Image via Complex Original
August 4 was President Barack Obama's 53rd birthday, and the Moscow Student Initiative had a very offensive way of wishing him a happy one.
The artists created a laser projection that was shown on the side of the US Embassy in Moscow. It features a deadpan cartoon of Obama with a party hat on while he "swallows" a banana with the words "Happy Birthday Obama" flashing as a part of the loop. The animation would be bad enough if he were eating the banana, perpetrating racist comparison of black people to monkeys, but turning it into a sexual act just takes this piece to an entirely different level of disrespect.
According to Artnet, the video was posted on the Russian version of Facebook on August 5. The responses to the video from other users on the social media site are mixed, with a couple unimaginative supporters suggesting that the banana be replaced with something more fitting.
The group also hung a banner for people who weren't out at night to see their work in daylight. Continuing with the racist imagery, Obama is depicted as the "Three Wise Monkeys," but Artnet reports that instead of the standard "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" caption, the group included the words "I don’t see. I don’t hear. I don’t speak the truth to anybody!”
