The Plain Dealer spikes comic but was it over racism, Republicans or predators?
You may go see the Non Sequitur cartoon from Friday, 1/13/12 which the Plain Dealer did not run. I used it as a teaching moment with my 6th grader and he got why it could be objectionable right away. Whether or not it should have been published is of course a different matter.
Here are the comments at my Facebook thread and many times more can be found at former Plain Dealer journalist Connie Schultz’s (aka Pulitzer Prize winner and US Senator Sherrod Brown’s wife).
Multiple folks in the news biz indicate that no other papers appear to have pulled it but I have not corroborated that. The PD’s Ted Diadiun, the reader rep, says he was receiving a lot of comments but mostly people thinking the paper should have let it run (that was from earlier today).
So – go look and then come back and tell – what did you think? Should the PD have let it run?
Cross-posted from Writes Like She Talks.
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Well the response to the rabbit is obviously: “Thats because you don’t look at them enough”.
Looks like political correctness stupidity. It’s so stupid because aren’t they trying to show readers that at least part of racism is silly or “superficial?”
Brewhouse – that’s exactly what I think, among other messages the cartoon sends. But what I’m really proud of is that both my youngest kids (my oldest hasn’t seen it yet) knew INSTANTLY and said immediately, as the first reaction, “That’s stupid!” re: stupid to think that they all look alike because of course they are different. The only thing I will say that I do think has legitimacy is for those who saw a prey seeing predators – they saw a rabbit seeing every single one in the lineup as a potential predator from whom the rabbit must run. So, I get that in that sense, to the prey, doesn’t matter which type of predator he’s seeing – they all want to eat him. I think that’s fair. But that’s why it’s such a powerful cartoon – because of all the other messages it’s got in it.
Jill, “they all look alike to me”, is/was a common racist comment with some truth. The reason they all look alike is because you don’t notice them. If you don’t notice them, you can’t acknowledge them or their accomplishments.
Using animals in place of humans reminds us of our racism without denoting a specific race. I doubt your six grader could pick that up.
They all want to eat him and predators likely see almost all prey alike.
Actually, they see all prey alike, probably, some are better, that is, feeble or ill, weaker, than others.
Kind of like how criminals view their prey, or crooks or even maybe how some view Romney
Brewhouse
I’d say; “How Most view Romney”.
Allen – yes, I know – that was MY first reaction when I saw the cartoon.
And that clearly was my kids reaction too but in their generation’s way – which is, it’s always stupid to say they all alike when clearly they don’t all look alike. My 6th grader even said, precisely, when I asked him, why do you think the newspaper thought it might be objectionable, he said, “Because it’s racist.”
The whole prey-predator thing didn’t occur to me until I read others noting that as what they saw first.
Well I saw the predator/prey, but I was predisposition to the racist angle because I made an error. I didn’t recognize the cartoon as political. At the same time I got a malicious URL warning from the site, then I was knocked off. So I didn’t go back to make sure. In any case I like the way your kid thinks.
Allen, I have to give a lot of credit to our school district. While I like to think that what goes on in the home has a lot to do with it too, I know how hard our public school works on issues of diversity etc. There are some things I’m not proud of too in our community in this category but overall, I see my kids learning the important stuff. There’s no question that they’re ahead of my generation – tail end of baby boomers.
To me the cartoon illustrates the silliness of racism, and is more anti-racist than racist. Was the Plain-Dealer’s reasoning they wanted to avoid any cartoon that even touched on race?
What is it with Plain-Dealer? Don’t they know what Non Sequitur…
… means.
Silly? Maybe… But it beats talking (or even thinking?) about what has become of the Republican Party. A nice segue IMO.
Jill-
You’re alright Jill. Your doing just fine in my opinion.
Besides not being particularly funny (a shame, Non Sequitur is one of the better newspaper comics), the real issue isn’t that it mimics past racist legal practices, it’s that it seems to justify it.
We are led to believe that such comments are justified because we (white folks) are the victim, and we get a pass on accuracy because of our “victim hood”.
The smug look on the rabbits face seals it: he is using his power as victim for ill.
Interesting — I’m not sure exactly what the comic was trying to say. On the one hand, it may have been meant to show how all black people are looked at as criminals, and mocking the school-to-prison pipeline for so many black males these days. Even if that was what they were going for, though, you’ve got the fact that even if 4 of the 5 of the preditors didn’t commit *this* crime against this rabbit, they are all predisposed to eating rabbits, so the rabbit sees them all the same anyway. Furthermore, a rabbit should see them all as dangerous preditors.
Even if non sequitur was trying to make an anti-racist comic pointing out the inherent racism in our criminal justice system, they succeeded in exactly the opposite by creating a racist comic.