In case you weren’t aware, godhatesfags.com is a website run by Fred Phelps, leader of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. They’re the ones who have anti-gay protests around the U.S., including at some points showing up at the funerals of gay men, and have moved on to a general “God hates America” theme, due to all our depravity. He makes Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s pastor) look like a teddy bear–at least he was just saying God ought to damn America.

These t-shirts depress me more than anything I have seen in a really long time.

A completely unrelated Kansas story: When I was living there, in a small town, I discovered that my vet was the head of the Board of Education and was leading the anti-evolution efforts at the time (this was before voters elected a new Board and got rid of a lot of the anti-evolution people).

Anyway, thanks to Larry H. from The Daily Mirror for this photo (found here). I guess.

This image, and others, can be found at Mental Floss under the heading of “Only the Creepiest Photos Ever Taken.”

The post includes the following quote from Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America by Stanley Burns.

These photographs were a common aspect of American culture, a part of the mourning and memorialization process. Surviving families were proud of these images and hung them in their homes, sent copies to friends and relatives, wore them as lockets or carried them as pocket mirrors. Nineteenth-century Americans knew how to respond to these images. Today there is no culturally normative response to postmortem photographs.

From the website of The Maid Brigade, a housecleaning service offering “green” cleaning services.

Who hires house cleaners (or as they put it, “who needs a maid?”)?

Who cleans houses?

When I went through the whole site I was able to find one picture of a white, non-Hispanic-appearing woman cleaning and one picture of a somewhat dark-skinned homeowner, but the overwhelming pattern is what you see here.

And no, there were no male maids. Do you really even have to ask?

Anyway, it’s an interesting example of class, the commodification of housework, and the ways that class and race separate women, such that upper-middle-class white women often free themselves from the second shift of housework by hiring other poorer, often non-white women to do it.

NEW! (Jan. ’10): Sara L. sent us another example:

Here are two videos from MTV’s Think campaign (both found here):

I am not at all sure what the message is here–just a general “fear your government” warning? A comment on the Bush Administration’s policies? The Patriot Act? Also note that the message is that the Holocaust happened to people like us–not that it was done by people like us, which might be a more interesting message.

Anyway, I think this could be compared to the PETA posters in a discussion about history and who has the right to use it how. Will everyone see these images as offensive? Is any use of the Holocaust as an example or comparison automatically offensive? Would campaigns that use the Holocaust be as offensive to people if they used the genocide in Rwanda instead? Who gets to claim the right to use images and symbols of historical events, including horrible tragedies, and in what ways can they use them?

Thanks to Simone for pointing these out!

Check out PHD Comics’ take on changing ambitions over time.

Thanks, Kelly V.!

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Honestly, I’m not sure what the sociological import is here. Unless, [insert nerdy Durkheim joke here].  If nothing else, it proves that not every advertising exec is sexually frustrated… though it certainly fails to prove that they’re unfrustrated.

Thanks David W!

This ad, playing on white resentment about affirmative action, ran during the 1990 North Carolina Senate race between Harvey Gantt and Jesse Helms:

Before the ad ran (during the last week of the campaign), Gantt was ahead in the polls. The ad is widely believed to be the reason Helms won.

Might be good to pair with the infamous Willy Horton ad from the 1988 Presidential campaign in a discussion of how images of minorities have been used to frighten white voters.