Bush and other politicians. That being said, I will NOT resign my central committee position over this matter that the average person knows and agrees is much to do about nothing. Again, for those select few who might be truly offended by viewing a copy of an email I sent to a select list of friends and acquaintances, unlike the liberal left when they do the same, I offer my sincere apologies to you--the email was not meant for you. For any of my friends or acquaintances who were the recipients of my email and were truly offended, please call me so I may offer a sincere verbal apology to you.
Here let me see if I can translate that for you.
"I am sorry that anybody with a conscience saw that e-mail. I was hoping that ONLY my fellow racists would see it and laugh right along with me at the idea of our President depicted as a lower life form than all of us Christian white folks. So of course I won't resign from my job over this silly misunderstanding, which has been blown way out of proportion by the socialists and commie sympathizers in the Democrat party. The only way you will get this job away from me is, in the words of my hero Charlton Heston, 'if you pry it from my hands, you damned dirty apes!""
"Again I only expected this to be seen by a select few of my fellow KKK members and I am frustrated that I have to apologize to a bunch of elitist, race mixing, liberals who don't know a good joke when it swings from a tree right in front of them. Dammit, the e-mail was NOT meant for you!"
"And if any of my ACTUAL friends were offended by this e-mail let me know, and I will call you and explain the joke to you, because it is freaking hysterical!"
Obviously I don't buy for an instant that this sorry excuse for a human being did not know that what she was sending out was racist. She absolutely knew what she was doing, she just never thought she would get caught.
The sad fact is that the Republican party is filled with this kind of blatant racism, in fact the whole Tea party and Birther movements were inspired by it, and the only time they feel any sense of embarrassment at all for their hateful prejudice is when it is exposed to the general public.
Update: This second apology is a little better, but it is also too little, too late.
And does anybody REALLY believe that she was threatened?
"...much TO DO about nothing?" So this woman is also too ignorant to know that the phrase is "much ado about nothing."
ReplyDeleteAnd why do only her friends get the "SINCERE apology" (demonstrating quite clearly that this apology was not sincere)?
Not only hateful, but stupid: President Obama's mother was white. I guess she became "black by association," according to these h8ters.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, the people who are defending her, do so with the preface of what a "good Christian lady" she is. Well guess what? There were many "good Christians" who participated in killing millions of Jews and liberal professors in Germany too. Not to bash Christians, but please, using your faith as a shield to exempt you from the public shame due to your inner racist tendencies is the height of cowardice. Christ never intended to be a shield to the ignorant masses who use him and his message of love and tolerance as some sort of hall pass.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of assholes, Have you seen RAM's latest tweets, Apparently the Sarah brand is pissed that the Lamestream media ignored her weekend screech in Madison last Sat. LMAO!
ReplyDeletehttp://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/twitter-palin-20110419-mansourCNN.JPG
Here comes the 'victim' card!
ReplyDeleteOC GOP official a no-show at committee meeting
Davenport did not show up to the Orange County Republican Central Committee on Monday night.
Her friends said she did not show up because she feared for her safety after receiving threats.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=8080624
Did anybody notice that c4p is ignoring the E true Hollywood story. Quitter will probably be on Greta thurs so her adoring fans won't watch E.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know where I can get a picture of Rep. Davenport? I'd like to create a "family portrait" for her as well. I wouldn't mind a photo of the front of her house as well. I'd like to make a picture of what I think might be growing in her front yard.
ReplyDeleteRE: orange county. DH and I and our guests are travelling to Newport Beach CA (June) for a week's vacation. Our old friends are black and don't put up with a lot of crap or any blatant racism encountered.
ReplyDeletePlus I'm a mean old white woman and I can still kick ass. ;-)
Jaye
O/T but quite fascinating!
