It's a matter of geography. Unless they have been severerly sheltered, non-racist people in the U.S. will immediately understand the intent knowing that lynchings were an unfortunate and despicable fact of our history into the middle of last century.
As a means of demonstration, if the picture showed a scene from a Bar Mitzvah and the caption said something along the lines of "there's never a gas chamber around when you need one", would you claim that the only people that got the intent were those that are anti-semitic at least to some degree?
Addressing the OP: I don't consider this funny. I don't consider myself politically correct and am quite fond of tasteless jokes, even those that invoke the concept of death in some manner. (What do you call 13 lawyers at the bottom of the Ohio River?...A start).
If we replaced Obama with a white male in the picture, the caption becomes meaningless. What I would find hilarious is if the same caption was used in a picture of two black men giving a white man an honorary doctorate. In this case the butt of the joke would be the racist.
As a means of demonstration, if the picture showed a scene from a Bar Mitzvah and the caption said something along the lines of "there's never a gas chamber around when you need one", would you claim that the only people that got the intent were those that are anti-semitic at least to some degree?
Addressing the OP: I don't consider this funny. I don't consider myself politically correct and am quite fond of tasteless jokes, even those that invoke the concept of death in some manner. (What do you call 13 lawyers at the bottom of the Ohio River?...A start).
If we replaced Obama with a white male in the picture, the caption becomes meaningless. What I would find hilarious is if the same caption was used in a picture of two black men giving a white man an honorary doctorate. In this case the butt of the joke would be the racist.
