I am curious as to your reactions and thoughts about this editorial cartoon by Glenn Foden.
Its narrative is obvious: the country's first president who happens to be black uses false claims of racism to deflect responsibility for his failures. Such claims are part of a broader "colorblind" white racist narrative that people of color--blacks in particular--are a group of ingrate lying complainers who use false charges of racism, accusations which are de facto slurs against good white people, to somehow get over in America.
Foden is not indicting Obama; he is indicting black and brown Americans as somehow being dishonest liars, and whose experiences are vetoed by the ability of white folks, working through white privilege, to publicly invalidate what they have experienced and know.
In the Age of Obama, "colorblind" white racism has succeeded in advancing one of the most noxious and bizarre claims in recent memory: a new public opinion survey highlights how 44 percent of respondents actually believe that "racism" against white people is as significant a social problem as racial discrimination against people of color.
Such a data point speaks to a type of white backlash and rage that is being actively deployed to advance the plutocrats' and the 1 percent's agenda of using racial anxiety and hatred to further legitimate the evisceration of the public commons and the social safety net. Glenn Foden's cartoon is a visual embodiment of a process through which white elites have been able to manipulate the white working class and poor into supporting policies that actually hurt them economically.
However, I am trying to reconcile why I feel unsettled by the semiotics of such an obvious cartoon.
Could it be that I am offended intellectually, and my sense of reason is disturbed, by how any thinking person could believe that Barack Obama, who rarely if ever talks about race (except to scold black people), is somehow able to deploy his "blackness" as political capital in an effective manner on a national level?
Maybe this editorial cartoon bothers me because I am instinctively repelled by intellectual dishonesty, especially as it serves white supremacy.
President Obama has been subjected to a range of racially motivated assaults by the White Right. They include the grotesqueness that was/is Birtherism, to a resurgent Confederate States of America in the form of the Republican Party (and their habit of embracing the American Swastika i.e. the Confederate flag), and a Right-wing media machine that has deployed some of the most base and ugly stereotypes about black people in order to smear Barack Obama and the First Family.
Glenn Foden's editorial cartoon suggests that all of those events either have not happened and/or that the reasonable assumption that anti-black animus by many in the white polity--read: the Republican Party, a good number of Independents, and Red State America--has no impact on Obama's popularity or political legitimacy.
Racism is not an opinion. It is an empirical fact. Given the disconnect by the White Right from empirical reality across a range of policy matters, the white supremacist ethos of Glenn Foden's cartoon is part of a larger pattern of anti-intellectualism by movement conservatives.
Politics involves the manipulation of feelings, emotions, and symbols to advance some end goal where power and resources are protected, conserved, or redistributed within society.
Foden's cartoon is a great example of how white racism and white racial resentment can be manipulated and marshaled by one (deceptively simple) image. If "art" is supposed to move the spirit I commend his technique and ability; I remain disgusted by the lie he advances.
40 comments:
It is a stupid cartoon, it is intellectually dishonest.
I had a professor in college who was a conservative, older white man. He taught his students more things about discrimination against African Americans in the recent past than most average Americans know or will admit to.
It's kind of strange to think about the things he brought up in my Metropolitan Politics 400 class, redlining, housing discrimination, education inequality, suburbanization, poorly designed welfare laws, none of these things most people will admit to or acknowledge in any real way.
And the modern racist backlash. Look, when my mom told me about her disdain for Barack Obama, she made it very clear (her husband is full on racist POS). She said to me, "He's a f*ckin muslim, Barack HUSSEIN Obama." and of course he hates white people. These people don't even think the Confederate flag is a racist symbol, it's pride, Southern pride, with 'states' rights' attached to it.
As a conservative cartoonist, I am often labelled as "racist." This is bullshit, but I have long ago learned that the use of this term is not an invitation to a genuine dialogue but a cheap way to dismiss differing opinions. I am sorry you choose to "misunderstand" my cartoon and am saddened that you feel the need to leap to conclusions. That's your choice, I suppose. Peace
Conservatism and racism are overlapped in contemporary post civil rights america. The Southern strategy and dog whistle politics are central to that move.
I would suggest that your cartoon is racist because of how it enables a narrative that white racism against president obama, and more generally, is not responsible for how so many perceive and react to his policies. There is a ton of empirical data on the overlap between symbolic racism and "conservative" political attitudes across policy issues.
Your cartoon suggests that claims of racism are somehow specious. Moreover, you are advancing a narrative of Obama--who is decidedly conservative and race neutral in some very problematic ways in my opinion--as some type of noxious "black" president who "plays the race card".
It would be great to dialogue and explain your logic and motivation in the cartoon. You are choosing to retreat and not engage. I hope you reconsider.