ReplyDeleteIn which Sarah gets shunted onto an Alaska Airlines flight to Anchorage with a layover in Seattle
Sarah was wearing a cheap rip-off of a Dries Van Noten thigh-length coat – you could tell from the poor stitching on the collar and around the cuffs – and she was stuffed in to it fit to bursting, like Chris Christie in a thong. It looked for all the world like she’d swallowed a big square pillow. She was nattering away to a man with a face like a dyspeptic badger, who was wearing ski boots, a shell suit and a leather jacket with a Slayer logo on the back. I assumed this was Todd. He nodded agreement every now and then but didn’t appear to add much else to anything. While she spoke at him, she kept patting at her stomach like the baby was kicking.
I was a bit concerned about getting on to the plane without her seeing me, but fortunately a nice flight attendant spotted my Balenciaga jacket and my bespoke Dior shoes and took all us old biddies on to the plane first. Always wear your best to the airport. The gays like it and it can be worth an upgrade.
When Sarah saw that someone was getting on the plane before her, she made a face just like the one that Joan Rivers makes when you tell her there’s no more booze.
I hid in the middle of the group until we were on the plane, and then hunkered down in my seat right at the front with a strategically positioned newspaper.
When I woke up from my little nap, we were in the air and three-quarters of the way to Seattle. Most of the plane was dozing. I took a look around with my makeup mirror while I fixed my face. Sarah and the Todd were two seats behind me and across the aisle at the back of the first class section.
He was playing some kind of electronic game, and he sniggered occasionally like Muttley from Whacky Races.
She in the aisle seat reading Cosmo. Every now and then, at quite regular intervals of five minutes or so, she would let out a little noise and clutch at her stomach, then look around furtively, almost as if she was checking to see if anyone had noticed. This went on for the best part of half an hour.
Of course, all the hosties had on their best “not my problem” faces, so they barely noticed that she was there, let alone her rhythmic grunting.
Next, she jabbed Todd in the gut and made a gesture with her head. Todd reached into his bag and fished out a bottle of water. She had a drink and then, lowering the bottle down to seat level, she splashed water around her feet. A little bit went into the aisle and glistened there. She handed the bottle back to Todd, and then made a little “o” sound of surprise.
Whatever reaction she was expecting from the flight attendants, it did not eventuate.
She pouted for a while and then got up to go to the toilet up at the front of the plane. I pretended to be asleep, but I was wearing my sunglasses so my eyes were wide open. Just as she passed me, her entire baby-bulge moved directly downwards about eight inches and I saw the bottom of a bright green polyester cushion (with yellow flowers, no less) poke out from under the edge of her coat.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/19/968259/-In-which-Sarah-gets-shunted-onto-an-Alaska-Airlines-flight-to-Anchorage-with-a-layover-in-Seattle
This is why TS was invaded by SA.
ReplyDeleteWhy has she not been fired? What a disgusting display of bullshit.
ReplyDeleteSadly, your correct about the Tea Baggers and birthers being racist. What's even sader, they're blind to what racism is since they and their friends think that way every day, and believe everyone else does so as well. That comes out in her statement most people see the joke it her e-mail. She has also voted in support of others who have released racist comments or e-mails in the past, including the one who sent out an e-mail with a picture of watermelons being grown on the lawn of the White House. Like Sarah's "Blood Libel" speech, this has made her situation even worse, and she should be removed from her current position as soon as possible if the Republicans leaders hope to convince the voters they are not a party of racists.
ReplyDeleteReporting that a Republican is racist is like reporting that the grass is green. I don't see why this is even news. The racist people who eagerly forward these kinds of emails to each other will see her as a victim, the people whom this disgusts will continue to think she's classless, clueless trash. In the meantime she's milking it for all she's worth. Why give her any more publicity?
ReplyDeleteIf anyone thinks this cartoon is NOT racist, they are a racist,
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Sarah's trolls would like if Brisket and Willow were portrayed in a bad light because of their biracial heritage.
Gryphen, thank you for continuing to shine a light on this racist woman who is ignorant. She is just another sad example of the tea baggers and repubs in this country that are stuck on stupid and hate.
ReplyDeleteThe bitch did not apologize to President Obama and his family and friends. We love him so to hell with this racist bitch. I hope she gets what is coming to her.
