[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: How not to draw Obama (click to view)
Date: July 17, 2010
The NAACP, one of America's most eminent black civil rights groups, came out swinging at conservative Tea Party activists this week. In a resolution at their annual general meeting, the organization blasted the Tea Party for containing "racist elements," and demanded the group fully repudiate the bigots within their midst.

"The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement," declared NAACP president Ben Jealous after the resolution passed.

Much of the racism allegations swirling around the Tea Party center on the sorts of protest signs many of its members have chosen to bring to their rallies. The NAACP website presently contains a little gallery of some of the most offensive ones, under the heading "don't let hate divide America." Among other crimes against humanity, we can see depictions of President Obama as Mr. T, or that jolly black chef from the cream of wheat box.

As a visual satirist myself, I have to say I find all of this a bit dopey. Unflattering visual analogies do not presuppose racist intent. Depicting the President of the United States as a witch-doctor or monkey is hardly new; practically every president has faced similarly unflattering analogies. I can particularly recall a lot of witch-doctor related parodying directed towards George Bush Sr., a man who coined the term "voodoo economics" to describe his own party's fiscal philosophy. And of course we all remember how frequently his son was depicted as some sort of slope-browed chimpanzee.

We're only reading more into this kind of stuff today because the president is black, so every bit of teasing that used to be regarded as innocuous is now scrutinized under the racial microscope.

While genuinely racist caricatures are obviously hateful and ignorant, I reject the premise that Obama's race is completely off grounds for mockery. A public figure's appearance is always a healthy source of material for satire. Again, we can think of all the times Dubya was teased for his vacant facial expressions, or the many grotesque caricatures of John McCain's hideous neck-flesh. When making parodies, you compare people to things they look like, and the fact remains that Obama does look a lot more like the cream of wheat guy than Bush or Clinton.

Seems to me that a truly a non-racist political culture would see parody as parody, and not get excessively flustered trying to constantly find "hidden agendas" motivating everything. Sometimes a poster is just a poster.

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[Thanos]

I call BS. Creative satire is one thing, and fully justifiable. Over the top racism is something else altogether, and everyone except the most obtuse or deliberately malicious among us can see it for what it is.

[Calbeck]

Quote:

"The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no space for racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in their movement,"

Which...they've done every single time the issue has been brought up. Seriously, where are the Tea Partiers who're supposedly SUPPORTIVE or even "acceptively silent" about these sorts of things? And is the paltry collection of "suggestively racist" items the NAACP has come up with supposed to seriously represent an authentically racist group...you know, like the Ku Klux Klan? Where're the burning crosses and skinheads?

For that matter, if this is the level by which "organizational racism" is to be judged, similar material produced by members and supporters of the NAACP over the years can easily be trotted out to paint that organization as racist. It's over-the-top charges like these that devalue racism on the same level as crying wolf.

Quote:

declared NAACP president Ben Jealous

*snerk* Seriously? No...SERIOUSLY?! -XD

[Psudo]

Thanos: Which pictures from the NAACP website would you classify as "Over the top racism" and why? I can see racism in a few of them, but I want to hear your criteria and reasoning.

Bold means edited.

[angler57]

Here in the states. If it is suggested in a school or a buiness that a black
may have reason to be chastized for any reason. Often the ole, racist thing comes to fore.
If a white commits any offense he is help accountable. Not blacks.
Racism is just a convient excuse in most cases. Not always for sure. But, we have come a long way.
Sure racism still exist.
We have jerks and have had all thru history. They ain't gonna go away.
We have a black prez in the states. Seems to me it took a lot of white votes to elect him. Many more white than blacks here.
But, if you are an elected official critics are good.
They tell what your YES men will not.

[CommanderSock]

Closet racism is far worse than the KKK/Skinhead brand of racism.

[PostFactum]

CommanderSock wrote:

Closet racism is far worse than the KKK/Skinhead brand of racism.

Why?

[CommanderSock]

PostFactum wrote:

CommanderSock wrote:

Closet racism is far worse than the KKK/Skinhead brand of racism.

Why?

Because closet racism cannot be isolated or stamped out as easy. It permeates into every crevice of society and it will eventually start to rot its core.

