You be the judge. Some posters at Democratic Underground, which I enjoy reading, say Friday’s cartoon is “blatantly racist.”
To answer some of the comments posted as of this writing, I always draw Obama the same way, and while caricature is always a struggle for me I don’t feel that I’ve been tougher on him than I was on previous presidents like Bush or Clinton, at least not graphically. As to why he’s naked in bed, well, lots of people sleep naked and it’s just funnier to show people naked whenever you get the chance.I imagined Michelle throwing on a nightie and running out to grab some aides to help out.
One thing that strikes me is that people online who are unfamiliar with your body of work will take one piece out of context and see stuff there that they otherwise wouldn’t. On the other hand, cartoons have to be able to stand alone too.
This is the sort of thing that causes some of my colleagues not to draw African-American people at all.
So anyway, what do you think?
30 Comments.
These people are nuts. They need to check the dictionary for the meaning of “blatant”, and they abuse the term “racism”, so as to render it meaningless, which is a shame.
Not racist.
For the Obama apologists, criticism = racism. It’s far easier that way than having to defend the indefensible.
Q: Who’s a racist?
A: Anyone winning an argument with, or offerring criticism of the Obama Administration.
Quite right, above… the race card has been played so many times since Obama announced he was running for President that it’s past fraying at the edges and heading towards disintegration from such frequent use….
The charge of racist has been rendered almost entirely meaningless.
These accusations of racism are from people desperate to defend the indefensible Obama. They can’t find good things to say about him so their only recourse is to attack his critics. I say the one who calls racism in this case is the racist.
I am decidedly against Obama’s right wing policies. They are no better—and in many cases worse—than could be expected from a white man. What a disappointment. He is even worse in a white way than I ever thought he could be. I’ve been hating right-wing white-man politics for such a long time for many good reasons. I expect the white man politicians to give people the shaft every chance they get. I suppose my bias could be against Obama’s white half and your pictures don’t make him look black enough. I’ve never been accused of racism for saying bad things about white scum politicians before.
Reverend Wright for President
Nope.
Not racist. What are they even talking about? Methinks some closeted bigot protests too much. One guy even said it was “filth” and so is anyone who defends it. Ah yes, “filth,” always a favorite word choice of the level-headed rational-minded complex-analytical-thinker. Yeah hi, I’m almost 99% sure I’m not filth. I didn’t shower today though.
No I don’t think so.
I think you got it right in the assessment that people unfamiliar with your work probably hopped on your Obama caricature without the context of your other work. Perhaps others may think you are making a joke about CPT in general by taking a pot shot at the president as opposed to just trying to point out the sloth-like ineffectiveness of Obama as evidenced by just about everything he has done to date.
I don’t agree with the right on a lot of things, but one thing I think they have been partially correct on is that the left has been a little trigger-happy with the “racist” card in response to criticism of Obama. Don’t get me wrong, much of the right’s response to Obama has indeed been “blatantly” racist, but even when it hasn’t been the “racist” card still gets thrown back at them and now it is being tossed leftward in response to legitimate criticism as well.
Wrong, yes. Racist, no.
How wrong can they be?
Racist? Huh? When I saw this it didn’t occurred to me that someone might think that…
Me neither. I was surprised.
luckily, the cartoon was only labeled “racist”… Imagine how hard it would be to make a cartoon if Obama was also gay, Jewish and disabled… the squeals of indignation would come from all sides
Not racist. What would a non-racist cartoon trying to make the same point look like? About 60 precent of the criticism of Obama is racist but not this, not any of Rall’s.
Maybe if you’d called him “your boy” in the toon. Then again if it was a right-wing cartoon you’d get away with it. 😛
Seriously, I don’t see anything in there as racist at all, at all . DU(h) remarks notwithstanding
Not racist. Jeesh. Come on people.
Racist? Cheap shot. True, funny, spot-on…NOT racist.
It’s the Internet– it’s like a giant magic-eye picture. People see what they want, or they pretend to so they’re not left out of their cocooned support group.
I agree with the DU commenter who said anyone who sees an ape in that cartoon is dealing with their own issues regarding black people.
Funnier still was the idea that portraying Obama as sleeping suggests that Ted holds the view of all black people as shiftless and lazy. Ted, make sure you only draw Obama fully alert and working hard from now on (but not manual labor– that would clearly be a slavery reference).
Also, no necktie– the DU crowd might see that as a noose.
Maybe the president and first lady should have had the same skin tone as the other guys in the room?
But that would be unrealistic.
“That’s racist” is the stock accusation used whenever someone wants to derail valid criticism of Obama or attempt to shame someone into toeing the line for the cult of Obama. Reading over that thread you linked to, all I could envision was a circle jerk over a Rorschach test. Most of the posters come off as amateur art critics who are too busy plying their own myopic symbolism onto the work of others to see actual intent. A crowbar couldn’t remove their heads from their collective asses.
Not racist. I have been reading Ted for a long time and have never detected anything other than that he is for equal rights for all. He is a caricaturist. Look at how he draws white people. Tee hee …
This cartoon is racist in the exact same way that a cartoon depicting George W. Bush golfing, fishing or clearing brush is. It’s that very special form of racism that, once invoked, causes you to laugh heartily at the accuser rather than the accused “racist”.
Not. Racist. In the least.
No, it’s not racist. That never even occurred to me when I read it the first time. After a second viewing, I’m even more certain it is not racist.
These Obamabots are shameless. They’re even worse than the RedState wingnuts defending Bush. They’ll do anything and everything to protect “fearless leader”, including using the race card.
I don’t see an ape in that picture.
I see an ineffectual war-mongering Wall Street whore.
But that’s just me.
Here’s a recent quote on illusions by Phil Plait that seems apt:
This video illusion will destroy your brain (August 17th, 2011), Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy blog
(Amazingly enough, Obama is not even in that cartoon! It has something to do with Ted Rall’s use of color and shade. LOL.)
I’m black and don’t find this cartoon racist. The Obamabots are batshit crazy about this smooth talking charlatan. The p.c. police will give you both kidneys rather than risk being labelled racist by Jesse, Al, and related race hustlers. That’s why Obama is one of the most dangerous people on the planet. That biracial black face silences all valid dissent and causes 99% of the black population to lose any semblance of common sense – despite fact that Obama’s actions and inactions have left most of them in worse shape than during Reagan’s reign of terror. It’s pathetic: people will fight you over some perceived racial slur or slight but won’t do shit when Obama and other powers that be fuck them over with regard to jobs, housing, education, social safety net, war, etc. Beat them senseless with the sticks and stones of poverty and corruption but don’t dare use words or actions they deem racist. I wouldn’t be concerned with comments from Democratic Underground. I’ve never read the site, but will bet rent money it’s populated by the usual p.c. white professional Left who do as much to stifle progress as the right wing boogeyfolk they love to denigrate.
@piranhaintheguppytank: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.”
That cartoon up there is not even a drawing! Just try to cut it out and pin it on your wall.
The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in [René Magritte’s] painting, The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. It does not “satisfy emotionally”—when Magritte once was asked about this image, he replied that of course it was not a pipe, just try to fill it with tobacco.
Via Wikipedia.