I was so angry to see that billboard, I understand David Silverman's tactics are to be in the face of people, thus his many appearences on Fox "news" but this one was way over the line.
I had a conversation with David about this just a few days ago, he's being blasted by people all over the globe for it, humanist groups, atheist groups, etc.. But he's a pretty stubborn guy about it, I just don't get what you think your going to achieve doing this.
Thankfully one of my favorites Sikivu Hutchinson wrote a great blog on how out of touch and offensive this billboard was.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/blackske...he-plantation/
Quote:
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The black body has always been an object of deep and abiding obsession in the American imagination. Be it cavorting in “funky” abandon on a dance floor, vaulting off a basketball court in dunk mode, suckling apple-cheeked white babies, trotted out in a police line-up, or greased down, poked, prodded and staged on a slave auction block, the black body occupies that mystical place between corporeality and supernaturalism. Recently, American Atheists, a predominantly white group with a largely white leadership, slapped up a billboard in a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania neighborhood featuring a picture of a shackled naked black slave and a bible quote that said “slaves obey your masters.” The ad was intended to protest Pennsylvania’s boneheaded declaration of 2012 as the so-called “Year of the Bible.” Much to the “astonishment” of AA reps, the billboard was reviled, defaced, and labeled a hate crime by some in the African American community. Apparently offended black folk just weren’t intelligent enough to grasp the sage lesson that American Atheists, prominent champion of anti-racist social justice, was trying to teach them. Instead, some “misconstrued” the message as racist, concluding that, in a country where white nationalists have issued a clarion call to take back the nation from the Negro savage/illegal alien in the White House, “slaves obey your masters” probably still means them.
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