Is This Cartoon Racist?

@kickycan,

yep.

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@kickycan,

Quote:

Of course it's racist. Even Ticomaya knows it's racist, though he'll never admit it. He's just playing devil's advocate because it's a chance for him to rile up some lefties.

So you think he's a race baiter? Why? I'm seriously asking (because I don't know and I'm curious...I don't read most of the political stuff - it all breaks down too predictably to be interesting at all). Do you think he's a race baiter and if you do do you think it's because of specific things he's said, or just because he's conservative in his politics? Does that also make him automatically a racist?

Because I find expecting conservatives to be automatically racist stereotypical and inaccurate and offensive.

I also didn't find calling O'bama 'O'boy' automatically racially motivated or offensive. I just thought it was sort of a clever derivative. I didn't even think of the racial implications until Setanta mentioned them.
I also don't think Colin Powell would object to being called a 'good ol' boy' - that'd make him a member of the club almost- and it references something totally different than the emasculating 'boy' to a black man.

But you know - I don't want to go looking for racist hatred. I can't even look at your links Butterflynet - I just want to try to keep my sanity and faith and hope in the American people alive.

Stupid and offensive cartoon YES- but you know which part bothered me the most - the two bullet holes in the chest of the animal that's supposed to be a representation of the president - that's dangerous.
Without knowing the thoughts of this cartoonist and his other work - I'm withholding my judgement on whether this chimp represented the black man as less than a whole human being (as he was viewed throughout history in America) or just that Ol' Navy monkey that went apeshit and needed to be stopped.

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@Ticomaya,

Ticomaya wrote:

How many times was Bush portrayed as a chimp?

Better Question: How many Newspapers portrayed bush as being shot dead (as a human or a chimp)?

It's a really poor attempt to tie two current events together and it tragically collides where an old racial open wound exists. It's not funny (as in it's not even clever).

This is a really lame political cartoon.
K
O

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I'm not ready to say this is racism, but I'm plenty ready to say this is negligent. I won't attempt to judge the intent only the product.

T
K
O

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@aidan,

Who is expecting conservatives to be automatically racist?

That almost seems like a wilful misreading, Aidan.

Kicky said he is baiting "leftists"....not blacks.

I think it highly possible that he is pretending not to see the racism so as to annoy those he considers left.

OR, and at least equally likely, he is able to bend and warp his perceptions so as to actually make himself blind to the racism.

I have no idea what your motive or blindness relates to.

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@aidan,

Who is the "he" you refer to in your first sentence? If it is the cartoonist, based on the past history of some of his work I've seen, I'd say that yes, he is.

If the "he" you refer to is Ticomaya, then I'd say no, based on the past history of his posts that I've read.

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@Butrflynet,

I was referring to the cartoonist.

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@dlowan,

I asked questions. I would wait to hear his answers before I responded or came to any conclusion.

I did not misread anything or respond blindly - I asked the appropriate questions to solidify and ascertain what his stance was.

That's the way I refrain from making blind assumptions or assertions- I ask direct questions and then I listen carefully to the person's answers.

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@dlowan,

Quote:

I have no idea what your motive or blindness relates to.

This is quite obvious- you've never communicated with me enough to have any idea about any of my motives.

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@aidan,

That may be why the reaction from Dlowan. The way your post is written it appears you may have been referring to Ticomaya with your questions.

That's also what prompted my question about it.

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@Butrflynet,

Okay - I was asking Kicky if he felt that Tico was race baiting in the sense that he (Kicky) stated that he (Tico) was trying to get a rise out of the 'lefties'.

I then went on to ask him if he felt that Tico was also racist. I then went on to ask if all conservatives (in his opinion) have a racist streak.

I did not make any assumptions about Kicky or Tico. I do not know either one of them well enough to do that.

I know that I often have trouble understanding internet conversation so I always ask for clarification when I know that I don't understand.

I asked for clarification on this cartoon- I didn't understand it- and I'm not sure that I do even now.

I have no negative feelings about Kicky or Tico.
I do have negative feelings about automatically stereotyping and assuming negative traits based on political leanings.

Prejudice (in any form- toward anyone) DOES happen to be one of my blind spots - I can't get around it- I know that about myself.
So I always try to ascertain that it really exists before I assign that label to anyone or anything.
Even this cartoonist.

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Someone at the Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog made a good point in the comments section when they said:

If the cartoonist and paper wanted to eliminate racial overtones in the cartoon while still poking Democrats with it, they could have changed the text in the bubble to read "Now the President will have to find someone else to write his next stimulus bill."

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@aidan,

I was referring to Tico.

The cartoonist is simply a goon.

