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Website Calls Out Authors of Racist Anti-Obama Posts

stevegee58 writes "A tumblr blog entitled 'HelloThereRacists' is publicly identifying other online posters who make racist/assassination comments about President Obama. Beyond merely identifying online usernames, the blog's author is uncovering and publishing the real names and locations of offending posters. It's an interesting mess of legal issues. The outed posters are at risk of a Secret Service visit, but the trouble may not end there. The HelloThereRacists blogger himself may have some problems publicly identifying posters, who are frequently underage teenagers." Update: 11/16 19:17 GMT by S : The blog has already been taken down.

11 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. so what if they're minors? by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sounds like a good life's lesson before they'll face real consequences for their actions, and maybe their parents won't be able to continue to delude themselves about their childrens' behavior anymore.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:so what if they're minors? by metlin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You think bigotry and prejudice evolves in a vacuum? A good many of those kids probably live in households where their parents, relatives, and friends tout those views.

    2. Re:so what if they're minors? by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What jurisdictions have these laws?
      Please name one.

      I don't see how he put anyone in danger. These were copies of posts people made online. These folks were already telling the world this about themselves. He did not secretly record their bed time conversations.

  2. Re:and salon by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the often heralded myth by of the GOP that racism happened a long time ago and we don't need to talk about it, as they did during the Treyvon Martin murder.

    You seem to have a memory problem. In the Treyvon Martin case it was the "liberals" that were knee-jerk racists, and it was the "conservatives" (including Fox News to their credit) that were saying we should actually look at the facts.

  3. Re:and salon by ilsaloving · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's only one problem with Salon's argument. The kids themselves have already permanently stigmatized them as racists.

    One something goes onto the internet, it's there permanently. It will never go away. Therefore, what you say COULD very well bite you in the rear years later. People have already lost jobs and whatnot because of stuff they've posted online. Sometimes very publicly. And yet people still can't seem to get the picture.

    Even a highschooler should know better than to say incredibly stupid things like this in a public forum. High schoolers are not stupid. They may not be as mature as a full adult, but they are not stupid.

    More generally, anyone may be free to say whatever they want, but they do NOT have the right to avoid the consequences of what they say. These people have no one to blame but themselves. Period.

  4. Re:and salon by beckett · · Score: 5, Funny

    citation? i'm sure this will be a lively debate considering you mentioned 'fox news' and 'facts' in the same sentence.

  5. Re:and salon by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    salon just made a decent argument lambasting them for outing kids in a manner that could permanently stigmatize them as racists.

    What exactly is the problem with calling a racist a racist?

    --
    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  6. Re:Uncovering what? They used their real names by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You can't on one hand say people should respect your views ...

    I don't respect your views, and I don't expect you to respect mine either. But I do respect your right to express those views.

  7. Re:Free Speech by scot4875 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not under NDAA (Obama's Law)

    You mean that thing that congress hashed out and sent him to sign?

    It's funny how people's understanding of how government works goes right out the window as soon as they find a talking point to latch onto.

    --Jeremy

    --
    Jesus was a liberal
  8. Re:and salon by Petron · · Score: 5, Informative

    No that was the police, that were the first ones who took in the evidence, talked to witnesses, dealt with injuries.

    Evidence overwhelmingly put Zimmerman in the clear. Trayvon had bruises on his knuckles that shows he was punching somebody. Zimmerman had no bruises on his fists, he wasn't, but he did have multiple wounds including a broken nose and bleeding from the back of the head. Eye witnesses saw Trayvon on top of Zimmerman, went to call the police - heard the gun shot and returned to see Trayvon on the ground. Interviews with Trayvon's girlfriend indicates Trayvon went back to confront Zimmerman, and what was said before (T: 'Why are you following me?" Z: "What are you doing here?" then a fight breaks out).

    Liberal news agencies altered the 911 call to make Zimmerman sound racist (they apologized for this), filtered images to hide wounds on Zimmerman's head (after removing the filters they announced there were wounds...) They published a 6-7 year old picture of Trayvon as a 11 year old kid (helps draw sympathy), and an old mug shot of Zimmerman (Boy, helps the innocents there right? Didn't even mention all charges against him were dropped and he had a clear record).

    All evidence collaborates with Zimmerman's story of self-defense. Trayvon did attack Zimmerman. Zimmerman's wounds were all self-defense style wounds.

    --
    if (it != oneThing) it = another;
  9. Re:Definition of racism? by Ixokai · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In this case, its pretty easy.

    If you say he's a bad President with bad policy decisions and poor judgement, that's the content of his character (or actions). If you say he's a (sand) nigger or muslim or mention slavery or his non-whiteness, as many of those posts in the blog did, its racist. If you talk about the preferred method of assassination being lynching as MANY of these did, its *really* racist (also stupid as shit).

    Those were *really* blatant. "I'm not racist!" one said, "I like plenty of black people, I just hate niggers" (paraphrased by me, site's down now). Its hard to read that as anything but, "I like the black people who know their place, i.e., subservient to my white ass." And that'd be one of the nicer ones.

    Things get fuzzier when you have someone talking about the loss or waning of "Traditional America", which is IMO racist -- but which is trying very hard to cover it.

    When you talk about the only reason he won is because the "new" America is getting "gifts" from Santa, you're bemoaning the decline of the white male bloc and rather offensively deciding no one but that white male bloc can make an intelligent decision on its merits -- that's just generally insulting, but arguably not quite racist. But is it *damn* close to both racism and male chauvinism (since this new America also happens to include whores and sluts: i.e., single women who are thinking only of sex sex sex sex sex sex and all the sex they can have for free now, and not about the future as a responsible wife and mother would).

    Sure there are plenty of people who are Obama critics who are not racists. However, a LOT are -- and a LOT of what's going around is very thinly veiled racism. This blog was posting up stuff which didn't even try to veil said racism, though. :)

    When a frankly moderate (at best: we progressives did /not/ get the far-left guy we thought we wanted) President's every action is treated as some sort of alien insurrection that is utterly incomprehensible to the people -- there's something more then just policy disagreement going on. It's so far beyond partisan or political policy.