Study: Obama Supporters Are Intolerant

Posted by: Tristan

Catherine Vogt, 14, an Illinois 8th grader decided to test whether the talk of inclusiveness and tolerance surrounding the Obama campaign was true or a bunch of “malarkey”.

Catherine consulted her history teacher and concocted an experiment.  She would wear political t-shirts and record the reaction of her teachers and fellow students.

The experiment began when Catherine wore a t-shirt with “McCain Girl” written on it in red.

“I was just really curious how they’d react to something that different, because a lot of people at my school wore Obama shirts and they are big Obama supporters,” Catherine told us. “I just really wanted to see what their reaction would be.”
Immediately, Catherine learned she was stupid for wearing a shirt with Republican John McCain’s name. Not merely stupid. Very stupid.
“People were upset. But they started saying things, calling me very stupid, telling me my shirt was stupid and I shouldn’t be wearing it,” Catherine said.
Then it got worse.
“One person told me to go die. It was a lot of dying. A lot of comments about how I should be killed,” Catherine said, of the tolerance in Oak Park.

It got worse from there.

Then Catherine wore a shirt saying “Obama Girl” on it the next day.  Reactions were somewhat different.

Catherine wasn’t very stupid anymore. She grew brains.
“People liked my shirt. They said things like my brain had come back, and I had put the right shirt on today,” Catherine said.

Catherine wrote up a report and turned it in for extra-credit.  Her teacher, Norma Cassin-Pountney, held a discussion in class about the irony of intolerant Obama supporters.

“That’s what we discussed,” Cassin-Pountney said about the debate in the classroom when the experiment was revealed. “I said, here you are, promoting this person [Obama] that believes we are all equal and included, and look what you’ve done? The students were kind of like, ‘Oh, yeah.’ I think they got it.”

That would be a “change”.