… And the hate against the first family continues. But so does the brutal backlash.
A Long Island, N.Y., newspaper chain has incurred the wrath of local denizens when it portrayed President Obama and first lady Michelle as characters from the iconic ’70s TV show “Sanford and Son.”
The Smithtown Messenger published a picture of Barack and Michelle Obama as part of a so-called “before and after” sequence of the last six presidents to show how they would age in the years to come. Interestingly enough, the newspaper chose the “after” picture of the first couple as Barack being Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx), while Michelle was Aunt Esther (LaWanda Page). The photo shows Barack and Michelle Obama as ready to fight one another, as was so often the case in the legendary comedy.
No one in Brookhaven, N.Y., found the photo funny. In fact, the Brookhaven town board was so incensed, they voted to remove the Smithtown Messenger’s sister publication, the Brookhaven Review, as an official newspaper. This relegation means the paper will no longer publish town government notices in its paper, a devastating blow.
“The reference to racial stereotypes is where the line was crossed,” Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko told New York City-based Newsday.
Hazel N. Dukes, president of the state NAACP conference, insisted that harsh measures be enacted against any other publication that would imprudently publish the photo. She suggested that the offending publications’ advertising be pulled.
“It is simply shocking and outrageous that such a blatantly racist ad would run in any paper, much less an official paper of Suffolk County,” Dukes said. “New Yorkers of all races and ethnicity are disgusted by it and reject it.”
Phillip Sciarello is defending the Smithtown Messenger as a publisher and part owner of the conservative newspaper, even as it pledges to issue a retraction in its next edition.
Unfortunately for the Smithtown Messenger‘s sister publication, the Brookhaven Review, it‘s impossible to retrieve the political bomb after it‘s already exploded. –terry shropshire
