Since I don’t want Eric Holder to think I’m a coward, I’m gonna talk about the “racist” email that got Staten Island Community Education Council member Salvatore Ballarino fired.
I’d like to show it to you, but – unlike the NY Post Chimp cartoon – it’s incredibly hard to find on the internet. Mostly what you get is the scary description:
The mock photo strip, sent Jan. 4 by Salvatore Ballarino, the borough president’s appointee to the volunteer board, features cartoon-like speech balloons drawn out of McCain’s mouth referencing lynching African Americans and equating African American babies with excrement.
The widely forwarded email also questions black fathers’ ability to support their families and states Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles are always smiling, because they did not know they were black. After each “punch line” the cartoon-like strip shows a photo of Obama’s face, positioned in such a way to make him look stunned and dumbstruck.
Here’s a fake-but-accurate version of the one I’m going to discuss:
Now, the joke that has the NAACP in a bilious tizzy is not particularly funny or even clever. It’s just a lame pun on the word “support” combined with a negative stereotype about black men. If that’s all Ballarino had forwarded, I could see their point.
But the cartoon only uses the joke as part of a larger gag. The humor here is the juxtaposition of two serious, somber, dignified men in a formal situation engaging in a conversation utterly unbefitting such a backdrop.
The humor value goes up if you believe that John McCain is a closet racist, which would give it a “funny because it’s true” bonus. For normal people it’d be funnier if the white guy in the picture were an ACTUAL racist, like Senator Robert “Kleagle & Exalted Cyclops” Byrd, but you aren’t gonna find a picture of THOSE two together chatting amiably, so THAT comic’s not getting made anytime soon.
But even though I think this cartoon has some non-racist humor value for a certain audience, I still think it’s too lame to forward.
Why?
Weak sauce punch line.
In a REAL multi-panel cartoon, the nonplussed Obama image would be the pause before the punchline, and not the punchline itself. Ending the way it does, it makes it look like Obama got “got” by the evil racist cracker. The point is to make McCain look like a jerk, not Obama look like a victim. It works better if Obama now makes some attempt to restore normalcy to a VERY awkward situation. Ideally, the 5th panel would reinforce the earlier themes of Obama being composed and dignified, and having McCain obliviously spouting an even more racially insensitive remark. For example:
Now, I’m not saying any of this is either appropriate for or amusing to a general audience. I’m just taking the time to look past the racist tree in search of a funny forest, sowing seeds as necessary to reclaim the land that was clearcut by humorless liberals.
I think it’s what Eric Holder would’ve wanted.
UPDATE 3-6-09
Reader Joe was kind enough to forward me the original email that Ballarino was fired for forwarding. I’m posting links to the images so you can judge them for yourself.
Pity that the same MSM who plastered contextless Abu Ghraib photos everywhere doesn’t have the journalistic integrity to do the same.
The last panel did make me laugh. Sorry.
Kind of a bizarro world final punch line. The left uses that all the time. But only on “liberal certified” targets. What was funny was the pained buildup to the finale and not necessarily the finale. But then I have a Polish half. Maybe its still looking for a corner in a round room.
For comparison, lets try this one (imagine appropriate pictures):
Michelle Obama: How can you tell if a blond’s been using your computer?
Cindy McCain: I don’t know. How?
Michelle Obama: Whiteout on the screen.
Cindy McCain:…
Cindy McCain: Michelle, that was REALLY inappropriate.
Michelle Obama: Only if you were a real blond.
Harvey, Michelle making that joke is highly inappropriate. I mean, a man like Michelle making a sexist joke like that is completely intolerable.
All I’m saying is every time I see Harpy Obama, I’m mystifies as to how s/he got rid of that pesky Adam’s Apple.
What, DesertElephant, you think there are no doctors on the South Side?
BHN: John, that’s the most inappropriate and racist thing I’ve ever heard.
JSM: You must have slept through church.
Hey, I laughed at all of the above. I mean, yes, it’s wildly inappropriate, but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny.
