Dear Onion

Your piece about President Obama going on a killing spree with an illegal gun is a complete mess.

Obama shoots two people at point-blank range with an "unregistered .38-caliber revolver", then threatens to kill another person each week in order to "fill [his] heavenly palace with slaves for the afterlife"? In light of recent mass shootings, saying that this piece is in poor taste wouldn't even begin to cover it.





I get that the Onion is trying to comment on the media here, and on the "Everything Obama does is cool" phenomenon ("Or maybe the story is just that murder is cool now," ). But there are better ways to criticize the media, and Obama worship, than by using a recent string of murder sprees.

Furthermore, this article positions a black American man who some still insist on calling a "secret Muslim"* as a violent criminal who thinks he is storing up slaves in his heavenly palace. No doubt, hipster irony makes this all okay, and I am the real racist xenophobe for pointing out that we do not in fact live in a glorious post-racial society where these jokes would be just the same if they were made about Bill Clinton. But I'm not buying it.

There is surely commentary to be made regarding the headline coverage of the recent shootings (see, "Police: Kids Killed Because Mom Left", after the man in Washington State killed his five children). This article makes no such commentary. Rather, the Onion is exploiting the recent shooting sprees in order to skewer the news media's love for Obama.

The Onion piece does take a weak swing at the news media's exploitation of violence:
But then, the Onion is doing exactly the same thing.

I came across this piece on another blog where the editor posted it because he thought it was hilarious, so I am not linking to it.
*As though it's understood that being Muslim is a bad thing. I swear, if I never see that trope again it'll be too soon.


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