To Conservatives Outraged Over n**e Photos of Melania Trump: Where Were You When Michelle Obama Faced ...

Melania Trump Did Not Plagiarize Her RNC Speech

Some say the New York Post went too far. The Sunday cover of the newspaper, which had endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the New York primary, featured a controversial image of his wife.

Under the headline Melania Trump Like Youve Never Seen Her Before (NSFW), she was shown completely n**e, save for a pair of black pumps. Her left hand strategically covered her nether regions, and a Post art director had the decency to blur out her nipples. Additional n**e photos were featured inside the publication. The images of a then-25-year-old Melania were taken in New York in 1996 and featured in Max magazine, a now-shuttered French publication.

Speaking on CNNs Reliable Sources, Donald Trumps senior communications adviser, Jason Miller, brushed off the photographs as a celebration of the human body as art. He added, Theres nothing to be embarrassed about shes a beautiful woman.

But in other circles, such as on the Young Conservatives website, readers found the images the Post ran tasteless, disgusting and sexist, and disgraceful.

The Wrap described the cover as the latest in a series of public humiliations for Melania Trump. Slate denounced the cover, calling it trashy and pointing out that Melania Trump is not running for office. A woman should be able to agree to take n***d photos for a European magazine in her twenties with the expectation that they will not show up on the cover of a newspaper/tabloid some 20 years later under the headline Ogle Office when her husband decides to run for president, Emily Tamkin wrote.

Ehhhh. The cover is trashy. Its also sexist. Melania Trumps bad decisions from the 90s are being regurgitated as a way to shame her husband and point out further his unfitness for office, as if raging racism, his own blatant sexism, and his profound ignorance and inexperience werent valid enough.

The New York Post isnt right here, but sorry, Im not rushing to denounce the publication as unfit over its latest despicable move. I am wondering where all of these people who are suddenly outraged by the treatment of a presidential candidates wife have been all this time.

Michelle Obama hasnt ever run for office, either, but that hasnt stopped her from catching total h**l for the better part of a decade, first on her husbands campaign trail, then again as first lady. She has constantly been compared to various primates; a magazine cover depicted her as a slave; she was called a baby mama in 2008, her 16th year of marriage; she took constant jabs about her weight, the size of her a*s, her bare shoulders and her arms; and she had a cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker depicting her as an Afroed, militant, gun-toting domestic terrorist.

As if that werent bad enough, ever since Donald Trump emerged as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, the conservative media have been on a nonstop campaign about how Melania Trump will bring class back to the White House, as if Michelle Obama were not the breathing epitome of that word. Where was the outraged fuss about how the woman isnt running for office when the main target was a black woman?

The third Mrs. Trump may not be running for office, but she is no longer off-limits. (If the Post had run these images when Melania Trump wanted to sit on the political sideline, I would have said the publication was wrong.) She willingly hopped onto the Republican National Convention stage and into the arena. Shes no longer just laying up with a racist, ignorant psychopath; shes campaigning for one to unleash his terror and idiocy on all of us. She is no more off-limits from a digging and a dragging than Michelle Obama was at this phase. And she is going to take this heat and these body blows just as Michelle Obama did and does.

If its wrong for one, its wrong for everyone, including Michelle Obama. So many of these newly outraged folks are a millennium late and a dollar short, getting all upset now that the medias getting greasy with someone they find more relatable or sympathetic. Stop it. Get out of here with the knee-jerk reactions to protect whiteness. Dont start acting as if now that this crazy ish is happening to a white woman, its suddenly gone too far. Its been gone too far. Melania Trumps whiteness should not be treated like a mystical protective cloak or invisible shield that keeps her from experiencing the same mess FLOTUS has received and stillreceives after all these years.

Demetria Lucas DOyley is a contributing editor at The Root, a life coach and the author of Dont Waste Your Pretty: The Go-to Guide for Making Smarter Decisions in Life & Love as well as A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life. She is also a blogger at SeeSomeWorld.com, where she covers pop culture and travel. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Source: http://www.theroot.com/articles/politics/2016/07/to-conservatives-outraged-over-n**e-photos-of-melania-trump-where-were-you-when-michelle-obama-faced-racist-attacks/