[Pseudonym]

CommanderSock wrote:

PostFactum wrote:

CommanderSock wrote:

Closet racism is far worse than the KKK/Skinhead brand of racism.

Why?

Because closet racism cannot be isolated or stamped out as easy. It permeates into every crevice of society and it will eventually start to rot its core.

I can't believe that people hiding racism and expressing it subtly is somehow worse than murders and beatings. The fact that it is being referred to as "closet" racism is a good thing, since it indicates that the society as a whole disapproves of it.

[Mr_Canada]

Can you call it whole when it has holes?

[CommanderSock]

Pseudonym wrote:

I can't believe that people hiding racism and expressing it subtly is somehow worse than murders and beatings. The fact that it is being referred to as "closet" racism is a good thing, since it indicates that the society as a whole disapproves of it.

It means society as a whole decided to hide it. Closet racism means there's effectively no way of dealing with it.

"Racism, what racism? We don't have racism, it's about class".

That's what they say in Latin America.

[GreenTiger]

What did they do dram 2 buys and teeth?

[Pseudonym]

CommanderSock wrote:

It means society as a whole decided to hide it. Closet racism means there's effectively no way of dealing with it.

"Racism, what racism? We don't have racism, it's about class".

That's what they say in Latin America.

It means that those who are racist desire to that from their peers, ie society. In the war of ideas, racism has lost, and the losers have been driven from the mainstream. I understand the thought that it is more difficult to "root out" underground racist elements, but once you defeat their vile ideology, you can let its vestiges rot.

[CommanderSock]

Pseudonym wrote:

CommanderSock wrote:

It means society as a whole decided to hide it. Closet racism means there's effectively no way of dealing with it.

"Racism, what racism? We don't have racism, it's about class".

That's what they say in Latin America.

It means that those who are racist desire to that from their peers, ie society. In the war of ideas, racism has lost, and the losers have been driven from the mainstream. I understand the thought that it is more difficult to "root out" underground racist elements, but once you defeat their vile ideology, you can let its vestiges rot.

Racist sentiments come in ebbs and flows. When all is well, and the economy is doing fine everyone is just dandy. When things don't go so well, tension rises.

Closet racist are still people who may be highly influential in society. They may be policy wonks, employers, politicians, bankers, and so on.

The USA still needs the NAACP to remind people that progress made in the last 40(400) years can slip away pretty quickly.

In Europe, Napoleon helped set the norm for the Jews. In most of western Europe they were emancipated between 1811-1858. The Jewish ghetto walls were torn down and Jews were allowed to integrate into European societies.

Alas, Jewish segregation was over, antisemitism was driven deeper underground, and slowly across the west, Jews were seen as humans.

Like the USA after the civil war, blacks were emancipated, but with the withdrawal of the yanks from the south, some progressive policies went into relapse and the black codes were erected. Parallel to how the Jews in Europe lost some freedoms after the fall of Napoleonic rule (especially in Prussia).

Nevertheless it took blacks 130 years and more to integrate into mainstream American society. It took Jews similar amount of time in western Europe.

It took 10 years of Germanic madness to reverse 130 years of progress. Let's not be as naive to think history cannot repeat itself. Even in democratic America.

Especially if the wars in the ME aren't won, there's a very good chance the whole AA race in the USA could be blamed (for Obama's failure), the same way the Jews were blamed for Germany's WWI loss, which subsequently gave rise to racist fascism.

[Calbeck]

PostFactum wrote:

CommanderSock wrote:

Closet racism is far worse than the KKK/Skinhead brand of racism.

Why?

Because virtually anyone can be easily accused of it, since there's no actual solid evidence to support the accusation (it wouldn't be "closet" otherwise), and they're left to disprove a negative.

The same mentality was common during the French Revolution; the mere accusation of a given charge regarding "improper" ideology was sufficient for a person to be found guilty in the eyes of almost any court. Our actual courts, today, have far higher standards --- but the charges of racism are today played out in the court of public opinion, which hews to few standards at all.

So in the name of perfectly eradicating an ideology (inherently a fool's errand), we would rather assume racism where it is not actually known to exist, in hopes of finding an errant actual racist somewhere along the way.

Pretty much like fishing a near-dead lake with dynamite.