ReplyDelete7:30 am FUNNY
ReplyDeleteNow that Davenport has been outed for the racist she is, numerous Republicans are backpeddling away from her. Former chairman of the California Republican Party Michael Schroeder says this email is Davenport's third strike. He is calling for her resignation, citing two previous incidents in which Davenport defended the racist actions of two fellow Orange County conservatives.
ReplyDeletehttp://immigrationmexicanamerican.blogspot.com/2011/04/marilyn-davenport-birther-tea-party.html
She never even considered the fact that he was half black. Nope she considers him ALL black, which is why she gleefully forwarded the image. If she had considered that he was only HALF black, she would have superimposed a white woman's face on one of the monkeys.
ReplyDeleteShe's full of shit and everybody knows it, including her fellow racists who got a kick out of the picture.
I wonder if all her black friends (you know, the ones she claims to have) think there was anything racist about the image. Perhaps they should be tracked down and asked.
The California Republican who e-mailed a racist "family photo" of President Obama because she thought it was funny offered up a second, less defiant apology Monday.
ReplyDeleteMarilyn Davenport did not say sorry not in person, but through a statement read to the Orange County Republican Central Committee by fellow member Tim Whitacre. Davenport said she didn't show up at the committee meeting because she feared for her life.
"To my fellow Americans and to everyone else who has seen this e-mail I forwarded and was offended by my action, I humbly apologize and ask for your forgiveness of my unwise behavior," the 74-year-old wrote.
"I say unwise because at the time I received and forwarded the e-mail, I didn't stop to think about the historic implications and other examples of how this could be offensive," Davenport said.
"I would never do anything to intentionally harm or berate others regardless of ethnicity," she said in her apology. "Everyone who knows me knows that to be true."
The racist e-mail, which the elected GOP official sent out to dozens of friends and fellow Republicans on Friday, featured Obama as a baby chimpanzee with two chimpanzee parents.
Davenport, who in 2009 defended a former mayor in California for sending a similarly racist e-mail about Obama, claims to have received threats since her "Internet joke" gained national attention.
The grandmother and Tea Party activist, who represents the 72nd Assembly District in Orange County, was immediately slammed with calls for her to step down.
"When we send communications to our fellow elected officials it is a public action that reflects on the sender, the recipient, and this committee," GOP chairman Scott Baugh, who called the racist e-mail "despicable," said to the 75 people at Monday night's meeting.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/04/19/2011-04-19_goper_says_sorry_again_for_racist_obama_email_claims_to_have_received_threats.html?r=news
The depictions of President Obama as a monkey or ape are no laughing matter. They are rooted in more than a deep antipathy towards the idea of a black man being President and the accompanying upset which this reality has caused for the White Racial Frame.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, while the Marilyn Davenports of the world and the other assorted Right-wing mouth-breathing ilk who traffic in these images may be in fierce denial of the demons that lurk in their collective self-conscious, research in cognitive and social psychology has indicated that these caricatures are prefaced on a deep hatred of Black people.
Ultimately, images which link Barack Obama to apes and gorillas are integral elements of a centuries long project of White racial violence against people of color in this country and abroad.We cannot forget that Colonialism and Imperialism were predicated on a belief in the superiority of Europeans over other peoples of the world. To legitimate this project, a narrative which naturalized superficial human differences as deep, intractable, and impossible to overcome had to be created.
The history here is quite rich. Black Africans were imagined by white Europeans as being part of a different species, one that was not quite human. In fact, respectable European anthropologists and scientists hypothesized that black people were the result of copulation between humans and apes. As a complement, white European biologists constructed the “chain of being”–a metaphorical tree of human types where Europeans were “naturally” at the “top” and black Africans (because they were closest to beasts) at the “bottom.”
During the three centuries of slavery in the United States and the struggles over Reconstruction and against Jim and Jane Crow, images of black people as gorillas and apes were used to alternatively depict African Americans as either childlike and simple–or like the Irish before they earned their Whiteness–as violent brutes who were unassimilable and by implication a threat to the White body politic.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2011/04/19/no-laughing-matter-the-tea-party-gops-depictions-of-president-obama-as-an-ape-are-motivated-by-violence-and-hate/
Anon @7.30a - that's satire from a very funny diary. Thanks for posting it.
