From 2013: Obama Mask for Halloween? That'll get you and the other 750 employees sent to re-education camp

Acceptable use of presidential masks in 2017

Remember when making fun of the president was big time doubleplus bad think? The article below is from 2013.

Hillary and Trump masks are probably safe. Obama masks are available, but wear at your own risk.

I've posted the entire article below, because the original is no longer available (I copied it from a cached version):

HOPKINSVILLE, KY.-- 

A picture of a Jennie Stuart Medical Center employee wearing a President Barack Obama mask and a straitjacket was taken Friday at the hospital’s annual costume party.

The man wearing the mask is accompanied by two African-Americans dressed as security guards. The three hospital workers in the photo are identified as David Jones, DeWayne Oliver and Mike Hobson, and the group won third place in Jennie Stuart’s costume contest for their skit titled, “VIP Special Delivery.”

Jeff Taylor is a Hopkinsville resident who has worked with a number of focus groups dealing with race relations over the last 20 years. He said the photo is offensive because of the imagery it invokes. The trio wasn’t simply making fun of the president, explained Taylor, who is black, they were doing it in a racially offensive way.

“I have no problem making fun of a president if you come out in a suit and tie and a mask of a president,” he said. “But the difference is you have an African-American president in bondage. That’s just, to us, it’s iconic of slavery. It’s demeaning and degrading to us, and it’s certainly disrespectful to the president and his family.”

Taylor, who works with TVA on economic development issues in the area, said his wife is an employee at Jennie Stuart and several of her friends at the hospital were also offended by the skit. However, Taylor said they would not file a complaint for fear of retaliation.

Austin Moss, vice president of human resources at Jennie Stuart, issued a statement to the hospital employees after the photo surfaced. In the statement, he said the annual Halloween costume contest is always a highly anticipated event at the hospital, and it has been the hospital’s intention to keep events such as that one light and fun.

“He takes full responsibility for the presentation of the skit and apologizes to anyone who was offended,” Jennie Stuart spokesman Jim Goss said Monday on Moss’ behalf.

Moss continued in the statement by saying that, regardless of who the president is, it is a position that deserves respect and honor, and he will require hospital employees to refrain from political, religious, cultural or otherwise offensive costumes and representations at future employee functions.

Additionally, Goss said the hospital will be requiring diversity training with its annual mandatory education requirement for its employees.

Goss would not say if the hospital took any disciplinary action against the employees who participated in the skit because personnel matters are confidential.

John Banks, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, was enraged when he first saw the photo. He said he could tell immediately from the background that it was taken at the hospital, which to him added another layer of distaste because of the controversy surrounding the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature health care law.

“I don’t know why they’re making a mockery of him and putting him in that kind of costume as if he was out of his mind in these critical times,” Banks said.

Banks said this depiction of Obama was a mockery unlike any other because no president in history has been dehumanized as much as Obama has. Banks called for a public apology and for the hospital to take action against the employees who participated in the skit.

“There’s a policy that deals with something like this,” he said. “I’m asking that hospital policy apply to that kind of action. It’s a suspension, a warning or removal.”

While the skit featuring Obama in a straitjacket won third place, a costume of a surgeon in full makeup won first, and a group of four employees dressed up as the people from the television show “Duck Dynasty” won second.

Reach Carla Jimenez at 270-887-3262 or cjimenez@kentuckynewera.com.

via Mark Steyn, who says, "Is none of these 750 thought-criminals man enough to tell the Diversity Commissar to take a hike?"