What are your thoughts on "That Cartoon" in the New York Post?
I personally wonder how the cartoon was never censored...I know that there is freedom of speech etc, but this is teetering on treason...right?
Also, this evening (Friday) is the women's Think Pink basketball game! Please go! First come, first receive free pink t-shirts =D And Relay for Life will be there, so be sure to drop by our table! And there is a Relay for Life Kick-off event in Lerner c555 (Professional comedian, Onyx, Sabor, and much more!....and of course, FOOD).
Love you lots,
NadiThursdays (pun intended...and if you know Chitumbuka, it may been something else, but it still works!)
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3 comments:
It seems pretty obvious that this cartoon was inspired by antiquated ideas of ape-like black people. It seems even more evident because the police officers are white and in fact police officers. It seems even more blatantly evident because the animal is rabid and has been shot (twice!). But why can't we take a critical eye to what the author might have wanted to say. It seems pretty obvious that he knew what he was drawing, especially since he's known for cartoons with deeper meanings. So how else might he have depicted it? Sure apes and black people are racially correlated in history but they're infamously stupid as well. Their image also brings up the dumb joke about putting a group of "monkeys" in a room with a typewriter. I don't think we should jump to conclusions, especially since Al Sharpton, the infamous bandwagon driver, is in the picture. It will have to be OK for dissenters to criticize Obama just as they have done to past presidents. Right now that does not seem to be the case. He is still standing upon a pedestal that I think is too tall for any human being.
I was confused why the author even thought that comic would be funny. If the author wasn't able to see any racism in the image (which I find hard to believe, but for the sake of argument could be possible), why would he think parodying a story of a woman's only friend- an ape- being shot by police when he tried to kill a person, be funny? The whole thing was really sad. But the fact that the author even thought there was a connection between an ape being shot and Barack Obama's stimulus plan not being supported by Republicans is problematic at best.
This black men being apes in popular media image reminds me of the Lebron James cover on Vogue last year with a white female model whose name escapes me right now. Unfortunately many people couldn't see the racism with historical roots present in the picture, in which James was portrayed as hyper-masculine and aggressive and was clutching the female white model in a possessive way. A lot of people thought it was ridiculous that people were saying there was racism in the image, saying James was just "an aggressive basketball player" and that's who he was. I tried to have productive conversations with people about this, but it was fairly difficult.
But Obama fits even less into that "aggressive black man" stereotype than James did. Why would anyone make a connection to a monkey needing to be subdued (to death) by police to Obama? He doesn't fulfill the stereotype in any way (and even if he did supposedly I still think it'd be problematic for a hundred ways), so what is the connection other than racism? I hope people are more willing to have conversations about this one than the Lebron James photograph.
-Yocheved Tupper
Some more food for thought: what about the cartoons that have portrayed former President Bush as an ape?
(This is not to detract in any way from the seriousness of the _shot_ ape cartoon.)
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