‘Don’t Re-Nig’ purveyor Paula Smith says bumper sticker isn’t racist

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Last Friday, I wrote about the racist, anti-Obama "Don't Re-Nig in 2012" bumper sticker that has been making the rounds across social media circles. While people were questioning the authenticity of the photograph showing the bumper sticker on someone's car, we were able to track down a website selling the sticker along with several other controversial items.

Writing for Forbes, Roger Friedman interviews the site's owner, Paula Smith. Ms. Smith, who hails from Hinesville, Georgia, insists that neither she nor the sticker are racist. Who knows what Smith really believes, but her logic is a stretch, to put it gently.

"I do find it amazing and entertaining that one of our stickers has become a racist thing," Ms. Smith told Forbes.

She even tried arguing that the dictionary does not define the "N-Word" as racist. Wisely, Friedman posted the actual definition from dictionary.com, which says the word, "is now probably the most offensive word in English. Its degree of offensiveness has increased markedly in recent years, although it has been used in a derogatory manner since at least the Revolutionary War. Definitions 1a, 1b, and 2 represent meanings that are deeply disparaging and are used when the speaker deliberately wishes to cause great offense."

Her protestations aside, Ms. Smith appears to have removed the bumper sticker from her site. Under the "Anti-Obama" section of the site (advertised as her No. 3 bestseller), you'll now only find a sticker reading, "I was Anti-Obama Before It Was Cool."

In what may be a reference to the controversy her other bumper sticker has caused, the description below reads, "Show the world how you feel! (but be careful, you may hurt someone's feelings)."

Ms. Smith then goes on to argue that President Obama is "not even black," but rather, "a mixture of race." When Friedman asks Smith if she thinks the N-Word is offensive or derogatory, she says no, but then claims that she herself does not even use the word.

"I have kids here around me that are black kids. I call them my own kids. I've helped black families…to guide them in the right direction," Smith told Forbes. "We like to laugh and have a good time. That's our way of life."

http://news.yahoo.co...-185405237.html

Edited March 22, 2012 by Mister Fancypants

[Danno 1,228]

Admit it, you snickered before you got indignant.

[james&olya 1,121]

Admit it, you snickered before you got indignant.

So not true! Racism and racists are ugly!

[mawilson 2,133]

Re-nig, I like that sticker.

[MyLittlePony 340]

I love the sticker.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I thought the word was renege. (v. to go back on a promise, undertaking, or promise)

[james&olya 1,121]

I thought the word was renege. (v. to go back on a promise, undertaking, or promise)

Yes, it is just a pre-adolescent type of stupid word-play with a vicious racist bent!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Yes, it is just a pre-adolescent type of stupid word-play with a vicious racist bent!

Exactly. Racist pricks.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

So not true! Racism and racists are ugly!

[Danno 1,228]

[Danno 1,228]

So not true! Racism and racists are ugly!

Of course the sticker is racist humor...... so what, why has that become the worst social sin for the Left?

Would you rather see that on a car or have someone next to you in a elevator fart?

One of my Leftwing friends always comes alive anytime anything or anyone gets remotely racist.

With such indignation he will condemn it.... yet half the time he does not make his child support payment.

#######?

[Brother Hesekiel 2,236]

Whenever I heard the ####### word, it comes out of the mouth of a black rapper. Yo . . . wussup #######!

We all know that rappers aren't the brightest minds of their generation, but they don't do their black fellas any favors by using the word themselves. Are we really surprised when kids and other easily impressionable people pick this up and recirculate it?

If the music industry would stop using the N word, it would indeed become much more racially charged. As long as it's hip for a black dude to call another black dude #######, the usage of the word is only derogatory if a white boy uses it.

America: the land where people act against their own interests, not only at the polls.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Are we really surprised when kids and other easily impressionable people pick this up and recirculate it?

Stop bashing the Fox News audience.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Whenever I heard the ####### word, it comes out of the mouth of a black rapper. Yo . . . wussup #######!

We all know that rappers aren't the brightest minds of their generation, but they don't do their black fellas any favors by using the word themselves. Are we really surprised when kids and other easily impressionable people pick this up and recirculate it?

If the music industry would stop using the N word, it would indeed become much more racially charged. As long as it's hip for a black dude to call another black dude #######, the usage of the word is only derogatory if a white boy uses it.

America: the land where people act against their own interests, not only at the polls.

Context. Black entertainers began using the word as a way of disempowering the word - staring right back at the very word that most blacks have been subjected to. A word that has divided, alienated, and marginalized a group of people based on the color of their skin. A word that is deeply rooted in a history of slavery, segregation and discrimination based on skin color. No other word in the English language comes close to the word, '***' in its potential power and destruction. And yes, words can destroy the very spirit of a human being who has no control over being born a certain skin color.

Edited March 23, 2012 by Mister Fancypants

[sandinista! 1,816]

I just don't get why this concept is so unbelievably hard for people to understand. I see and hear and read all kinds of groups that do this, that re-appropriate slurs to strip them of their ability to be hurtful. That doesn't mean that used in a different context that they can't be hurtful- they most definitely can be, and are. It doesn't mean anyone and everyone can suddenly use them whenever and wherever the he11 they feel like it. There's a blog I read sometimes by an Egyptian guy called Rantings of a Sandmonkey. It's not like because I see that this guy refers to himself with that word that I can now start calling Egyptians that word whenever I want. Good grief.

Context. Black entertainers began using the word as a way of disempowering the word - staring right back at the very word that most blacks have been subjected to. A word that has divided, alienated, and marginalized a group of people based on the color of their skin. A word that is deeply rooted in a history of slavery, segregation and discrimination based on skin color. No other word in the English language comes close to the word, '***' in its potential power and destruction. And yes, words can destroy the very spirit of a human being who has no control over being born a certain skin color.