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Feb. 13, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
07:07
3999 President Obama's Anti-White Racism Portrait Scandal | True News

On February 12th, 2018, the National Portrait Gallery today unveiled separate official portraits of President Barack Obama and ex-first lady Michelle Obama. Former President Obama choose controversial artist Kehinde Wiley create his official portrait and while the quality of the artwork was widely mocked, the artist’s previous work raised significant alarm. Wiley has previously created several renditions of the “Book of Judith” Biblical story depicting Judith beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes. In Wiley’s rendition, Judith was transformed from a Jewish woman into a black woman, and Holofernes is changed from a man into a white woman. Given the clear racial overtones – why did President Obama choose this specific artist? Your support is essential to Freedomain Radio, which is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by making a one time donation or signing up for a monthly recurring donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate

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It's kind of, I think, a trouble in floating around at the moment in these portraits of Barack and Michelle Obama.
I don't think they're particularly good.
The leaves behind Obama appear to be stenciled and reproduced, and I guess if you put a whole bunch of a cluster of leaves, Simpson's hedge style, you don't have to paint backdrop, which can be challenging, and the portrait of Michelle Obama makes her look a whole lot more like Kerry Washington than herself, and the lower body proportions are way off, but, you know, It's art, so of course to some degree it's subjective.
And who cares? Well, I think we should care.
And I think we should care for the very simple reason that the artist Kehinde Wiley has a history of painting what, to me, it comes across as racial hatred incitement pictures.
So back in the day, he painted a couple of pictures of strong, proud black women holding the severed heads of white women.
And they look calm, they look resolute, they're not horrified.
I mean, to me, this is a black power and kill-whitey kind of imagery.
Now, of course, when this is pointed out, you get all these people who've taken an intro to art course saying, no, no, no, no, you see, this is a rendition of this Book of Judith biblical story, which is where Judith beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes, and therefore it's not anything about that except That's not what the story has.
Of course, in the biblical story, Judith is not a black woman, but a Jewish woman.
And in the biblical story, the severed head is an Assyrian general, a male, not a white female.
So when you change that much, you really can't talk about the original story anymore, right?
You understand? And so when people say, well, no, no, you don't understand the history of art, and I know, this has been painted many times before, but with fidelity to the original story.
Swapping out the genders and swapping out the races means it's detached from the original story.
And it's no longer that at all.
I mean, good heavens, if somebody did a movie about Nelson Mandela with a white woman playing Nelson Mandela, people would say, well, that's not the story.
That's a totally... I understand.
I mean, I don't... And this boring, I mean, I have to do it, I suppose.
It's really, really boring to have to keep pointing out that if the races were reversed, if the genders were reversed, I mean, come on.
We all know that if Donald Trump chose somebody to paint his official portrait who had painted pictures before of white men holding the severed heads of black men, nobody would say, well, no, you see, it's just a reference to the biblical story.
I mean, we know this is very boring and very predictable.
And, of course, I was also told that cultural appropriation is wrong.
I've seen people get in serious trouble for wearing dreadlocks, but apparently appropriating Bible stories to serve your own narrative, well, that's just art.
See, again, that's why diversity is not going to work until we have the same rules for everyone.
And I guess the whole point of diversity is to fragment.
The idea that there are general rules and laws of ethics and integrity and sensitivity that we should all follow.
It is not that way.
Now, you can say, of course, well, there's a biblical story and so on.
Yeah, okay. Except what you could do is actually ask the artist what he meant, right?
You could ask the artist what his intention was in creating these pictures.
So when he was asked about the paintings, the artist himself, Wiley once remarked, and I quote, it's sort of a play on the Kill Whitey thing.
End quote. It's sort of a play on the Kill Whitey thing.
Well, I guess I'm just going to believe what he says and say, well, that's what he wanted to do.
So if you're talking about biblical illusions and the plebs not understanding the deep and rich history of art, shut up.
Because the artist said, it's sort of a play on the Kill Whitey thing.
Now this is, it shows to me, of course, this is not even the mask slipping.
This is the mask being ripped off completely.
Just how astonishingly radical Barack Obama really was.
I mean, the photographer who suppressed the picture of him having a smiley, huggy picture with Farrakhan, well, that's buried as well.
And he really was an extraordinary...
Bill Ayers, his association means an extraordinary relic fellow, and the fact that he would choose A portrait painter who had this history of pictures tells you where he stands with regards to his perception of race relations.
Because remember, Barack Obama, his election, double election, won, I believe, stolen from him by the IRS, but Well, you see, it was supposed to heal all these race relations, and now, of course, you see this, that he chooses a picture of somebody who is painting these kinds of portraits.
Now, I just did an interview that's going to get released shortly with Simon Roche from South Africa, and, of course, I talked with Lauren Southerner about what's happening in South Africa.
So white women in South Africa are being brutalized in these kinds of ways.
They are being tortured and raped and slaughtered and their children slaughtered in front of them in what are largely racial attacks on the South African farmers.
Is that insensitive to point out black people beheading white people or black people physically attacking when it's kind of happening in South Africa?
One white family on farms a day is being attacked?
Well, it would seem to be somewhat insensitive.
And the left is also, it's kind of funny, right?
Because on the one side, there's all of these microaggressions and man-spreading on subways and mansplaining that you, if you're white, you get in trouble by explaining something to somebody who might already know what it is.
And for, I mean, a woman can have 12 shopping bags and a dog on the subway, but a man can't.
Give his balls a little breathing room.
So there's all of this microaggressions and safe spaces and trigger warnings and so on.
There's this radical sensitivity, like to the point where people don't seem to have any skin, but their nervous system seems to be outside their meat bag and flayed.
By the very air, like hypersensitive little filaments, microaggressions are a huge problem, but they can cheer a man who has painted these kinds of pictures.
It is astonishing stuff.
And so I think it's a trial balloon, to be honest.
I think they're seeing how far have they managed to create the space where we can't push back against this kind of stuff.
And it is interesting to me to see that there is pushback.
And I think it is important to recognize where society is, that this is where the left feels that they are.
I mean, they're so heavily ensconced in academia and in Hollywood and in the mainstream media and so on.
They're not ensconced that strongly on the internet, but it is horrible stuff.
It is horrendous stuff.
It is insightful stuff in my estimation.
And it is a trial balloon.
It is, well, what will you put up with?
What can we get away with?
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