Comments on: Are All Anti-Obama Cartoons Off Limits?

By: Rodak

Rodak — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 16:16:29 +0000

there are fewer of these people than Obama’s defenders would like to think.

Interesting, cwillia11. Just how many of them are there, anyway?

By: cwillia11

cwillia11 — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:57:16 +0000

The poster uses Obama’s race but that doesn’t make it racist. The basic idea of the poster is that Obama is not what he seemed to be at first, that his true agenda (socialism) was intentionally misrepresented and that we now understand this. The poster would not have worked so well if Obama were a Swede. This is a case of racism in the eye of the beholder. And I don’t deny that some of those attracted to the poster message might be racist – although there are fewer of these people than Obama’s defenders would like to think.

By: ProfNickD

ProfNickD — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:07:02 +0000

There is no such thing as an “inappropriate” cartoon of a President — if you want to play in the Big Leagues, you’re going to have to take your lumps. A President is the head of the armed forces, has his finger on the button of 7,000 nuclear weapons, and throws people into federal pentitentiaries by the hundreds of thousands. He’s just going to have to take the cartoons and not be a crybaby about it.

By: barker13

barker13 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:39:31 +0000

Re: Rodak // Aug 19, 2009 at 9:34 pm (#12) –

Agreed.

BILL

By: Rodak

Rodak — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:34:54 +0000

It would seem to go without saying that Obama is no more exempt from being the target of partisan ridicule than was his predecessor. Should that ridicule cross the line into racism, it will do more harm to those publishing it, and their associates, than it will to Obama.

By: rbottoms

rbottoms — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:15:31 +0000

So I for one will agree that this did not offend my sensibilities on racial grounds.

Doesn’t offend me either. It does tell me the person who appropriated the imagery doesn’t know the difference between anarchy and a democratically elected administration implementing the policies it was elected to for.

By: SFTor1

SFTor1 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:49:52 +0000

The cartoon certainly did not draw my attention towards whiteface/blackface. The Joker imagery stands for something entirely different. So I for one will agree that this did not offend my sensibilities on racial grounds.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:24:12 +0000

rbottoms: You’re right. Symbols can acquire certain connotations based on history. But it causes confusion among those who are familiar with that history versus those who are not.

I doubt that many of today’s young white folks are that familiar with the days when white comedians like Al Jolson appeared in blackface, or when some black folks “passed” for white by virtue of having relatively light-colored skin. It’s just utterly beyond current culture. I doubt very many of today’s youth even know who Al Jolson was. So to black folks and certain guilt-ridden white liberals, the Joker poster might remind them of that earlier era. But it was not the intent of the artist, or of all the young folks passing the poster around on the Internet.

Carl Sagan related how, when he and his production crew were filming a segment of “Cosmos” on location in India, they were taken aback when Indians began drawing swastikas on the ground. To Indians, the swastika is a harmless Sanskrit symbol of good fortune. (That’s part of its original heritage.) To us in the West, the swastika acquired a whole different meaning in the 20th century.

And if you saw someone in your local shopping mall or supermarket wearing a swastika ornament or swastika tattoo, would you believe them if they told you it’s just a Sanskrit symbol of good fortune?

By: rbottoms

rbottoms — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:36:26 +0000

Who says all Obama cartoons.

Howver, one comparing him to a chimpanzee do not carry the same racial connotations as say BushorChimp does. You may not like it, but the baggage is not the same.

BlackFace or the reverse, WhiteFace has racial connotations. The original art work was probably nothing more than a cool Photoshop experiment, and the Socialism poster itself is probably nothing more effective (though wrong headed) commentary since the Joker stood for anarchy, is destroying the system for the sake of watching it burn.

Just as the Confederate flag can never again become a neutral symbol, there are just some things you can’t say about a black man without out the comment itself causing a ruckus.

The difference between us and say Belfast is you won’t get kneecapped for you opinion.

By: SFTor1

SFTor1 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:28:21 +0000

The joker, a hysterical clown, out of control, utterly sociopathic—the icon of callous evil.

Perhaps not so apt when applied to Barack Obama?