Archive of posts filed under the Racism category.

Some Folks Are Still Confusing “Not Very Funny” With “Racist” UPDATED 3-6-09

Posted by on

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.

Family tree

Excrement

Picnic table

Stevie Wonder

Pity that the same MSM who plastered contextless Abu Ghraib photos everywhere doesn’t have the journalistic integrity to do the same.

You Keep Using That Word

Posted by on

In the comments to this post featuring a video of Katie Couric calling the Vice President of the United States “the white guy”, Hapkido said “Couric’s comment was racist, plain & simple. I wouldn’t accuse her of deliberatley being racist, however.”

“I’d like you better if you were also a hermaphrodite.”

Which gave me pause.

How can a comment be racist if the speaker isn’t?

Maybe racist is the wrong word. Time to check the dictionary… which says it means “racially discriminatory”.

That’s a head-scratcher. Discrimination implies some sort of adverse action. Katie didn’t act, she just talked. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible for ANY words (or cartoons) to be racist by themselves, apart from other evidence of speaker intent to do harm.

It’s time to resurrect two long-neglected words to help us understand this situation:

Prejudice and bias.

The first is an irrational opinion against something, the second is an irrational opinion in favor.

In this case, I don’t think Katie was prejudiced. She sounded CHEERFUL about the presence of “the white guy”. She wasn’t like “curse Joe Biden for destroying the multiculturalism of this moment with his foul caucasity!”

No, she was HAPPY.

So I conclude that she is not racist, but merely has a bias toward seeing groups of politicians with varying skin colors and sex organs.

Now this implies that she would conversely have a prejudice against seeing groups of similarly colored & sexed politicians. Does this mean that if she ever saw a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus, she would end both her life and career in a Columbine-like explosion of bullets and wrath?

Logic says “yes”.

But that’s not a reason to confuse prejudice with racism.

First they come for your monkey, then they come for your Fuehrer…

Posted by on

We mentioned the other day that monkeys are now off-limits for humor. We pointed out that the left compared President Bush to a chimp often. But, after that cartoon in the New York Post, it seems that monkeys are now off-limits for humor. Because it’s offensive. And racist. Even when no racial comparison is made.

But think back. The left did more than compare President Bush to a chimp. Remember? They also compared him to Hitler. A lot.

But, according to a Fox News report, using Hitler in humor is now verboten.

…not everyone is laughing. The film itself was criticized for its humanizing portrayal of the Nazi dictator. Now some people are complaining about the YouTube parodies, which play Hitler up for laughs.

An umbrella organization representing Holocaust survivors in Israel asked YouTube on Tuesday to take down one of the spoofs, in which Hitler complains about the lack of parking spaces in Tel Aviv, according to The Jerusalem Post. The organization said that the clip was grossly insensitive to the feelings of elderly Holocaust survivors.

Which means, no more Hitler videos. No more watching Hitler meltdown over his XBox Live account.

They say you can’t use monkeys in humor.

They say you can’t use Hitler in humor.

Maybe all the good monkey humor has been used up. Maybe it’s now tiresome to make Hitler references.

You can still make fun of Jesus, though.

But only until the left gets tired of the references to “Obamessiah.”

1

Less Offensive

Posted by on

Ok, so idiots are losing their minds about a cartoon.

Let’s help them.

Here’s a copy of the cartoon without words.

I’m not taking submissions on this one, but if you want play with it and post it somewhere, drop a link in the comments, otherwise just leave some words.

I’ll toss a few out there to get things rolling.

* Um… I’ve got a throwdown piece I can lend ya…

* Oh my God! You killed President Bush!

* Dude… your taser is in your LEFT holster.

* Nice group.

* It’s ok Bob, you HAD to shoot him. He was being racist.”

Your turn.

Monkeying around

Posted by on

Racism abounds.

From liberals.

They’re finding racism all over the place. It’s amazing where people find racism. Frank J. pointed out how silly it is that people are calling a cartoon in the New York Post racist, because it has a monkey in it. Okay, chimpanzee. Still, you get my point.

So, are monkeys off limits for humor?

No more funny monkey videos?

That’d be a shame.

The good news, though, is that you can still use monkeys in political humor.

You can do this:

Bush-chimp

You cannot do this:

Obama reach Curious George reach

Any questions?

1

It’s Gonna Be a Rough Four Years

Posted by on

If we’re not allowed to make monkey-related comments about the President who has the biggest sticky-out chimp-ears since John Tyler.

SIDE NOTE: Rev. Sharpton doesn’t know the difference between “infer” and “imply”.

“Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?”

McCain’s Racist Code Words

Posted by on

Some folks say that McCain calling Obama “that one” during the debate was racist.

Some folks say that McCain campaign is using “code words” to appeal to the racist vote.

Some folks are absolutely right.

Here are some of the code words & phrases used by John McCain during the debate:

“working Americans” – as in Hillary’s “working, hard-working Americans. White Americans.”

“the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac” – veiled reference to cross-burnings.

“I’d like you to see the letter that a group of senators and I wrote warning exactly of this crisis. Sen. Obama’s name was not on that letter” – there’s the “T” word again.

“some of these organizations that are the watchdogs” – “dawgs” or “gangstas”. Degrading to inner-city youths.

“$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois” – sounds like “plutonium”, which Obama would sell to Iran because he’s a Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer.

“eliminate our dependence on foreign oil” – a black substance.

“we’re going to have to eliminate those that aren’t working” – A call for the genocide of the black welfare class.

“except for defense, Veterans Affairs, and some other vital programs, we’ll just have to have across-the-board freeze” – subtle plug for Gov. Palin from icy-cold Alaska.

“establish priorities with full transparency” – an extreme form of whiteness.

“like nailing Jell-O to the wall” – The spokesman for Jello Pudding was Bill Cosby, a black man.

“The only bright spot” – almost as obvious as “transparency”.

“the smartest people in America” – “whitest”.

“he’ll impose mandates” – Obama will force men to have same-sex romantic relationships.

“Sen. Obama will fine you” – well, the FIRST letter of the word he meant was “f”…

“do the math” – which black people like Obama are too stupid to do

“like hair transplants” – blatant Biden dig.

“when to go in and when not, when American military power is worth the expenditure of our most precious treasure” – white people.

“That requires a cool hand at the tiller” – In a better America, Obama would be a slave out tilling a field.

“I’ll get Osama bin Laden, my friends. I’ll get him. I know how to get him” – it’s racist to use middle names.

“we hardly know where they are on the map” – a derisive reference to undocumented Mexican migrant workers

“I know what it’s like in dark times” – can’t believe he got away with THAT one.

As a Melanin-Challenged-American, I am ashamed to share a skin color with McCain, and hereby denounce all his racist remarks.