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

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

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.)

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Yes, but you can't assume that everyone reading your cartoon has the same level of cultural knowledge as you. Readers are allowed to be ignorant. That doesn't completely invalidate their responses. It's not an academic article, it's a newspaper, it's meant to be read by absolutely anyone, and also note that it's for a British audience rather than an American one.

I didn't see the cartoon as looking like anything, to be honest. I have no idea what bowling balls look like, and I don't think of coconuts as looking that way either. I got the Homer Simpson reference and then stared at the cartoon wondering why it showed Obama with holes in his head. I'd read about the disability gaffe, but even after I was told it was a bowling ball I didn't connect it to that.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

you can't assume that everyone reading your cartoon has the same level of cultural knowledge as you

But on the other hand, it's not possible for the cartoonist to know what everyone's cultural knowledge is, and indeed they may have cultural knowledge that he's completely unaware of.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

True, but I do think that a (presumably) white cartoonist in an important newspaper has a responsibility even more than most white people to make themselves familiar with some of the cultural tropes that are used to denigrate people of colour. Especially after the shot ape cartoon fiasco. Coconuts *do* look quite like bowling balls, and while the specific "brown on the outside white on the inside" implication is slightly obscure, the objectification of people of colour as tropical fruits really is not. I'm sure the cartoonist meant no harm, but they should have been more careful.

At any rate, if I were the cartoonist and received an e-mail such as Sam's, my response would be "erk, actually it was a bowling ball but that's a very good point, will try to avoid this in future". And possibly apologising for offense inadvertently caused. That, as far as I'm concerned, is the right thing to do.

Also, I'd be amazed if there aren't a lot of people who saw it as a coconut, and pretty surprised if Sam's is the only complaint on the matter the cartoon gets. One highly intelligent, observant artist/designer seeing something the cartoonist didn't intend is a small data point, but it's still a data point.

I am of course highly biassed, but despite his apparently being mistaken as to the intention of the cartoonist, I'm proud of Sam for speaking out and believe he did the right thing. And also proud of him for daring to talk about it on a public post. I wouldn't have been brave enough to do that.

It's a crap cartoon anyway. I take it we can all agree on that! ;-) Obama's being shitty to disabled people deserved something much less personally-attacking and much more sharply satirical. I'm still more pro-Obama than otherwise but speaking as a semi-disabled person myself... Grr.