Aunt Jemima cartoon causing ruckus in Ohio

Comments ²⁰

1. Shane Davis

   “it was intended to offend some people. The damage done by this public official was done to WHITE people.â?

   If some stupid, moronic idiotic fool had said THAT after the chimp cartoon (or after any of the other bevy of ‘racist’ cartoons that’s popped up this year) he’d be ridden out of town on a rail, tarred & feathered, drawn & quartered and castrated before the sun set.

   But when an idiotic thuggish jerk who happend to be black says using racism to offend people is ok because it reinforces HIS agenda, then it’s supposed to be fine and acceptable?

   The wonderful beauty of this little episode is it perfectly highlights the dangerous, hypocritical double standard of political correctness.

   One side is not allowed to make comments even if they don’t APPEAR to be racist or offensive – someone just has to say they are offended and that makes it racist and they have to shut up and go away and often get their career destroyed by the blow up.

   But on the other side, some cretin can puke out blatant, hateful racist bilge like that TRULY intentionally incendiary cartoon and it’s OK because it hates on and attacks ‘the right people’, meaning someone the utterer of the racist crap disagrees with.

   NAACP President George Forbes is an idiot, a coward and a hatemongering racist pig who needs his @$$ whipped in the street until he can’t stand up anymore. Anyone who would not only defend but enthusiastically support such a venomous attack either has a mind that is profoundly poisoned by race hatred or he is genuinely one of the most pathologically ignorant, foolish men ever borne by a woman.

   If I was a subscriber of that paper or a member of the NAACP I would be ashamed to my core to see Mr.Carr’s cartoon and then hear Mr.Forbes ugly, shameful, disgusting comments.

   I remember once as a kid hearing a white man refer to another white man as a ‘n*****’ lover simply because that guy was friends with and decent to a man that happend to be black. It made me angry and disgusted that a person could be so mean and stupid as to make a comment like that. Looks like that sewage runs on both sides.

   If Mr. Forbes were white, he’d either be writing op-ed pieces supporting David Duke or wearing pillow cases with eye holes cut out on Saturday nights shooting out porch lights.

   George Forbes is a genuine 24 karat @$$hole.

2. Shane Davis

   I gotta think about this one…

3. Jeff Darcy

   Alan,
   The county reform plan State Sen. Turner endorsed passed by a huge majority not only among white voters but black voters. The only people opposing it were old guard entrenched white and black politicians. The reform plan vote was the result of a huge on-going public corruption investigation by the FBI that has already resulted in several public officials makeing plea-deals.
   We’re talking about millions of dollars in bribes being paid.

   This scandal has rocked the Democratic party which has dominated county gov. Forbes was one of the most powerful council Presidents in city history while Dennis Kucinich and George Voinovich were Mayors. He’s been a controversial figure to say the least. Our columnist Philip Morris, who is also black, blasted him this week for among other things, his history of playing the race card.

   The Call and Post is owned by Don King. Forbes is believed to have a heavy influence on the papers editorials. This about the old guard trying to cling to power as the FBI drags many of their cohorts off to jail

   Turner has the support of the younger generation of black
   business leaders ,politicians and voters and thus is seen as threat by people like Forbes.

4. Dave Stephens

   A friend of mine who is black noticed that the most racist statements he heard were from his black friends, far more than his white friends and he concluded that this double-standard was re-inforced at their churches in addition to what racial BS they heard from their peers… As a Republican who is black, he also assumed their political affiliations played a role, especially with all the black Democrats who tend to play the race card whenever convenient… I am a Democrat, and I’d have to say I think he’s got a good argument, though, because I am white, I know my opinion doesn’t carry much authority. But ULTRA racist cartoons like this one sure rings true to me about what goes on behind closed doors in some Democratic power centers. Nice to see it in the open, for once…

5. Eric Millikin

   “If some stupid, moronic idiotic fool had said THAT after the chimp cartoon …”

   I hope we can all agree that there’s a difference between drawing someone shot dead and bleeding in the street and drawing someone making waffles.