ReplyDeleteChimply unbelievable
ReplyDeleteI am glad she did not show up and I hope she is getting threats. Actions have consequences. Hope she shits her little panties in fear every time she leaves her house. I encourage you all to call the OCR offices and leave an appropriate message of your disapproval as well. We cannot let this kind of thing go without speaking up. We need to move forward as a society and not allow the likes of her get away with their ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI had someone on a blog and defend this piece of trash by comparing slavery to the indentured servitude of the whites in colonial America. To the teabaggers, that makes the chimpanzee jokes and comparisons ok. You can see it played out right here And then they repeatedly called me a bitch and a liar for not seeing the stretch in comparison.
ReplyDeleteAnother blood libel apology. Sarah-RAM can appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteWhy do (R)'s never apologize? You could catch a Republican on HD camera, red-handed, pants down, hand in the till, and they would say "I'm sorry IF you found that offensive."
ReplyDelete"That was not meant to be a factual statement"
"I am not a crook."
I just did a google image search on Marilyn Davenport and up comes rows and rows of that heinous pic - now IMMORTALIZED FOREVER on the web. There has to be some sort of legal punishment for defamation, calumny, slander, denigration of a sitting President. Per NY Daily News Davenport says "she would hunt down the "cowardly" person who leaked the contents of the e-mail." Sounds like "The Deflectress," herself.
ReplyDeleteThe hypocrisy is stunning. Davenport puts out a blatantly racist photo and then asks us to believe that she, being a good Christian, never intended it to have racist connotations.
ReplyDeleteA large part of the Republican identity in 2011 seems to revolve around accepting and propagating lies, and then taking cover behind a proclamation that you're a "good Christian."
First of all their lies and blatant racism is despicable (their obvious lies are...obvious). Second of all they take us for fools, and that's insulting.
Thank you Gryph for holding their feet to the fire.
Demand Racist Marilyn Davenport’s Resignation!
ReplyDeleteCall - 714.453.0900
Email - Contact@ocgop.org
Tweet - #OCGOP
Hey, 7:30 and 8:08 - If you don't put quotations marks around the text you lift from articles, you are guilty of plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteYou have selected good material to share, but you are inadvertently (I hope) failing to give proper credit to the authors of the material. We cannot tell what belongs to the original author and what you are adding.
Putting the URL at the end of a long excerpt does not suffice. You must indicate what portions of the material are not your own through the use of quotation marks. If copying more than one paragraph in sequence, you omit the ending quotation mark and begin the next paragraph with quotation marks until you reach the end paragraph of the excerpt.
You could also use a different font or color to indicate quoted passages.
Note that Gryphen does this because he understands that each author should be given his or her due. He put the links in blue or in the title while still mentioning the source in his post. He is a gentleman and obviously a good writer who does not claim other people's work as his own. Please follow his example.
Please pay attention to this basic etiquette. It is both an ethical and a legal matter.
This woman is yet another reason why the Republican Party leadership owns all of the racists and all of the teabaggers. When will the Republican leaders in the Senate and the House, not to mention the head of the RNC, come out in public and tell these people to go away.
ReplyDeleteLOL!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAll i gotta say is: WOW! What a little baby.
But surprised? Not at all. RAM and Palin are clearly two peas in a pod as far as maturity and temperament go.
Hah!!!
"Look at me! Look at me!"
She never thought about him being half-black. Of course not, she sees him as ALL BLACK. She actually seems to see him as a monkey. Unfortunately, Orange County, CA has too many of these folks and has had for a long time.
ReplyDeleteI've just posted Part 3 of my conversation with Prof. Brad Scharlott:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.lauranovakauthor.com/blog.html
Please join us as we talk about babies, the media and even Watergate!
Fire Davenport's lily-white ass. Fire her now.
ReplyDelete' Again, for those "select few" who might be truly offended' by viewing a copy of "an email I sent to a select list of friends and acquaintances", unlike the liberal left when they do the same, I offer my sincere apologies to you--the email was not meant for you. For any of my friends or acquaintances who were the recipients of my email and were truly offended, please call me so I may offer a sincere verbal apology to you.'
