In this video clip, a black city councilman and a black judge object to the use of the scientific term "black hole," which they consider a racist insult. What alternative should we use -- "color deficient hole"?
Must we now rewrite the history books to remove all reference to the Black Plague? What are we going to call les films noirs? Should I take offense at the phrases "white noise" or "whited sepulchers"?
Here's another example of the same sort of foolishness -- an example that impacts my own field.
I've read in several places that cartoonists have been afraid to draw pictures of Barack Obama. Why? Because artists know that the usual wild exaggerations of physiognomy -- the humorous distortions which separate a cartoon from an illustration -- will be misinterpreted as visual racism. Our society is so beset by race-based hypersensitivity that cartoonists who routinely "uglify" everyone in the public eye feel constrained to make Obama look as handsome as possible.
This was not the case in 1984 and 1988, when Jesse Jackson ran. Cartoonists distorted his features -- just as they distorted the features of Mondale, Hart, Dukakis and Reagan. (For some reason, Reagan was always drawn with a huge simian gulf separating his nose from his upper lip, even though no such gulf existed in real life.) Nobody took offense at the Jackson caricatures. Everyone, black and white, understood that he received the same treatment that everyone else got.
Of course, one reason why cartoonists of that era had an easier time of it lies in the fact that Jackson is just plain easier to draw than Obama is. (It's the eyes. Once you get JJ's eyes right, you've captured him.) But I think changing times have also made cartoonists more skittish. Racism is hardly worse than it was twenty years ago -- but accusations of racism are tossed around with gleeful abandon. Back then, you were called a racist if you said something on the order of "I don't want my child marrying a black person." That was real racism. Now, you are called a racist if you say "What Barack Obama tells you about his Iraq war stance amounts to a fairy tale."
Which brings me to what I hope will be a final word about that damned New Yorker cover. God knows I usually love Bob Somerby, but the guy has written with uncharacteristic idiocy on this topic.
Candidate Gore was murdered by RNC-inspired “satire,” starting in March 1999. The RNC’s notions surged into the bloodstream, and almost no one complained. As a result, mainstream journalists kept pimping these notions and images for the next twenty months....Yeah, but those satirical images were directed at Gore. The New Yorker cover was directed not at Obama but at his enemies.
"But people might misunderstand...!"
Only someone with a well-below-average IQ could possibly misunderstand. Why should the inane misapprehensions of the Forrest Gump legions have any impact on the discourse of people who possess normal-and-above intelligence? Why must The New Yorker (of all publications) be asked to dumb it down? What's next? Are we going to demand that Scientific American and The New York Review of Books stick to a fourth grade vocabulary?
At one time, anti-Irish prejudice in Britain was very real, and deadly in its impact. Do you honestly believe that "A Modest Proposal" should have been banned because a few dunderheads might have taken it as a cookbook?
I cannot believe that we are even having this conversation. My god, we are talking about a cartoon which showed Obama with a Bin Laden poster on his wall and the American flag burning in the fireplace. The point could not have been more obvious. Yet some morons actually seem to think that the artist's intent was to disparage Obama as a Bin Laden-worshiping flag-burner!
In 1984, a Doonesbury cartoon mocked Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign. The first five panels replicated the famous pro-Reagan TV commercial. The last panel depicted a typical morning in "Walter Mondale's America." We saw a 12-year-old girl walk out of the front door, chirpily saying: "Bye, Mom! I'm off to get my free abortion!" In the background, flags were afire and the Great Gun Round-Up was underway.
In 1984, nobody was stupid enough to take this image as a slam against Mondale. Everyone understood that Trudeau was making fun of the conservative media's over-the-top demonization of Democrats.
Are we really dumber now than we were in 1984?
16 comments:
Why do they let these people on TV? It makes me sad because they essentially become representative of the black community. I would like to assure everyone that MANY in the black (color absent) community are not that damn stupid.
A local school principal was hounded into resignation for using the word 'nigardly'.
People would rather lose a respected and well-liked principal than to actually learn the meaning of a word they are unfamiliar with.
People are asses.
You take an example from a report on Fox News and hold that up as somehow representing(?) ....what?
You go looking for the most extreme statements and then use them to prove your case.
Why do you do this?
Black hole...indeed.
Scott, you're reaching like a congressman in an airport john. What the hell does Fox News have to do with this? Lots of news outlets talked about this encounter, and so have lots of blogs.
ellie, don't get me started on that "niggardly" nonsense! As you know, the word has no etymological relationship to "nigger." It means ungenerous or stingy.
For that matter, I wish we could retrieve the word "gay" from its exclusively homosexual connotations. The closest substitute, "lighthearted," is awkward.
At least the feminists don't mind if I call a dog a bitch.
It suddenly occurs to me: I've never heard any woman complain about the term "Son of a bitch" -- even though it insults not the male in question but his mother, who is probably entirely innocent.
Here is a little history of the use of the word niggardly. Your example I believe is from 1999 and has a bit more to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niggardly
"Jew you down" does have it's origins in racist/ethnic hatred/stereotype.
A "black hole" is so named because it is so intense that it sucks in everything and not even light can escape, hense: lack of light = black.