6. Dave Stephens

   One cartoon is more violent, true, however, one cartoon is more clearly and obviously RACIST. IMHO

7. Shane Davis

   “I hope we can all agree that thereâ??s a difference between drawing someone shot dead and bleeding in the street and drawing someone making waffles.”

   No, there’s not, Eric. Getting dragged down a bunny hole of a “what’s worse, showing a monkey protraying Congress getting shot as a parallel to a real monkey that actually got shot is worse than a black calling another black essentially an Uncle Tom” argument is pointless.

   No one really made waffles, no monkey really got shot. Not the point. The point is when a person knowingly, willfully and enthusiactically attacks people in a racisct manner just to get their political way, it is slimy, scummy and beneath contempt.

   Trying to equivicate ‘what’s worse’ by comparing cartoons is not the point. If a political forces like the NAACP can scream that a stupid chimp cartoon is mean, bigoted and hateful and then demand the paper, editor and cartoonist all face punishment and censure for offending people, then how in the name of Hell do they justify and defend the crap in that waffle cartoon?

   They can’t. Trying to whittle one cartoon against the other minimizes the real offense here. Don’t get distracted by looking to close at trees…George Forbes’ forest is the problem.

8. Shane Davis

   “No one really made waffles, no monkey really got shot. Not the point.”

   I meant in the cartoons.

   Yes, I am aware a chimp really did get shot after ripping the face off a lady earlier this year.

   And yes, somewhere in the Republic today someone cooked some waffles.

   But I wonder, did anyone shoot a waffle or cook a chimp? Hmmmm…

9. Ted Rall

   @Shane:

   NAACP President George Forbes is an idiot, a coward and a hatemongering racist pig who needs his @$$ whipped in the street until he canâ??t stand up anymore.

   Um…Shane?

   It’s really not cool to call for the president of the NAACP to be whipped.

10. Keith Knight

    Dave,

    Of course your black republican bud is gonna hear the most racist statements from his black friends–white folks ain’t gonna rip black people in front of him!!

11. Dave Stephens

    Keith,

    Of course my friend heard his black friends ripping racially on whites, hispanics, Jews, asians, etc. He wasn’t lying about how common it was. And he also mentioned how surprised he was at how much the black women (to whom he sold his cartoons to) would have no problem tossing out any of his artwork that had WHITE folk in them and then saying the usual racist garbage against them…

    Sure, white folks aren’t gonna rip black folks in front of a black man. But I agree with him – those kind of racist comments are RARE in my experience. I rarely hear them from my white, asian, hispanic, black friends. And he commonly hears them, but only from his black acquaintances. Ah, but I’m sure that’s just his imagination, right? We’re all the same and there’s never anything negative about a sub-culture, hmm? LOL

12. Keith Knight

    I’m just saying he’s never gonna hear it from his white friends. Never.

13. Shane Davis

    Ted,
    There comes a time when some folks, no matter what their color, need their butt whipped.

    A true soul cleasing butt whipping is inherently colorblind.

14. Nicholas Adams

    @Dave: While I appreciate your argument, I have to say that there is some flawed logic going on there.

    Just because you or I don’t hear these sorts of racist comments coming from our circle of friends, I argue that it’s because you haven’t associated yourself with that type of person.

    Don’t get me wrong, now. Racism is occuring on both sides of the argument. On one hand, you have a paper that has issued a racist cartoon, accusing a black woman of power that she is doing this simply to get support. On the other, while she may not be doing it for that reason (or is, who knows?), this WILL probably help her.

    @Shane: I’m very glad about your passion for this subject, but as a general rule, insulting the opposite side usually leads to your opinion being discredited. I would certainly hate for that to happen, especially to someone who obviously has a very strong opinion on the subject.

    Of course, you really only did the insulting in your first post, so possibly just a bout of anger? Understandable.

    @Ted: Don’t be that guy. Don’t be the guy that finds a racist comment in a racist argument.

