By Tobysgirl, July 18 at 4:06 pm #

“I have NEVER in my life feared African-Americans, but I can tell you there are plenty of white people who give me the creeps, including the local teabagger.”

My experiences are completely different from your experiences.  While living in many different lands over the years, I have learned that obscenely treating a culture’s most sacred symbols is taken as obscenely treating that culture as a whole. 

There are few reasons to make obscene treatment of any culture’s symbolisms.  Your absolutely naive idea is, that because of past transgressions, a culture legitimately becomes an automatic target for ridicule, or harsh treatment, or worse.  And then, completely disregarding the totality of history, you insinuate that white people are the primary transgressors. 

Transgressions, discrimination, abuse and oppression are never OK, but it is wrong on the part of a Christian to think that past transgressions make people legitimate targets.  If God has forgiven their transgressions, who are you to judge them?  Who are you to piss on their symbols?  You are not the judge and jury of past transgressions.

I say again, that there is no reason to trash the symbols of any culture.  To do so is an attack, indirectly, on that culture.  If we are to be tolerant, then we must be tolerant. 

Your post is extremely naive.  Art is not separate from reality or actuallity.  People express themselves through art.  It is the same as reciting a poem.  The meaning is communicated.  You speak of art as though it has no message.  Extremely naive.

Have you ever been to a tea party rally?  99% of them are ordinary Americans, with a good mixture of Democrats and independents.  There is no racism in the platform, but there are the 1% party-crashers who always carry the signs that the media cover.  But 1% idiots to not make a movement.  Just like all muslims are not terrorists, all blacks are not New Black Panther extremists, and all Mexicans are not illegal immigrants.
 
When you judge the tea party by the statement, “I can tell you there are plenty of white people who give me the creeps, including the local teabagger.”
you are no better than the racist who says, “I have never feared a white person, but I can tell you there are plenty of black people who give me the creeps, including the local Black Panthers”.

You are pre-judging by race and political parties.  This is not what tolerance is all about.

Dave says, “Pissing on a crucifix is an attack on Christians at all levels.  It is one small element of a larger effort of destruction of a people or ideaology.”

Dave, I consider myself a Christian (I am baptized in the Episcopal Church as a Christian) and I do not find a crucifix in urine or Mickey Mouse’s head on Christ the least bit offensive. What I DO find offensive is Christians (or any other religion) behaving as though they are a small, persecuted minority in this country, attacking and even killing people in the name of Christianity (“Kill fags!”), moralizing while behaving abominably, etc.

No Christians are being murdered. No Christians are being raped. No Christians are being attacked for being Christians, at least in this country. And excuse me, but you really need to get out more. There is plenty of hate speech directed at homosexuals, African-Americans, liberals and leftists. I am no friend of Obama, but the signage at tea parties portraying him makes me want to throw up.

If you cannot understand the difference between art and actuality, I pity you. If you cannot understand the difference between the Black Panthers’ rage and what white people actually did to the Black Panthers, murdering them in their sleep, I pity you. I have NEVER in my life feared African-Americans, but I can tell you there are plenty of white people who give me the creeps, including the local teabagger.

I guess in your world as long as we all talk “nice,” then everything is hunky-dory, even if the black guy in the basement of the police station is being raped with a nightstick. I have no sympathy with this idiotic bourgeois mentality which has brought us the world we live in, where it is bad and wrong to have four-letter words on the TV but perfectly fine to murder millions of people at a proper distance.

Pissing on a crucifix is an attack on Christians at all levels.  It is one small element of a larger effort of destruction of a people or ideaology.

We think these attacks are not serious because they do no harm directly, in the conventional, collective opinion. 

But there is always speech and imagery preceding and accompanying the actual acts of severe racial discrimination and genocide. 

The bullet which does not hit its target is seen as innocent and harmless because it caused no apparent wounds, yet it was fired with the same act of hatred which fired the bullet that smashed the skull.

And the seemingly innocent and isolated statement, act or image of hate, ridicule or defamation, is no less purposeful and hateful than the ones which accompany the actual bullets. 

For the purpose of preserving our right of legitimate dissent through speech, we put up with the likes of pissing on crucifixes.  But make no mistake about it, it is purposeful HATE speech, masquerading as art, and defended only because it attacks those who are unpopular.

If one were to commence an art campaign ridiculing the homosexual lifestyle with graphic imagery, they would be hounded to death, or otherwise murdered.

