mirrorshard | Letters to the Times

If you haven't seen this appallingly racist cartoon in the Times, I recommend it for sheer did-they-actually-publish-that value.

Edit: please read the comments before leaving "helpful" corrections. If someone else has already said it, I don't need a "me too". Thank you.

I can't find an address specifically for complaints; comment@thetimes.co.uk gets autorejected. I've sent the following to online.editor@timesonline.co.uk as the apparent next most appropriate thing.

Sir,

I should like to register a complaint about Peter Brookes' cartoon dated 21st March 2009. It clearly depicts Barack Obama as a coconut, which is of course a strong racial slur - a derogatory term meaning "black on the outside, white on the inside".

I am disappointed that a respectable newspaper would publish such slurs, and further disappointed that a respectable newspaper can find nothing better to say about a prominent world leader so soon after his election than to comment on his race.

Yours sincerely,

mirrorshard

Threaded | Flat

Um, I thought it was supposed to be a bowling ball, actually. I agree "coconut" is racist but didn't get that meaning...

Are you sure it's not referring to this bowling-related gaffe?

I'm not sure how 3 holes in the head looks like a coconut. Not the coconuts I've seen anyway. They tend to be hole-free. I was just confused by the cartoon, which is nothing new...mind you, I did think it was depciting Prince Charles...!

Sorry, it clearly *is* meant to be a bowling ball rather than a coconut. It's not a very good cartoon, but the holes are very clearly bowling-ball finger holes.

The resemblance to a coconut would, I suspect, be totally impossible to see if Mr Obama had longer hair. It's only his hair's unfortunate similarity to coconut hair that makes it at all possible to see the coconut resemblance.

I think it is a bowling ball, and I think the racist implications are thus accidental.

I also think The Times should be more bloody careful.

Before reading your cut and the comments, I must confess I had no idea what was (inferred to be) so racist about this cartoon. It seemed pretty obvious to me that it was a reference to the President's bowling joke. However, even if he were depicted as a coconut, and if that depiction were meant to convey "black on the outside, white on the inside", I still don't see how that qualifies as racist. There are lots of people who don't conform to ethnic stereotypes, or who adopt lifestyles and mannerisms of a particular ethnic group, and I don't see any problem with making reference to this (unless it's done to ridicule or otherwise deride the practice). I know several asiaphiles who jokingly refer to themselves as "eggs" ("white on the outside, yellow on the inside"), and also some people of Chinese descent who use similar metaphors to indicate (neutrally or jocularly, but never pejoratively) that they've assimilated into Western culture.

I think you're reading way too much into this cartoon. Are you sure you aren't just looking for an excuse to be offended?

Apart from any racial overtone, I think that cartoon's just a bit rubbish! Not very funny, a bit obscure and doesn't make any sort of serious point. Though I often find political cartoons smug and annoying anyway. I guess Obama is still at the un-satirisable stage.

Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of that cartoon, but if a racist reading is at all likely then the publishers need to take that into consideration. I wrote about this with the chimpanzee Obama cartoon (http://elettaria.livejournal.com/70360.html) the other week.

He is depicting him as a bowling ball because of his dumb comment on Jay Leno...

One more "That's a bowling ball" here. For one thing, the two close together eyes and one separated one are characteristic of a bowling ball - but a coconut has its eyes almost equidistant. And they are shallow depressions not deep holes to stick your fingers in. (And I don't think I've bowled in the last eight years).

It's a pretty lousy cartoon. But it's not a subtle one. And there is a certain point beyond which you can say that things are being read into a text due to the prejudices of the external observer rather than due to the text. I don't know whether this hits that line, but it comes remarkably close. (Actually it's a matter of cultural knowledge and lack of it here.)

Erm, it's meant to be a bowling ball. Hence the Homer Simpson 'Doh!'

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He is not depicting him as a coconut

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