Well, this is awkward.
Former Creative Loafing columnist Tara Servatius has resigned from her position as a blogger for the John Locke Foundation after she posted a disturbing illustration of President Barack Obama with an item she wrote for the conservative think tank.
The image of him sitting in a flashy leotard with a bucket of fried chicken that accompanied her post about his opposition to North Carolina’s Marriage Amendment has been removed. What hasn’t left is the damage Servatius caused. According to the Charlotte Observer:
In a comment on his Facebook page, John Hood, the president of the John Locke Foundation, said Servatius had resigned.
He also explained what happened: “Earlier this week, a freelancer who blogs at the John Locke Foundation’s Charlotte site posted a piece about President Obama’s opposition to North Carolina’s marriage amendment. It included an illustration that was offensive and utterly inappropriate for our blog or anyone else’s. A reader brought it to my attention yesterday, and I had it removed immediately, but the damage was done.”
Read Servatius’ post here.
Here’s the unedited version that caused the outcry.
UPDATE: Servatius responds.
This article appears in Mar 20-26, 2012.
What happened to our First Amendment Rights? If he can’t stand the heat maybe he should get out of the kitchen.
Good for you Tara.
At least Liberals didn’t take out a Death Sentence on her for blasphemy against their Messiah.
Let’s ask an honest cross-section of the Nation’s African-American population if A) They believe she “didn’t think about it”; B) If a Black Man in Chains over Fried Chicken is a stark racial and racist image; C) If anyone at any age could possibly AVOID ‘thinking about the racial implications’ of the cartoon; and D) IF IT IS RACIALLY OFFENSIVE.
She didn’t apologize, but said she was “sorry…inclusion…has caused controversy.” and that she “…didn’t think about the racial implications…” That implies she sees nothing wrong with it and only regrets that it caused controversy. HUH!?! Let’s see: 1) A Black Man in CHAINS; and 2) A Black Man and Fried Chicken. Never mind the drag dress, IF, as she claims, she didn’t think about the racial implications of a BLACK MAN IN CHAINS STANDING OVER FRIED CHICKEN, then she is either lying like a coward or has the lowest intelligence of anyone over 8 years old that I have ever heard of!
As usual, these ‘non-apologies apologies’ are so utter lame and few people truly analyze their simple message, which is usually ‘sorry you were offended’ or ‘sorry it caused controversy’, but NEVER “I am sorry I did it; it was a mistake that I made; I TAKE RESPONSIBILITY because the cartoon IS racist”.
HOW IRONIC that the so-called “free market think tank” blogger FAILS totally to even take responsibility for the racial connotations, HIDES behind Spin-Language – a person whose role is Thinking and Provocation of Thought CLAIMS SHE DIDN’T THINK ABOUT IT BEFORE POSTING IT!?! How can we possibly give the benefit of the doubt to someone who is so obviously trying to avoid any manner of Adult Consequence for her direct action!?! THE RACIAL CONNOTATIONS ARE SIMPLY THE predominant nature of the image. Ask 1,000 honest, frank Black Men and Women.
OF COURSE she has the right to say it, post it, yell it: but she’s got zero right to expect intellectually honest readers to believe one word of her utterly LAME, WEAK excuse that she “didn’t think about the racial implications”.
WHAT ever happened to having “the courage of your own convictions”? Cowardly avoidance of the consequences only makes her look that much worse, that much more bankrupt of any true principles, ethics or honesty. That statement is one of THE most implausible statements I’ve heard all year, in a year of extreme competition for such. Reminder: The cartoon is of A BLACK MAN IN CHAINS STANDING OVER FRIED CHICKEN! In what possible world does that not have glaring, stark racial implications!?!
That is not plausible from a high school freshman, never mind someone who bloggs regularly; what a stark illustration of that LIBERAL ATTITUDE of avoiding the consequence of one’s own direct action by claiming something so lame and implausible, it suggests she is either a lying coward trying to avoid consequences; or that she has the intellect of someone who cannot put together a full sentence, never mind blog regularly or argue complex positions on a myriad of issues.
She needs a hug and a plastic trophy, she tries really hard.
HEY “FED UP”! Merely because of your political ‘views’ (hatred), you are willing to support Racism? Not making sense; just hating the man ought not mean that whatever is against him also should be supported, even if whatever THAT happens to be is shameful, dead wrong, gives You and those like you a bad or worse name!
