(Image Source:   Wikimedia Commons)

BY LAUREN ZIMA

Kansas-based Tea Party group Patriot Freedom Alliance is defending a photo it posted on its website.

Here’s the photo. It’s since been removed, but it was posted with the caption, "The skunk has replaced the eagle as the new symbol for the president.  It is half black, it is half white, and almost everything it does, stinks."

President Obama’s mother was white, his father was black. The NAACP has spoken out against the ad. Local outlet The Hutchinson News reports:

“Darrell Pope, president of the Hutchinson branch of the NAACP, said he sees no humor in it and called it ‘a blatant statement of racism. It's intended to be malicious,’ Pope said.”

But the group is defending the photo. OpposingViews.com has a quote from the party member who runs the site.

“‘It's satire is what it is. Satire in a politically incorrect form,’ said Thomas Hymer.”

But, perhaps most importantly with the election year coming up, how does the public feel? KWCH spoke with locals, and reports that they didn’t seem to be offended by the photo.

MAN: “I don’t really see nothing wrong with it. I basically just see it as a joke.”

WOMAN: “I can see both sides. The skunk’s black and white, meaning the president is half black, half white.

WOMAN: “At the same time, a skunk, you know, it could be a joke. From the simple of fact of comparing somebody with an animal.”