ThatDeborahGirl:  Congratulations.  First you missed the point I made in my first post about the cartoon, and now you miss the point of my second post. 

I was “not” suggesting that you or any other intelligent African American was anti-Muslim.  What I am suggesting is that American society—and that includes all races—has been so bombarded with insidious propaganda which depicts all Muslims as terrorists, that even when everyone knows that Obama is “not” a Muslim, he and all his supporters take pains to deny any suggestion that Senator Obama has any connection to the Muslim faith precisely because they understand the impact such false depictions can having in a society imbued by anti-Arab, racist propaganda.  (The cartoon did not contain any of the classic racist caricatures from the Jim Crow era.  Instead, it depicted the Obamas as Muslim terrorists residing in the Oval office—and you did not immediately see that?)

Second, I “never” denied that The New Yorker failed in its attempt at satire.  Instead, I simply pointed out that the offense that you and many others took was the product of the artist’s “failure” to provide this same cartoon as something drawn on a canvas by one of the horrible right-wing media pundits who, daily, smear the Obamas at places like the Faux News at Fox with verbal assaults that are essentially indistinguishable from what is depicted in the The New Yorker cartoon.  Had the artist done that, the satire would have been obvious for all to behold, and I would venture that you and other Obama supporters would have been pleased rather than appalled.

I am not attempting to “defend” this inept effort.  But the failure lies in the artist’s inability to convey that he was challenging the right-wing hype about the Obamas rather than the Obamas themselves.

I would suggest that you step back, draw a deep breath, and realize when you are “not” being personally attacked!

The critical point is who was the object of the cartoon.  If it had been the Obamas, the cartoon would have been imbued with racist sentiments not only about African Americans but Muslims.  And I would venture to say that in 21st Century America, it is the Arab and the Muslim who are the most vilified as a result of a process of dehumanization quite similar to that which African Americans experienced in the late 19th and 20th Century period of Jim Crow.  Where Don Imus was abruptly terminated by MSNBC, and appropriately so, for referring to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “Nappy headed ho’s,” right-wing media pundits routinely disparage Arabs and Muslims, even going so far as calling for their wholesale slaughter, without adverse impact on their careers.

Consider, for example, the 12/21/05 Ann Coulter column:  “I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.”  Yet, on 3/5/07 Tucker Carlson announced on MSNBC, “We’re happy to have her on.  She’s great TV.  She makes smart points.  She’s courageous…a very talented writer.”

When Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, appeared on CNN, Glenn Beck said:  “I have been nervous about this interview with you because what I feel like saying is, “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.”

To appreciate the level of racism in Beck’s remark. Turn the clock back to the Black Hawk down incident.  Imagine if Beck had, at the time, questioned the loyalty of John Conyers because the U.S. was fighting in Somalia, an African nation, because Conyers was an “African”-American.  No doubt, such a remark would have cost Beck his job, but Beck did not lose his job for his obnoxious challenge to Ellison.  Instead, he moved up to ABC’s Good Morning America, its producer announcing that “Glenn is a leading cultural commentator.”

Sadly, Beck is “a leading culture commentator” precisely because 21st Century American culture is imbued with anti-Arab & anti-Muslim racism in the same way that early 20th Century German culture was imbued with anti-Semitism.  African-Americans are not immune to the objectification of Arabs & Muslims through this process of dehumanization, which explains why people like ThatDeborahGirl are so distressed by anything that falsely links the Obamas to Islam.

Re ThatDeborahGirl, July 20 at 1:35 pm #

Deb,

I have observed that often genuine racism is concealed beneath a facade of “humor”. On a deeper level, sadism is an important element of human nature, and humor often provides a harmless sublimation of that wonderful human impulse to enjoy the suffering of others. Racism obviously has a large sadistic component, and so racism is often expressed as racial “humor”. I do agree with you that when racists make a racist joke, it isn’t funny; it’s just a veneer of “humor” covering out-and-out racism. I always call racists on this. But on the other hand, when Dave Chapelle makes a racist joke, all I do is roll on the floor, because it is not being made with racist intentions but the very opposite, and its effect is also the very opposite; it weakens the racial stereotype instead of making it stronger. I see the New Yorker cartoon in the same light as a Dave Chappelle skit, and believe it will have the same positive, anti-racist effect.

ThatDeborahGirl—You still don’t get it.  The cartoon was intended to give the right-wing commentators who smear the Obamas daily a swift poke in the eye.  Unfortunately, many fail to see that because the cartoonist did not put the object of his derision into the cartoon.  If the cartoonist had shown Rush Limbaugh trying to paint the Obamas as terrorists would you still have been offended?

Thank Allah for Jon Stewart! That piece was brilliant! “And now we know where the real two-dimensional figures are - television!”  Those media idiots are phony beyond belief. That cartoon was intended to help Obama and I think it did. There is no better way to counter racial stereotypes than making fun of them, as anyone who appreciates cartoons like South Park or commedians like Dave Chapelle understands. Some people just got no sense of yuma.

The New Yorker generally publishes pieces that are read by the well-educated.  The editors assumed that its usual audience would “get it.”  Unfortunately, they did not anticipate what would transpire when the cartoon got into the hands of a dumbed-down, commercial media.  In hindsight, the New Yorker would probably have been far more effective in conveying its message if the cover had depicted someone from either the Fox Propaganda Network or Rush Limbaugh drawing the same picture.  Then the message would have got through to even to the idiot talking heads who were actually being skewered by the cartoon.

Another distraction whipped up by the mainstream media. WHO CARES about the cartoon? It is funny! Who cares about flag lapel pins and other wedge issues introduced because illegal immigration, gay marriage and abortion may not be enough to elect the aging flip flopper, McSAME!

McSAME in ‘08! New McWAR in ‘09!!!!!

Of course it is total nonsense that Barack Obama attended a “madrassa”. However, it is also shortsighted to overlook the fact the the great majority of the students in Indonesian Elementary Schools, which he attended, are Muslims, peaceful Muslims at that. Nevertheless, there is an amazing tolerance for other religions in Muslim Indonesia. The children of a friend of mine who lives in Surabaya adhere to four different religions without any problems in the family.

“the same media that investigated Barack Obama’s falsely alleged attendance of a madrassa can be shocked”

Which I am sure got full approval to investigate which is not anything like the ‘falsely alleged’ AWOL of w for a year in his service with the air national guard. Damn, I’m sure they sifted through all that to hopefully incriminate obama but were disappointed.
But how pleased everyone was to discover that the news of w’s AWOL was a bogus report because it appeared to be printed on the wrong paper with the wrong ink and Ed Bradley’s story about the supposed attempt to get yellowcake from Niger did not have to be played.
Gotta what those tricksey neorepubs.

Determined to keep us absorbed in trivialities the msm will remember this election year as the year of the cartoon.  Once again a commedian has to provide rational commentary on the news.