Letters to the Times

[mirrorshard]

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

Comments

[megamole.livejournal.com]

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

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Can't even remember when the last time I saw a bowling ball was, but it sure looks like a coconut to me.

[hellison.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a bowling ball too, after his very stupid comment on some show or other about how is bowling is like 'something from the special olympics', and that was why the 'doh' as well...