THE CARTOON IS RACIST! Do you disagree? Do you Support Racism all of the sudden?
What the heck does a bucket of chicken have to do with the rest of this picture? Hint: it is meant to be a photo degradation of the president! UNC should be so proud to have this woman as an alumna, really. She is either lying to herself if she says she didn’t get the racist connection to the bucket of chicken or she is telling on her own background if she is able to overlook it. Since it has been made public she spoke at a League of the South function in 2010, I’m going with my latter statement. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists them as a terrorist organization for heaven’s sake!
Disgusted,
The Southern Poverty Law Center probably considers the Chicago WHITE Sox a “terrorist organization. The SPLC is where you go when Louis Farrakhan tells you, “Man, you NUTS!”.
I’d sure like to see that cartoon. It sounds hilarious.
Wow-More than a handful of insults made by Ms Servatius. Not the least of which was her belief that we would find her rationalization believable.
Thats the thing about free speech. She can be offensive – but has to take the consequences.
Tara is a COWARD. A trifling, racist heifer who believes posting that crap was right, but is “sorry if YOU were offended”, not “sorry I did this”. Typical thinking, pretending everyone else “has the vapors”. I think she has won her LAST Green Shade Journalist award, although she is now the FIRST Winner of the Yellow Spine Journalist Award! (Because she grew up in the South, but never heard of a racist reference to Blacks and Fried Chicken? OR That a careful reading of her “apology” claims no offense TO HERSELF for publishing this tripe, but is sorry if OTHERS were offended! This transparent excuse for a ‘Southern intellectual’ is PROUD of her choices, and is only “Sorry if I accidentally hurt y’alls little ol’ feelings, but I’m afraid I’m jes’ a little too stupid to see what all this here fuss is all about! It’s jes’ a little ol’ pittcha of the President that my good ol’ friends and me thought was mighty funny!” Can you believe that Real People listen to this Cow moo’ing on the radio on a Myrtle Beach radio station – WRNN? AND that they say she will stay on despite the self-inflicted controversy, because, as they put it, “What she does AWAY from our station does not affect US!” (???) Does she have to doff her white robe and give a speech before fellow admirers at a racist, white power group rally to be dropped? Oops – from the pictures, she did that back in 2010!! What’s it take, WRNN, does she have to do a Strip-Tease wearin’ only the Stars-&-Bars? (Urp – I just hurled…) Sorry, but, she wasn’t Cow-Tippin’ – She was Cow-Trippin’! How’s that for a blog?
She was the first person I ever heard trying to draw attention to the murders of the poor, black people on the Danziger Bridge. This was back when Deroy Murdoch and Michelle Malkin were praising the “brave” cops who shot them.
Some racist!
Didn’t know about that! I only have her actions – and reactions – to THIS story and picture… Whatever credibility she may have had prior to this posting has been lost: C’mon, she grew up in NC, and never heard of “All Black people supposedly LOVE fried chicken”? Either she is stupid enough to suppose her audience is just as stupid, or, with that much naivete, she has no business calling herself a “southern Journalist”! I don’t care which – just pick one; either way – I have no respect for her ‘objective’ viewpoints. AND, as for the gay marriage thing, I say, ‘Let ‘Em!” They have as much a right to suffer through one as the rest of us – LOL! I don’t like it too much either, (I live in the DC area, and I don’t even like to see them kissing on tv during the parades and stories – but, who appointed ME to judge them and deny them the same rights that I enjoy? Nobody…)
My Dad tells me stories of growing up in Richmond where State Magistrates and Judges once denied INTERRACIAL couples the right to marry; in fact they were locked up or beaten for even trying. Something called Miscegnation… Wonder which side of THAT argument HER parents were on?
What happened to our First Amendment Rights?
When was the First Amendment modified to protect you from your employer? Perhaps we should go back to teaching the Constitution in school. People have some really weird ideas about it’s content.
The John Locke Foundation should have known better than to get involved with Tara Servatius in the first place. She was a failure at WBT, and Creative Loafing and drug their reputations through the mud with her brand of written racism, homophobia, and bigotry. It is unbelievable to me that Tara Servatius actually has a journalism degree. Everywhere Tara goes she is like a dark cloud of negativity and hate. She seems more suited to work in the marketing department of the KKK not any legitimate humane organization.