At your invitation I took the liberty of reading some of your opinion/blog/screed pieces to try and understand a little bit of your world view. You are gifted in your expression, but I can't get past the sense of anger I get from your writing. When you write things along the line of "Foden is not indicting Obama; he is indicting black and brown Americans as somehow being dishonest liars, and whose experiences are vetoed by the ability of white folks, working through white privilege, to publicly invalidate what they have experienced and know." I don't get offended, just bored. I sincerely doubt that any dialogue between us would lead to any enlightenment. I will continue to stand by my work, and hope that you will continue to stand by what you do. And that is as it should be. Peace again.
Again, you default to the very points I raise above. We angry black people. No reason to dialogue with us. Are you aware of how you are playing to type regarding my comments about white racism? That is priceless.
Yo
"I don't get offended, just bored.
Priceless. All good and decent people should be concerned about how racism, sexism, and other types of inequality are net drains on our society and counter to the best spirit of what the American creed and democracy should be."
You do realize in your deployment of "angry" black people you prove my point? And how you are "bored" by a worldview of empirical reality that you find unsettling. Again conservatism and racism are one and the same. They are also so deeply overlapped that many conservatives are incapable of seeing just how racist they are. I do wish you would engage. But unfortunately, you prove my points too easily.
Please...what's boring is the damned cartoon. It trades on a familiar, frayed, shopworn racist stereotype. Its about as clever as a "conservative" calling it an "opinion."
Conservatism couldn't exist without anti-black resentment.
I agree w/your sentiment.
I've never had a problem w/anyone, regardless of race & their critiques of Obama's politrix.
Only if it is REALLY about politics.
Some may slam him about his politrix to you (me) but that could serve as code speak for everything they feel is wrong or @fault w/blacks. No matter how eloquent the difference is in opinion.
Like how Sherman let y'all know 'thug' could very well be the new euphemism for Nigerians or Ethiopian royalty.
Though I'm not a fan of Obama's or any poLIEtician for that matter just know in some circles an attack on him is an attack on black people.
Pay attention to what is not being said. "How dare you educate yourself, strive for excellence, surpass all racially motivated snares en route to success, attain high positions in society, conduct yourself in a manner that doesn't match caricatures, breakdown barriers, stereotypes while putting Swiss cheese-like holes in MY theories & statistics by not becoming just that?"
Regardless of station. Upper echelon or working class this could very well be a Waterloo type attack on your character & livelihood.
Mayweather shouldn't spar w/unknowns.
Uh oh. Who is Mayweather in this situation?
Sherman is being fined almost $8,000 for his post-game taunt. Really putting him in his place, huh?
One of your best articles.
Obama made a bland comment during a recent interview about some people disliking him because he is black, but also some people liking him because he is black. This conservative cartoonist (a rare breed) hears it repeated and distorted by conservative media, and produces a cartoon of Obama blaming his "falling" job approval rating on racists. Intellectually dishonest cartoon, satirizing something the president never said.
I love the fact that this conservative cartoonist is bored by the subject of perceived racism, that it's such an abstract concept to him. I still remember bringing my little sons to an italian barbershop, and while waiting their turn, one of the other patrons taunted the owner by saying "so now you cut blacks hair??" Or the time my wife got an obscene, racist phone call. Or the time my four year old son was called "monkey boy" by a white child at a playground.
Yawn! Such boring stuff, right mr. foden?
Yet you used it in your cartoon.
Great piece CDV! Great job connecting the dots. Very meaty too: I'm going to have to reread it a few times. ;)
The White Right is not interested in "honest conversation" because they would lose. We see this repeatedly.
How kind. We try to speak directly and sincerely.
You have to realize that Obama committed a major offense in running for president to conservatives. Obama is black and he won twice. And then he occasionally is so rude as to remind them of the fact that he is president and he should be condemned for this one too, that he is a black man. Horrible I tell you.
Meaty like head cheese or a good sausage?
Let's go with good sausage. ;)
My uncle was a butcher. He made the best sausage. I'm hungry just thinking about it...
Tonight on the Nature Channel, we study that rarest of birds, the "conservative cartoonist" (or conserviticus cartoonicus). We see him in his natural habitat, a right wing newspaper, and hear his high-pitched (almost a dog-whistle, really) call, satirizing Teachers Unions, Welfare Cheats, The Democrat Party, and other targets. This rare breed (only Donna Barstow and a few others exist in the wild) prides itself on its courageous (although it was curiously silent from 2000 to 2008), loud cry, echoing through right-wing blogosphere. Indeed, possessing only one, right wing, it can be observed circling its nest for hours, complaining loudly that it is often called "racist" but that this is bullshit. Although technically proficient as a cartoonist, its artistic (if you want to call it that) style is indistinguishable from a hundred other political cartoonists. It really has no viewpoint of its own, but merely parrots and amplifies what it hears from other larger birds like the Hannity and Limbaugh, whose piercing cries fill the cartoonist's habitat. The Conservative Cartoonist bird can often be found feeding on the droppings of these larger birds. It is his only source of nourishment.