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Both Tico and Gunga Dim have alleged that the Shrub was commonly referred to as a chimp--Tico by inference and Gunga directly. Tico is now attempting to suggest that the chimp in the cartoon does not represent Obama, and that the cartoon is, therefore, not racist in any such context. Why then would he be attempting to suggest that the Shrub was commonly portrayed as a chimp? Is that to suggest that if Obama were portrayed as a chimp it would be merely politics and not racism? If that is his argument (a confused sort of argument), then there would be no reason for him to deny that the chimp portrayed in the cartoon is meant to refer to Obama--because if his thesis is correct, portraying Obama as a chimp is a political comment, and not a racist comment. All in all, neither Tico nor Gunga has proven a point about which, apparently, both of them suffer a good deal of confusion.

If portraying the President as a chimp is simply a political comment, and not a racist comment, there is no reason to deny that the chimp portrayed in the cartoon is Obama. If, however, one insists that it does not refer to Obama, what is the point of suggesting that the Shrub was commonly portrayed as a chimp? This is clearly a "oh yeah, well your guys did it, too" argument. Both of them need to work on the logic of what they are attempting to pass off as arguments.

Neither of them has provided any evidence that the Shrub was commonly portrayed as a chimp in political cartoons during his term in office.

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Perhaps this has been brought up before (but I haven't seen it)...whose responsibility was it that this cartoon ended up in the paper?

Not the cartoonists.

I could sit around drawing and writing the most racist things I can think of all day long, and submit them to the paper for publication, but they'd never get in there. So what if the cartoonist gets paid by the newspaper. It was the editors and others decisison to let it go to print.

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@Setanta,

And anyway, Bush looks like a chimp, so there is a reasonable caricature element in there.

Had white oil men a long history of being viciously described as, or depicted as, apes, or just out of the trees, as black people have been, the chimp caricature of Bush might have been racist.

As it was, it was either a reasonable caricature or really mean.

The lack of historical (and current) slurs against all Bushes as being apes robs it of being anything as sinister as this racist tripe being argued about here.

Honestly, how people can either be as ignorant, or feign such ignorance, as those questioning the intent of the cartoon here buggers belief.

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http://dougpowers.com/2009/02/19/sharpto/

Quote:

Al Sharpton Accuses Duke Lacrosse Players of Drawing ‘Chimp/Stimulus’ Cartoon

Just breaking on PNN, the official satire wire of this website:

NEW YORK (PNN): The controversial cartoon that appeared in the New York Post featuring police shooting a chimp to death accompanied by the caption, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” has drawn fire from the Reverend Al Sharpton.

Sharpton called the cartoon an “egregious example of racism disguised as humor.” The Reverend went on to further express the reasons for his anger: “‘Humor’ like this has no place in modern society, because it perpetuates negative racial stereotypes and pits race against race while causing innocent people to be harmed in the process.”

Sharpton then went on to theorize that the cartoon was “probably drawn by certain players from the Duke Lacrosse team.” He offered little evidence for the accusation, other than to say “a certain stripper I know tipped me off.”

Sharpton also read a statement written by his friend, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, in which Jackson castigated the Duke lacrosse players for drawing the racist cartoon. In the statement released through Sharpton, Jackson said that if he hadn’t been away at a week-long “family values” retreat with the daughter he had with his mistress, he’d have been at Sharpton’s side during the cartoon crisis.

Sharpton said that one of his friends whose feelings were hurt by the racist cartoon is Tawana Brawley. “Tawana loves President Obama,” said Sharpton. “And the fact that some white lacrosse players drew a racist cartoon about the author of the most glorious hunk of government spending this nation has ever seen should be an affront to all Americans with a vested interest in civil rights!”

When reporters reminded Sharpton that bills are authored by Congress and not the president, the Reverend accused those reporters of being racist Duke lacrosse players and stormed out of the room.

More on this story as information becomes available.

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@gungasnake,

well the fact that sharpton is an ass is pretty well known

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Ticomaya (I don't speak to Gunga, it's pointless),

Lets go back a year when Condoleezza Rice was still Secretary of State. Let's say this chimp incident happened and this same image appeared in The New Yorker with one cop saying to the other cop: ""They'll have to find someone else to negotiate peace in the Middle East". Would you still think it was not racist? Even though I rarely agreed with Ms. Rice on politics, I would be outraged at the implication and slur. Would you?

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Well, since Obama didn't WRITE the stimulus bill.....doesn't that make Tico's explanation (congress went ape **** and needs to be shot down) more plausible?

Congress wrote the stimulus bill, not Obama, so the 'ape' in the cartoon would be congress.

And hey, if Bush looked like a chimp (big ears, etc)....well Obama's got some big ears too......

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Is This Cartoon Racist?

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