    A poor choice of words to be sure, but I’m positive that he wasn’t talking about whipping.

15. Jamie Smith

    Have to defer to the insight of Chris Rock (â??Shoot the Messengerâ?) here â?? great routine and commentary on this topic.
    Certain comedians from certain segments of society have the right to go where others canâ??t: John Callahan can make fun of folks with disabilities, Aaron McGruder and Keith can make fun of black culture, Alison Bechdel with lesbians etc. and so on. Thatâ??s their prerogative, and if I or anybody else who doesnâ??t like it just has to deal with it, maybe even learn something about yourself in the process by confronting stereotypes.

    Thatâ??s why I have a special thing for whites, particularly male heterosexuals, in my editorials, since with my biased perspective I tend to notice that theyâ??re the group responsible for most of the rampant stupidity around me. In fact, pretty much every time Iâ??ve ever gotten slammed for being racist in a panel, itâ??s usually by disaffected, even jealous, white folks who jump at any chance to vent their impotent white anger, usually from fear at losing their privileged position. That kind of ignorance is usually funny, until it gets into the really sad or creepy/scary comments, like some examples displayed here on this thread.

    And this is also why editors are gun-shy about running controversial panels like this â?? seems that they are the ones who get pilloried instead of the artist: Walt Carr seems to have been around long enough and experienced enough to know what (and why) heâ??s doing. I looked around but doesnâ??t seem to have a web-presence, be nice to have him weigh in here.

    Like any decent editorial it at least motivates discussion on the issue, or in this case, multiple issues. Being â??one of the groupâ? doesnâ??t necessarily automatically shield the cartoonist or their work from criticism, and they have the same shortcomings as anybody else and arenâ??t immune from making bad judgment calls either. The best work out there and what I admire the most in other cartoonists is when it transcends stereotypes and makes fun of universal human conditions, but those are rare, and harder to do than picking on people who are different, or maybe just the same as me.

16. Tom Wood

    The cartoon was drawn by a black cartoonist to run in a ‘black’ newspaper whose readership is largely black, in order to make a political comment about a black politician. I think that pretty well insulates it from any charges of racism.

17. Dave Stephens

    The racist cartoon was drawn by a racist black cartoonist to run in a â??blackâ?? newspaper whose readership is largely black, in order to make a racist political comment about a black politician. I think that pretty well illustrates RACISM.

    Skin color doesn’t matter – racism is racism. What, you think blacks can’t be racist against blacks? Plenty of white folks are clearly racist against other white folks, duh.

18. Jamie Smith

    Context matters, as does considering the source. And that works both ways.
    One bittersweet lesson Iâ??ve learned is you donâ??t really have any say in the matter if someone calls your work racist: thatâ??s his or her take on it, and right or wrong you take the hit. You can get defensive, or attack, but changing the way someone feels taking that approach is about as hard as changing their opinion. Always worth seeing if itâ??s an informed, legitimate opinion, or just a kneejerk reaction coming from someplace else for another reason. Case in point being the comment thread here earlier this spring on the infamous chimp cartoon by Delonas. Interesting to compare the positions taken there defending a panel that fit a pattern within an established body of work and contrast them here with this piece.
    On the other hand, for those who think itâ??s inherently racist to call out racism, must be easy to see things simply in either black or white.

19. Derf Backderf

    This is a better cartoon that 99 percent of the stuff on Cagle today.

    Walt Carr is a freelancer who doesn’t even live in Cleveland. It’s widely believed that George Forbes wrote the thing.

    He’s one of the biggest creeps in Cleveland politics, but he writes a pretty good cartoon.

20. Barbara Hudson

    Whenever something is printed we have the right to agree, disagree,like it, dislike it, etc. I’m trying to open a diner on Broadway in my city. I need this picture.
    Yes I claim Aunt Jemima, Aunt Belle, Aunt Mary, Susie, Lubertha and Lucille.
    Can somebody get me in contact with someone
    that can give me permission to use this picture on my sign wayyyyy on top of my building.
    And I am very BBBlack.