Anyway, this paper has chosen to do a pictorial of the last 6 presidents including the Obamas. These are before and afters BUT all presidents and wives have real pictures except of course for the Obamas. Phillip Sciarello, publisher and part owner defended the decision to publish the photos of the Obamas as Sanford and Son characters. I find it in poor taste, as well as highly offensive and probably racist too!
What is wrong with ignorant people?? Didn't they learn from the other offensive pictures from past newspapers??
The controversy prompted the Brookhaven town board to remove one of the Messenger's sister publications, the Brookhaven Review, as an official newspaper, meaning it will no longer publish town government legal notices.
"The reference to racial stereotypes is where the line was crossed," Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko told Newsday in Wednesday's editions. Lesko, a Democrat, did not immediately return a call for comment.
A Suffolk County legislator, DuWayne Gregory of Amityville, said he will propose a resolution to drop the Messenger as an official county paper at next week's meeting of the Legislature.
Hazel N. Dukes, president of the state NAACP conference, said in a statement Wednesday that the county should immediately pull advertising from any publication that ran the photo.
"It is simply shocking and outrageous that such a blatantly racist ad would run in any paper, much less an official paper of Suffolk County," Dukes said. "New Yorkers of all races and ethnicity are disgusted by it and reject it."
Tracey Edwards, the NAACP's Long Island regional director, described the portrayal of the Obamas as "despicable and disrespectful. If this was intended as satire, it misses the mark."
