Wednesday, May 14, 2008

racism

http://www.cnn.com/.... bojorquez.obama.tshirt.controversy.wsb

this has nothing to do with today's strip, although at first glance there is some cursory parallels with the fact that i drew a president talking. it's not my point.

i just thought this was interesting. this guy is selling kind of a lame t-shirt that says "obama in '08" and has a picture of curious george on it; i guess the point being that obama resembles curious george. people are picketing and calling it racist. i would be inclined to agree, except that bush's looks have been compared to a monkey many, many, many times and no one batted an eye.

i guess the thing that worries me is that, by being totally fine with saying bush, a white guy, looks like a monkey, and getting terrified and up in arms when we say obama, a black guy, looks like a monkey, what we're really saying is that obama actually looks uncomfortably similar to a monkey because he is black. which is actually racist.

example: two guys calling each other "retarded," but they get all pious when a third guy shows up who has facial tics that lead them to believe he is actually handicapped. even if the guy isn't. this implies that the two guys really think this guy is retarded due to their sudden increased sympathy.

i don't think obama or bush looks like a monkey. i thought it was a dumb shirt. maybe the guy is racist, maybe not, but now he's sold a zillion shirts when he shouldn't have. guh.

12 Comments:

Leonard said...: The US has a long, long history of racist portrayals of blacks as monkeys. That's the problem, not anything to do with Obama or monkey portrayals specifically. It sounds like a cop-out and a professional restriction to declare certain kinds of jokes off-limits, but it's less an a priori restriction and more a side effect of the fact that you can't choose connotations.

One of the basic techniques of satire is to use an image or juxtaposition to evoke all the times that kind of thing has been done before. If you use this technique by accident it can get pretty ugly because saying "it's just a joke" doesn't neuter it. The whole purpose of this technique is to give a joke some power beyond just making people laugh. And because lots of people use the technique by accident, you can also use it intentionally and give yourself plausible deniability.; May 14, 2008 1:24 PM
Kristofer said...: I guess that's the problem then. I thought it was more than the frail "hey, these guys look different" barb, but apparently that's it.

P.S. Bush looks way more like a monkey.; May 14, 2008 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm more concerned about the copyright aspect.; May 14, 2008 3:51 PM
Donny said...: I don't have anything to add to the Monkeybama-gate debate but this is the second chainsawsuit strip that literally made me laugh out loud. Good job Kris!; May 15, 2008 1:33 AM
TrentD said...: What was that quote about not caring what people say about me, just as long as they spell my name right?

I guess in this guy's case, they just need to spell his website right.; May 16, 2008 1:13 AM
Smitty D said...: The fact is that these situations exist, and are accepted, all over the place. If you call a man a whore, he's likely to grin and give you a high-five. Call a woman a whore, and you'll get slapped. Hard.

If I happen to think my sister is a slut, I can say so. If you call my sister a slut, you'll have to answer to me.

A white guy can call another white guy "coon-boy" if he's wearing a coonskin hat (I've been a witness to this). I don't have to tell you the trouble it would cause if the same white guy called a black guy "coon-boy" -- regardless of his taste in hats.

That said, there isn't a human being on Earth that doesn't somewhat resemble a monkey.; May 16, 2008 9:28 AM
Robert Hutchinson said...: Bush resembles a monkey, I think, in the "I'm gonna figure out this tool-usin' business any day now" sense.

That's not a comment on the general discussion, really, but I just think that (despite a lot of the people who like to make the joke) I think that Bush=Monkey jokes are coming from a deeper well of humor.

And in a complete lack of segue, today's strip (5/16) is the one that had me laughing out loud.; May 16, 2008 7:29 PM
Robert Hutchinson said...: I think that "I think that" showed up too often in that last post, I think.; May 16, 2008 7:30 PM
Chadhulhu said...: Freedom of speech, comes into play, if this guy thinks Obama looks like CG, it is his right. People didn't have to buy the shirt, he did not shove it down someone's throat to buy it.
So honestly, I would say, the worse thing of this are the people have bought them, proving the American public, have issues you need to work on.
And I agree George looks more like a monkey.; May 19, 2008 8:54 AM
Claw said...: Ugly women from West Virginia saying that Obama is "another race" and muslim and they've "had enough of Hussein" strikes me as much more disturbing than people buying a stupid, potentially racist T-shirt.; May 19, 2008 10:03 PM
Anonymous said...: I dunno, you can't ignore the context of our history in a situation like this.

If some guy hated Bush and threw up a website called "Lynch Bush" as a gag, that would have a seriously different interpretation than someone who hated Obama throwing up a "Lynch Obama" website.

It's unfortunate that we have to have stuff that's taboo, but it's a price we have to pay for building our country on the backs of slave labor.; May 20, 2008 5:57 AM
Joanna said...: It reminds me of the Don Imus thing a while back. The lesson I took from that whole mess was that a radio talk show host made disparaging remarks about black women playing basketball at an Ivy League university, and no one was upset that black women were playing basketball at an Ivy League university. As far as I'm concerned, racism has become a meta-issue: Actual racism makes less of an impact than the people protesting it.; May 21, 2008 8:45 AM