[img_assist|nid=54690|title=Not good|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=176|height=211]In one of those accidental epiphanies I seem to be having with greater frequency as I grow into my silver years, I tried this morning to log onto this site but instead of typing "UppityWis.org" I typed "uppity.org." It turns out that the latter site is a domain name that's not uppity, just up for sale. But a robo search engine on the page helpfully filled in for me a list of URLs I might want to click upon, instead. UppityWis was not among them. Rather, every one of those redirected URLs was to a site that dealt in one way or another with Barack Obama.
Curious, I then Googled the phrase "uppity Obama." Result: Google returned about 695,000 hits on web pages that carry both words or the exact term. The very first listing was a 2008 opus headlined thusly:
Georgia GOP congressman calls Obama "uppity"
Among the many hits were some that pointed to legitimate news media sites, where editorial writers and columnists had analyzed the growing phenomenon of conservatives labeling the nation's first black president "uppity." The hits more often, however, included places like the one where wingnut broadcaster Rush Limbaugh protests that calling Obama "uppity" only refers to his elistism, not his race. This from a classic, hundred-millionaire elitest, of course. Then there was a site carrying the photo that accompanies this post.
No new lessons to really be learned from all this. Just a reminder that it's a very ugly political environment out there and that way too many "mainstream" Americans feel increasingly comfortable describing Obama and his family with a word (among others) that is quite patently racist. And that's potentially very dangerous rhetoric, as we now know.
In any case, next time you plan to visit Uppity Wisconsin, just be careful that you don't have a senior moment and type something else, or you might ruin your entire day reading the outrageous and anti-black nonsense that pops up instread. Pure 19th Century, or at minimum something straight out of 1950s America.