ReplyDeleteIf it was sent out to such a "select list of friends and acquaintances" shouldn't she just call them all up personally and ask if they had a problem with it instead of publicly asking them to call her? How "select" was this list anyway? 200? 2000? More than that? bt
I saw a picture of this woman on CNN earlier. She is an old, white woman and is truly a piece of shit. She claims to be a Christian and is now asking for forgiveness. If she were a true Christian, as she claims, she wouldn't have sent the e-mail in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI guess because the President is only "half black", that it makes this O.K.
actually...mrstarquin, the fact that his mom was white bolsters davenport's claim that race was not the reason why everyone in the pic is a chimp. also, the left LOVED depicting bush as a chimp. i remember those photoshops and cartoons quite well. and i laughed at the joke that he was the dumb monkey rove and cheney led around on a leash, which he was. and that wasn't about race, was it?
ReplyDeleteso, davenport's pic is just stupid. it's stupid because there is nothing chimp-like about obama or his parents. they were fully intelligent human beings, as far as i can tell, and obama's mind is beyond question a greater thing than anyone here posses, including myself. do i love everything he has done as president? no, but that's not the point, is it?
I sent Scott Baugh, Chairman, OCGOP a VERY long and pointed letter regarding Marilyn Davenport's longstanding problem with racism. I sent copies to the CA GOP, the RNC, MoveOn.org, and Color of Change.
ReplyDeleteAfter eight paragraphs of taking Baugh and the GOP to the woodshed, I stated that he - and the party - needed to do three things if they wanted to seem like anything other than a klan rally. -
"At least three things are necessary to remove the racist stench from within the CA GOP:
1. Marilyn Davenport must either resign or be removed from office, if necessary by the CA GOP, and she must also be banned from any further leadership positions, ideally for life. Given the offensiveness and callousness of her act, a mere reprimand or censure is simply not enough. The level of her offense warrants banishment for life. If the OC GOP refuses to undertake this action, then the California State Republican Party needs to step in and the OC GOP should be decertified as an officially sanctioned local organization of the Republican Party.
2. An independent investigation of the Orange County Republican Party needs to be launched concerning the repeated and ongoing incidents of racist acts and/or statements by OC GOP officials. In order to maintain the highest standards of openness and impartiality, the investigation must be led by some entity that bears no allegiance (nor animosity) toward the GOP. Any investigation led by party loyalists will be suspect before any findings are rendered. If warranted by the facts, the OC GOP should be purged of its entire leadership structure and be rebuilt with more stringent safeguards in place to prevent such instances from occurring without the local county party organization having some recourse for punishing such offensive behavior.
3. Both the RNC and the CA GOP need to make definitive statements that makes it abundantly clear that neither organization will tolerate acts of intolerance, bigotry, or racism of any kind from any elected GOP official and that any such incidents will result in expulsion from the party. A failure to undertake this action sends a clear signal that racist acts, while not openly encouraged, will be at least tolerated up to and including three such transgressions."
On its own, it may not make much difference, but if several other thousand people expressed similar levels of outrage, the CA GOP and/or the RNC might be forced into action. Their tent ain't exactly multicolored right now and this isn't going to help them reach out to African American voters.
So far, the stench of racism still clings to the GOP like stink on shit. Actually, the shit smells better.
Leah, the fact that those on the left depicted Bush as a chimp is irrelevant. Our nation does not have a history of dehumanizing and marginalizing rich white males as apes and monkeys. However, we DO have such a history regarding black males. No sale.
ReplyDeleteTo compare Bush to a chimp has no racial overtones and actually grants Bush more intellect than he is due. To make such a comparison with Obama is the equivalent of hurling the "N" word or calling him "boy." It is meant to dismiss him as a subhuman thing.
In the context of our sickeningly vile history of racism in our country, this is a VERY offensive act and not something to be trivially dismissed as simply in bad taste. THIS is racism of the worst kind. The next step beyond this is cross burning and lynching. This is very much a big deal.
Again, no sale.