August 8, 2009: Texas County Removes Racist, Anti-Obama Material from Bulletin Board Posted by Judge

Some of the material posted by Judge Head. [Source: Think Progress]Lubbock County, Texas, officials remove posters displayed in the county courthouse by Judge Tom Head that display anti-Obama and racist content. Head’s posters depict nine alleged criminals, all wearing T-shirts displaying the Obama campaign logo; one contains racial stereotyping of Obama supporters. That one is a printout of a short, fictional narrative of a person contemplating waking up, putting on an Obama T-shirt, and then abusing drugs, robbing a store, and hitting his wife. The mug shots are of mostly African-American men wearing Obama T-shirts, with a note claiming no criminal had ever been photographed wearing Republican-leaning T-shirts. Head says his intent was merely to spark conversation about issues. “Nobody’s ever said anything to me, personally,” he says. “Apparently it’s performing its task now, because somebody got emotional about it.” Head says he has been posting socially and politically conservative material to the bulletin board for years, with the intention of stirring up discussion with those who disagree with him. “It seemed like a good thing to put on the board to try and get people talking to one another,” he says. “I don’t consider it racist. I still don’t.” [Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 8/8/2009] The poster apparently originated on a conservative Web site. [Think Progress, 8/11/2009]