Obama Joker artist unmasked: Not who readers were expecting

[Liberal_in_LA]

When The Times unmasked the artist behind the now-infamous image depicting President Obama as the Joker villain from "Batman," readers found a lot to chatter off about.

Posters bearing the image, which had been hung around Los Angeles and other cities, were finding a devoted audience among conservatives as a clever way to poke fun at Obama. The fact that the artist, Firas Alkhateeb, turned out to be a moderate-leaning college kid from Chicago, rather than a radical right-winger as many had suspected, raised eyebrows.

Alkhateeb's ethnicity -- his family is of Palestinian descent -- was polarizing. Some pointed out the irony of political pundits initially pulling the "racism card" when the artist turned out to be a minority. "Is it 'racism' if the perp is also a minority? Of a different minority?" asked chotii in the comments.

Of more than 600 comments, many focused on Alkhateeb's question of whether socialism is evil. (The overwhelming consensus was: Yes, yes it is.)

And some of the comments were just downright racist. Alkhateeb responded to those audacious claims in an e-mail, saying, "I'm kinda shocked by some comments on the story tho. 'Terrorist' and 'the end of life as TRUE RED BLOODED AMERICANS once knew...' " But for every insensitive comment, there were plenty more folks commending and thanking him for embodying their powerful feelings for the president.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/comments_blog/2009/08/obama-joker-artist.html

[Lilith Velkor]

1. The tutorial on "Jokerizing" photos has been up on 4chan for over a year

I guess that's how long it takes for the TV watchers to catch up. :shrug: