And then there's this

[Adam]

Lady Who Just Lit Olympic Flame Tweeted A Racist Picture Of The Obamas

The Olympic opening ceremony just wrapped up, and former Russian figure skater Irina Rodnina was the given the honor of lighting the Olympic flame. Rodnina is one of Russia's most successful figure skaters, and is currently a member of Russia's public chamber. She is also, it seems, pretty racist!

In September 2013, she tweeted out the picture you see above, just one of the many anti-Obama pictures floating around the internet that your racist uncle is so fond of emailing you all the time.

Note to Leftists and centrists: THIS is racism.

[Billy Jingo]

Note to Leftists and centrists: THIS is racism.

In what way? Someone is just offering the president and his wife a nice banana. Everyone likes bananas.

[Norm dePlume]

Obligatory Bush reference:

[Dallas]

The monkey pics of Bush wern't okay and neither is this. Putin was being an asshat for this bullshit. Geez, Russia... do better.

~Dallas

[Gingersnap]

I never saw this "famous" racist pic and I wouldn't have naturally made the racist connection unless it was spelled out for me. Now that it has been spelled out.......I'm just confused.

The problem here seems to me that the skater disrespected a head of state during the Olympics, which is shameful for the Russians. The racist part seems pretty secondary to that first problem.

[phillygirl]

I never saw this "famous" racist pic and I wouldn't have naturally made the racist connection unless it was spelled out for me. Now that it has been spelled out.......I'm just confused.

The problem here seems to me that the skater disrespected a head of state during the Olympics, which is shameful for the Russians. The racist part seems pretty secondary to that first problem.

In fairness, she tweeted that picture a few months ago, not currently. But, yeah.

It shows you how your internet presence can screw up a whole lot in your life. Siberia, here she comes.

[Gingersnap]

In fairness, she tweeted that picture a few months ago, not currently. But, yeah.

It shows you how your internet presence can screw up a whole lot in your life. Siberia, here she comes.

Well, it's even more confusing then. She doesn't like Obama and tweeted a disrespectful image of him. That's not smart for a "representative" at the Olympics but oddly enough - billions of people don't care much for the current American President for various reasons. Her problem is still her own position in Russia and as an athlete participating on any level in the Olympics.

But it's less important if it happened months ago - not "unimportant" but less so.

Really, it would be the same problem from my point of view if the photo had made light of his half-white situation, his Hawaiian origin, his marital issues, his basketball prowess, or Christian connections. It's all disrespectful. Some "ism" issue doesn't make it worse for me. Insults are insults on the international stage.