Here is one way that you could engage the dialogue in a civil manner with facts, and if your cartoon is even remotely accurate, it shouldn't be too difficult: Find one documented instance in the public record where Barack Obama has made some explicit statement that his job-approval ratings, low, high or whatever, are due to racism.
you're on point, as always. Of course, when you point out the obvious, some can't take it.
then again, you've been Black in America longer than 3 days and you know which way is up.
Good shit Chauncey, I been slacking. I gotta come here more often
Not slacking. You are being productive and successful.
Probably even more offensive than Obama being a black man is the fact that Obama is the product of a black and a white parent. Oh how horribly offensive to conservative sensibilities:
It's widely known that the Deep South banned interracial marriages until 1967, but less widely known that many other states did the same (California until 1948, for example) - or that three brazen attempts were made to ban interracial marriages nationally by amending the U.S. Constitution.
1664
Maryland passes the first British colonial law banning marriage between whites and slaves - a law that, among other things, orders the enslavement of white women who have married black men
..
1691
The Commonwealth of Virginia bans all interracial marriages, threatening to exile whites who marry people of color. In the 17th century, exile usually functioned as a death sentence:
"For prevention of that abominable mixture and spurious [children] which hereafter may increase in this dominion, as well as by negroes, mulattos, and Indians intermarrying with English, or other white women, as by their unlawful accompanying with one another, "Be it enacted ... that ... whatsoever English or other white man or woman being free, shall intermarry with a negro, mulatto or Indian man or woman bond or free shall within three months after such marriage be banished and removed from this dominion forever
..
1883
In Pace v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that state-level bans on interracial marriage do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling will hold for more than 80 years.
..
1967
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturns Pace v. Alabama (1883), ruling in Loving v. Virginia that state bans on interracial marriage violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
..
2000
Following a November 7th ballot referendum, Alabama becomes the last state to officially legalize interracial marriage.
..
Interracial marriage remains controversial in the Deep South, where a 2011 poll found that a plurality of Mississippi Republicans still support anti-miscegenation laws.
—http://civilliberty.about.com/od/raceequalopportunity/tp/Interracial-Marriage-Laws-History-Timeline.htm
Combining the cynical with the historical--why didn't I think of that?
Well done!
JESS
"colorblind" white racist narrative that people of color--blacks in particular--are a group of ingrate lying complainers who use false charges of racist, accusations which are de facto slurs against good white people, to somehow get over in America."
this is crap.
"he is indicting black and brown Americans as somehow being dishonest liars, and whose experiences are vetoed by the ability of white folks, working through white privilege, to publicly invalidate what they have experienced and know."
Crap again
"white backlash and rage that is being actively deployed to advance the plutocrats' and the 1 percent's agenda of using racial anxiety and hatred to further legitimate the evisceration of the public commons and the social safety net."
more crap.
"I am instinctively repelled by intellectual dishonesty"
I dont think so.
"You have to realize that Obama committed a major offense in running for president to conservatives. Obama is black and he won twice" West, Carson, Parker, Love, Scott, Rice, Cain, Steele, Jackson, King, Watts, Swan, Holmes, Frank, Brow, Blackwell, Edler, Walker etc. 99% of African Americans may have votes for POTUS but they are 13% of population. So that would mean, White voters are idiots too.
change is happening at an exponential rate. so your history lesson while interesting does not apply here.
Thanks but I saw it somewhere. Wish I could find the source.
damn, I never even thought about people hating the fact that he is biracial. I've seen a number of memes in my white supremacist trolling about interracial marriages, "once you go black we don't want you back." disgusting... some of these folks actually feel entitled to possession of women because of their skin color and their desire to protect the white race.
Those colonists made it illegal for women to sleep with uncircumcised men at first, no Indians, no Africans. I found it interesting that they specifically outlawed uncircumcised men... so men were circumcised men did not have that restriction.
lol. the wild troll appears to enlighten the misguided black folk of their misunderstanding of their experience in America.. nice try, you offer nothing.
whut? This kid needs some history lessons. Enroll in a university.
That's very interesting. I guess it goes without saying that the colonists were circumcised.
P. S. Reply still coming on the other thread.
Nice intellectual debate: "this is crap. more crap. crap again."
Do you get paid by the word, or by the hour?
I'll check my source and get back to you... I'm having trouble finding relevant information in the net.
Again. I typically delete trolls because they are a waste of our energy. But sometimes, an example comes along that is so perfect in how it demonstrates the mix of authoritarianism, anti-intellectualism, and racism by contemporary conservatives that I have to let it stand. Thank you good sir. Priceless.
How (do) you expose yourself & shoot yourself in the foot @the same damn time?
Can't nobody accuse you of not multi-tasking.
Anyway...
From all @WARN: We are better @life than you.
Thanks CDV for the light snack. Night all.
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