The Black Panthers are filmed on multiple occasions calling for the killing of “crackers” and their babies.  But there is no outcry, because hate speech is currently ok against whites, Jews and Christians.

But, hypocritically, it is not the principles of law, respect and good manners which are held up and defended, but it is the objects of the speech and imagery which are defended or not defended based on current political correctness and political expediency.

In other words, the USA is still a nation of racists and good ol’ boys.  It just depends on who is currently in favor and in power.

Dave, the artist who put a crucifix in a test tube of his own urine NEVER went out and enslaved, assaulted, raped, or murdered Catholics. I would remind you that African-Americans and gay people have suffered all those abuses and more.

These are statements about POWERFUL people and institutions. There is a world of difference between commenting on the commercialization of religion, the pissing on the Christ figure (which Christians seem to do every day as most of them have absolutely no interest in the teachings of Jesus, only seeing him as a sacrifice to get themselves into heaven), making fun of the president or the Pope, whatever, and engaging in hateful speech against the powerless.

I defend even that speech as long as it remains speech, but I do think hatemongers have to be held responsible when they suggest abortion providers or journalists or politicians or Unitarians should be murdered, and some poor unfortunate mentally ill person does their bidding.

Language or imagery which could be considered defamation, serves no legitimate purpose, as far as I can determine. 

It is just another brand of hatred, intolerance and bigotry.  When you think of all the racial imagery, homosexual imagery or the like which one could publish for the purpose of defaming groups of people, you will understand that imagery is a powerful tool which can be used to enslave, damage and even destroy people. 

Defamation is commonly defined as: “An act of communication that causes someone to be shamed, ridiculed, held in contempt, lowered in the estimation of the community, or to lose employment status or earnings or otherwise suffer a damaged reputation”

It is condoned when committed against many races, creeds or religions, especially Christianity, but if one were to commit the same behavior against African-Americans or gays, they would be called hate-mongers, racists, homo-phobes and many other names.

Why is defamatory language and imagery not the same for all?  Wny can you apparently ridicule some groups, but not others?  And why is ridiculing or defaming anyone considered a legitimate thing to do for any reason?

Mickey Mouse? Hanging hard-on in my living-room is a cruxifix of a naked Jeeezass. Oooh yeah! “Our Lord” is very swell hung!

So… whatcha gonna do? Report me?

HANGING hard-on in the living room of my home… is a cruxifix with a naked JEEEZASS affixed to it.

Oooh yeah! “Our Lord” is very swell hung!

A fine for inciting hatred is not a bad idea perhaps.  It would put a lot of the current, and up-and-coming American demagogues out of work.  It may neutralize the anti-immigrant furor begun in Arizona.

Derrick Jenkens book ‘Culture of Make Believe’ tries to track the alignment of hate and the cruelty of American political/corporate culture.  It seems the hatred is rationalized or repressed by ‘common sense’ acquisition of resources and labor by whatever means—no hard feelings.

Let us remember that images of Christ, in whatever position, are IMAGES. The same holds true for Mohammed. As far as I’m concerned, artists and anyone else can do whatever they like to any image they like, including the AMERICAN FLAG.

There is something really wrong with people’s brains when they cannot comprehend symbolism anymore. We trash the real and the actual, primarily our planet, while defending to the nth degree books and images made by humans. I suppose fundamentalist Hindus and Buddhists (yes, they exist) are as stupid as Jews, Christians, and Muslims in this regard.

I understand the irony and the statement of the crass commercialization of Christianity by juxtaposing the most famous icons of Christianity and capitalism.

Yet, this shouldn’t need explaining…try the same with Muhammad, and see how quickly the violence will rise.

I have seen probably the most offensive piece of insult toward Jesus in an art gallery in downtown Caracas, Venezuela. It is so pornographic and insulting I can’t bear to describe it too explicitly. I interpret it as the sculptor’s way of contrasting his lust with his Catholic religion; because it combined pornography with Catholic iconography. In fact, I suspect that the crucified figure in the sculpture was the artist himself, and not Christ.

Should that exhibit be banned?

The government should either forbid all religious art, or permit all of it. I am in favor of the latter, even if I am offended at some of it. It is difficult to legally determine if something is offensive or not, and the least-common-denominator is usually too restrictive.

Why should Jesus be singled out as the the only appropriate religious laughing stock, while all other religious leaders cannot be mocked?