Samuel J.T. Moore thinks President Barack Obama is funny, so funny that he made a poster of him 8 ft. wide by 10 ft. tall and altered it so he would look like the character of the Joker from the film “Batman: The Dark Night” and then hung it on his business establishment’s wall. The question remains: Is Samuel J.T. Moore a racist or just a regular bigot?
As the owner of Shockoe Bottom’s stripping establishment, Club Velvet, I am inclined to think Sam Moore has to be a rather tolerant person most of the time, considering his main clientele consists of drunk, horny men. If he doesn’t feel his business would be impacted by such an extreme viewpoint as a Joker Obama hanging on its outer wall, then the people he is serving must be too overwhelmed by their desire to see naked women to care, or his patrons simply don’t like Obama. Of course, Club Velvet has a spotlight to call people from the interstate, so I am sure most of his patrons are truckers.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Virginia NAACP has protested the poster and called for its removal because they believe it is a racially-motivated statement. Not that it matters, because Mr. Moore can legally hang whatever picture he wants on his own building. Additionally, there is a subscript on the poster that reads “socialism.” So Sam Moore is attempting to attach some semblance of rationale to his overblown insult to the president, albeit one word.
Unfortunately for Moore, the premise of his message (that President Obama is a socialist) is undermined by his own weak attempt to convey it. Firstly, the Joker is an anarchist, not a socialist. So the correlation he is trying to make between the two just flew right out the window (unlike the passe’ Hitler-Obama posters). Secondly, we all know Club Velvet needs the free publicity from this thinly veiled stunt (money for promotional Hummers is expensive) and attempting to smear the first black president in the capital of the south is one way to do it. Just look at Joe Wilson. After yelling, “you lie!” during Obama’s joint address of Congress, Wilson garnered more than $1 million in campaign contributions. That’s $500,000 a word (or about 25,000 lap dances).
Lastly we all know this is actually doing the president more good than bad. After all, who does Sam Moore think he is? A role model? If anything, this will cause people to take a critical look at what kinds of people are criticizing Obama. I don’t think many members of the “moral majority” will be standing on the side of a man who, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, is currently awaiting his court date for charges of indecent sexual conduct with a minor and illegally filming sex acts.
So the answer to the question of whether Moore is a racist or a bigot is this: It doesn’t matter. Racists are bigots, and bigots are racists. If you are intolerant but can’t find a logical reason why (or won’t admit why) that intolerance exists, you probably aren’t the smartest apple in the bushel. People make dumb, confused and insulting posters because they are dumb, confused and insulting. The Virginia NAACP thinks this is a race issue because they haven’t realized that decent people already know that this is “political statement a poor joke. In many ways Moore’s bad humor has made an ironically poignant point. No matter what person you put in the makeup, if you advertise with clowns, you belong in a circus.