Is This Cartoon Racist?

@Green Witch,

Green Witch wrote:

I think you really have to look at the historical context. It would be OK to call a man in the Bush cabinet a "good ol'boy", with the exception of Colin Powell. You would not call General Powell any term using the word "boy", even if he was a part of the group, because it would be in excessive bad taste.

I agree, but then I wasn't addressing that point. I was merely responding to Setanta's point about cartoonists portraying Bush as a chimp.

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From cartoonist Matt Bors:

Can a monkey crazily flinging **** at a wall come up with worse editorial cartoons than Sean Delonas. I don't know the answer....

To tell you the truth I don't think Delonas' intent was to portray the chimp as Obama at all. But when **** blows up in your face this bad, you know you overlooked something in the idea phase. But I can't really call for editorial oversight of Delonas when I think, like a crazed chimp, he shouldn't be allowed to hold a pen in the first place. It becomes a danger to people's eyes.

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@joefromchicago,

Joe, I was addressing the people who feel it is not a racist cartoon just because it has a chimp. I'm saying if the target was Ms. Rice it could easily be seen as racist.

To clarify further - If white politician is compared to a chimp it is insulting and perhaps in bad taste. If a black politician is compared to a chimp it is racist based on historical references.

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@maporsche,

maporsche said

Quote:

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.

Actually - that's exactly what was confusing me. Whether or not this chimp was supposed to even represent Obama.
And I'm more of a lefty (politically) than a righty.

The cartoonist didn't get it right - that's why there was confusion on my part.
Also, because I don't automatically look for the ugliest explanation.

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The chimp wasn't even a caricature of Obama, it was just a chimp. At least the Bush chimp illustrations would be drawn such that the chimp would resemble Bush or illustrate some sort of behavior that was ape-like.

There is a difference between implying that someone looks like a monkey, acts like a monkey versus IS a monkey. The difference is, I believe, that the New York post is willing to deal with the liability of moral outrage at the benefit of being the center of attention, versus drawing a more Obama-like chimp shot dead, and dealing with the liability of drawing a dead president in a paranoid time when many wonder if someone will try it or that it might be suggestive.

It's frustrating to no end talking about this, because defending or attacking the comic is the a waste of time. It's not witty or clever at all. It's dumb. Id we were to talk about this comic, I'd rather discuss how uncreative the artist was etc.

T
K
Oh and where are those conservatives who bark about liberal media and free rides for democrats?

1 Reply

@Diest TKO,

The fact that it wasn't drawn to represent Obama, and that the caption clearly states that it's directed at the people who WROTE the bill (not Obama), it's fairly obvious that people are LOOKING for a reason to be pissed about this.

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i'm not pissed by this, i think it's in extremely bad taste on a few levels, and the fact that people have drawn some of the conclusions they have, is not so far fetched

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@djjd62,

No, it's not far fetched. Americans aren't assumed to be the brightest bulbs in the box.

A careful reading of the cartoon however, makes it clear that this chimp has nothing to do with Obama.

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@maporsche,

sorry, fairly bright myself, perhaps a touch to cynical, but it's the first thing i thought of

and i'm not even an american so i have no political interest in the argument

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@djjd62,

Fine, it obviously was the first thing that a lot of people thought of....it seems that a lot of people are on "Racist Patrol" in the last few years; and they look at everything through a "is this racist" lens.

I'm not saying that you do that, but given how much this view permeates in the media, I'm not surprised that people would automatically think that way.

However, just because people's views have been shaped by media and the Sharptons around us, doesn't mean that it's accurate.

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Does it make it any better, that the Dem leadership is portrayed as mad monkeys who need to be shot?

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Better in the sense that it's not racist and proposing that the President get shot, yes.

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@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

Better in the sense that it's not racist and proposing that the President get shot, yes.

Well I guess that's true.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

And really, that type of thing happens all the time in political cartoons. I recall plenty of cartoons where Bush was shot by Cheney, or Bush had a noose around his neck.

No outrage then (at least not from the left).

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

And really, that type of thing happens all the time in political cartoons. I recall plenty of cartoons where Bush was shot by Cheney, or Bush had a noose around his neck.

No outrage then (at least not from the left).

Really? I don't remember seeing political cartoons showing our prez being assassinated. Can you find any? I couldn't when I just looked.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

I don't have time to look right now.

My only point though is that political cartoons often use gun shots, nooses, falling off a cliff, explosions, etc to paint funny pictures of current events and it there is rarely a concern about the person(s) being depicted (especially when it's congress).

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@joefromchicago,

Quote:

I was merely responding to Setanta's point about cartoonists portraying Bush as a chimp.

Let's be clear, i wasn't making "a point about cartoonists portraying Bush as a chimp." I was responding to a claim by Tico that this happened (and inferentially, that it happened commonly).

This was my post:

Quote:

Good question--perhaps you could tell us precisely how many times a political cartoon appeared in the New York Post, or any publication of an equivalent respectability (not much, though, in that particular case), in which the Shrub was portrayed as a chimp. Frankly, i suspect you'd play hell coming up with any example in a major newspaper in this country.

So, in fact, Joe's response did not refer to my request of Tico, since i clearly specified a major newspaper in this country, and the cartoon Joe provided was not from a newspaper in this country.

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@maporsche,

maporsche - you're making some valid points.

Maybe the monkey isn't Obama.
Maybe it wasn't meant to immediately reference the old notion of blacks as monkeys.

Maybe.

Do you look at the comic and think for one second that the editors didn't know what message would be received? Does it really matter what message they sent? Isn't the fact that the interpretation/contention of this comic itself speak to how poorly it would have conveyed any of the innocent, non-racist messages?

You can try and figure out what they were trying to say, but you can't deny what message was received. I don't think that those who felt offended were out of line. I think their interpretation of the comic is pretty natural.

T
K
O

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@djjd62,

Is it racist? Likely.

But ... what's the big deal about it? Western political humour has a tradition of being brutal. This is namby-pamby by comparison with many political cartoons of the past 200 years that I've looked at.

Politicians choose to be in public life. If they don't realize that the political cartoonists/satirists/comedians et al are going to go after them in any way possible through their art, there's no place for them in politics IMNSHO. Someplace under a rock might be better for them.

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Part of having a free country
is that everyone is FREE
to have any opinion about anything and he is FREE to express that opinion.
These r natural rights that existed b4
the Constitution and its First Amendment were enacted.
U.S. Supreme Court. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875).

Sharpton is (essentially) saying that if his groups (liberals n blacks)
do not like your opinion, then: SHUT THE HELL UP.

Sometimes that is called the "heckler 's veto."

Being as defiantly libertarian as I am,
I refuse to knuckle under.

David

1 Reply

Is This Cartoon Racist?

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