Maybe we just have to banish words from our vocabulary. That's the ticket! Let's get more stupid! Maybe if we had smaller dictionaries, people would USE them!??
I can hardly wait to tell my astronomer father that he and his professional associates are nothing but a bunch of bow-tied, bespeckled racists.
Scott~ It is an example of idiocy by people who are all set to be irate over something they are clueless about. Google the word 'niggardly' and see how many people have been relentlessly attacked for the correct use of an entirely proper word. For what it's worth (nothing), the people who hounded the principal into resignation were white. He was labeled a racist, and people decided they didn't want a racist in their schools. Stupid people had a person with a good vocabulary... he was exactly who should be in their schools.
Joseph~ Of course I know the meaning of 'niggardly'. So did the school principal. Not only does it mean stingy, its origins are in Swedish and German meaning close, careful, exact, precise.
Are we really dumber now than we were in 1984?
Yes, and not by a little amount.
"War on 'terror'" (tm), justifying a 50% increase in "defense" spending (on a huge wish list of Cold War-type new armaments that relate not at all to combating terrorists)?
The fortunes of vast financial interests RELY on the constant dumbing down of the electorate.
As Sinclair Lewis wrote, 'it's hard to get people to understand the truth when their income depends on not understanding it.' (paraphrasing)
...sofla
"Scott~ It is an example of idiocy by people who are all set to be irate over something they are clueless about." -Ellie
No Ellie, this whole thread is an example of using absurd cases to self-righteously stand on a soap box (read blog) fein outrage and scream 'what are we coming to.' All because Obama supportors objected to a cartoon.
The earliest written reference to the black race we have is from 1500s using the Spanish word 'negro'. That served, along with 'black', until the word 'colored'. The Black Panthers and Black Power movement took back the word 'black' and made it a strong emblem of pride.
Now 'African American' is prefered.
The queer thing is (if I may use the 'not meaning gay' word) that many posters on blogs refer to Obama's father as an "African American"! Hahahaha!
Which serves to illustrate that many people do not fit into the now-politically-correct "AA". A co-worker was refered to by someone as "African American", to which she responded, "I am black. I am an American. I am not African, I am of Figian ancestry and black."
Good lord. Are there actually people out there who are so dumb that they call Obama's Kenyan father an "African American"?
Here's a thinker: Last year, Charlize Theron, born in South Africa, became a citizen of the United States. She thus has every right to call herself an African American.
Joseph~ With all the Obamarrhoids around, do you really need to ask if there are PEOPLE SO DUMB that they call OB Sr. an "AA"? It should be obvious.
ellie, you should see the comments I'm deleting. Basically, I'm a big fat racist because I can't understand why the New Yorker cover was drawn by a big fat racist who wants to create a nation full of big fat racists.
Always, always, always with the race card.
To the deleted commenters: PLEASE keep it up. Not here -- you are not welcome here. But please keep calling non-Obots "racist" in more widely-viewed forums.
That tactic just alienates more and more of the population. That tactic is the reason why Obama is barely ahead of McCain at a point when even a sure-to-lose Dem (of, say, the Dukakis variety) traditionally has a double-digit lead. That tactic is why, in a year which should be a gimme for the Democratic party, the electoral map in November is going to redder than a cheap hooker's lipstick.
Sofia: Upton Sinclair, not Sinclair Lewis. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Let's see how Joe's theory might work in practice.
Perhaps a cartoonist might mine W's opponents' view of him to portray him with a low IQ monkey face, eating a banana.
Or another, when Reagan was president, showing him in a straightjacket, one hand free, about to insanely push the 'red button.'
Or, has already been mocked up, one showing McCain in his dotage, drooling on himself, with his wife Cindy pouring out his meds.
Now, these are arguably not the truth of those portrayed in such fashion, and instead, the imagined characterizations of them by their opponents.
But can anyone really suppose these wouldn't be taken as editorial endorsements of such characterizations, rather than intended irony?
So, BHO's case here is allegedly different, but if so, in what way?
The graphic elements reiterate already existing attack memes in play against BHO: that he is a Muslim (believed by 12% of the electorate, we are told, and he WAS photographed in about the exact Somali/Islam garb), that he is a radical (i.e., leftist/terrorist), that he and his wife exchange 'terrorist fist bumps,' that they hate America or are bitter at America for grievances, and etc.
When the American Spectator ran cartoon covers about troopergate or other WJC matters, they used some obviously over the top imagery, but they didn't mean it satirically, but fairly literally.
But supposedly the American people can tell THIS one is different because they know the reputation of the New Yorker magazine? Really?
...sofla
"The graphic elements reiterate already existing attack memes in play against BHO..."
THAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT, YOU MORON!
Sof, never attempt to comment here again. Banned for life. Any personal message or comment will be deleted unread. And you know that when I say something like this, I mean it.
While you're at it, could you ban Scott for life, too? His only contribution here is posting rhetorically weak defenses of Obama's many mistakes over and over in a juvenile attempt to wear down you and other posters. It's the strategic equivalent of school yard bullying and it's irritating to read.
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