You could use the photos for this joke:
McCain: Know what the difference is between you, Mr. President,
and Jesus Christ?
Obama: No, John , what?
McCain: Jesus knew how to assemble a cabinet.
(after B. Hussy Nobama )
Obama: John, that’s the most inappropriate and blasphemous
thing I’ve ever heard.
McCain: You must have slept through church.
(Stoneface Obama photo- with thought bubble)
“…I’m going to go through the internet, line by line,
and remove this kind of humor…”
You gotta love Harvey’s structural analysis of
racialhumor. It has an intellectual basis that is most unique. I wonder if Frank likes Harvey’s intellect ?really the joke is funny, in a “Ha,ha,ha! OMG I’m going to hell for laughing at that” kinda way
The president is the COWARD!!! When he speaks he hides behind a podium, When in a car it has to be bullit proof. When he’s airborn he has missle defence and escort fighter jets. He has a bunker under his house that you wuold not belive!! Who is the coward? I’ll bet THE OBAMA has never been in a pinto doing 70 mph on I 80-94
8: Also, Jesus had executive experience.
(What do you call it when the National Mall is filled with Obama supporters? Afroturf.)
McCain: Do you know the difference between you and FDR, Obama?
Obama: No, what’s the difference?
McCain: Even in that Wheelchair, FDR look like less of a cripple.
*silence*
Obama: What was that? I can’t hear through this bucket.
No jokes just punchlines:
They have to pick cotton to get to one and it works.
Because all the slow ones are in jail.
You get your posessions back.
Yeah, Obama just isn’t very observant, is he? Not about the economy or the stock market or health care or foreign policy. Kind of like this story (source unknown):
Two women were playing golf. One teed off and watched in horror as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole.
The ball hit one of the men.
He immediately clasped his hands together at his groin, fell to the ground and proceeded to roll around in agony.
The woman rushed down to the man, and immediately began to apologize.”‘Please allow me to help. I’m a Physical Therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you’d allow me,” she told him.
“Oh, no, I’ll be all right. I’ll be fine in a few minutes,” the man replied. He was in obvious agony, lying in the fetal position, still clasping his hands there at his groin.
At her persistence, however, he finally allowed her to help. She gently took his hands away and laid them to the side, loosened his pants and put her hands inside.
She administered tender and artful massage for several long moments and asked, “How does that feel?”
He replied, “It feels great, but I still think my thumb’s broken!”
“The widely forwarded email also questions black fathers’ ability to support their families”
There’s a big difference between laughing at a joke based on a stereotype and actually believing such stereotypes. That’s something that most professional people never seem to grasp. Most people don’t actually think the Polish are idiots, but they’ll still laugh at a good Polish joke (Ever seen a Polish magnet? I’ve got one over there.).
In my home town most people were decended from German, Polish and Norweigen immigrants.
We were all John-McCain-drinking-milk-in-a-snowstorm white, but we tore each other up plenty with a wide variety of ethnic jokes, mostly good-humored, but unrepeatable.
When I joined the service I discovered that guys from all over the country, of every race, told the same jokes, only replacing the appropriate ethnicity to suit their background.
A good joke is a very versatile thing.
George the Cleaner: You know the difference between you and me , Mr. Soetoro — er, Obama — Sir William Wilberforce— whatever your name is?
His Excellency:
G the C: I’m half your age and have two years more experience than you in real private-sector job experience.
His Excellency: And — uh— how long have you been “cleaning”, if, by some miracle, you are in fact a real cleaner? I assure you I am having my people look into your credentials as we speak.
G the C: About two years.
His Excellency:
Cut to AL SHARPTON:
“Rev.” Al: Racism! This is an outrage!
RE: Update
Of course the MSM wouldn’t show this. The images were most likely created by a libtard to make fun of McCain, and they don’t want to let people in on the fact that the Left is a Racist as Senator Byrd. Of course anyone with a pulse and IQ greater than Room temperature should already know the Left is one Rally away from donning hoods and bedsheets.
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