Innocent Poster for Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival Denounced as Racist

20 Mar, 2015 by Dave Blount

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If you fail to use blacks in advertising, you are a racist. But if you do use blacks, that’s racist too. From Louisiana:

A painting of two black children that appears on posters for the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival has drawn comparisons to pickaninny stereotypes and other racist depictions of black people.

Festival leadership unveiled the poster Tuesday night and posted photos to Facebook the following day, where many users said they found the painting distasteful [i.e., racist].

Naturally the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Progressives barked the loudest.

“I know what that poster represents. … It is offensive. It is distasteful,” said [Pat] Morris, president of the Greater Tangipahoa Parish NAACP branch.

Morris calls the poster “time bomb waiting to explode” and demands that the festival stop selling prints.

The painting, by Kalle Siekkinen, was chosen by the Kiwanis Club in a contest.

On his website, Siekkinen expresses his admiration for the late Southern folk artist Bill Hemmerling, who also painted depictions of rural black people.

Festival organizers wrote the painting used in this year’s poster was inspired by “Sweet Olive,” one of Hemmerling’s works offering several depictions of a black woman that was used to promote the event in 2008.

“The 2008 poster was immediately embraced by our community,” the group’s release states. “Kalle’s poster was inspired by Sweet Olive; therefore, the Ponchatoula Kiwanis Club thought it would have the same positive reception by the community.”

But this isn’t 2008 anymore. We have had 6 years of Hopey Changey fundamental transformation from the historic post-racial presidency. Now the well is hopelessly poisoned. No matter what you say or do, it will be denounced as racist.

Since there can be no pleasing the opponents of supposed racism, the only sane course is to stop trying to.

On a tip from Anne. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.