Editorial cartoonist Sandy Huffaker published this toon today:
Sure, maybe it’s a stereotype, but 9/11 changed everything. We really need to sock it to the bastards.
Well, we’ll do it sensitively. We’ve learned from our excesses.
“If I see someone (who) comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over,” [Louisiana Congressman] Cooksey said. [Link]
C’mon, what’s the big deal about toilet paper? It’s just a throwaway joke. Nobody in America wears a turban. Seriously, you guys are way too sensitive.
Jerry: Kramer, he’s just a dentist.
Kramer: Yeah, and you’re an anti-dentite.
Jerry: I am not an anti-dentite!
Kramer: You’re a rabid anti-dentite! Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. “Hey, denty!” Next thing you know you’re saying they should have their own schools…Jerry: That’s a good one. Dentists.
Beth: Yeah, who needs ’em? [Pause] Not to mention the blacks and the Jews… [Link]
Geez, can you say ‘overreacting’?
… Frank Roque, 42, of Mesa, began spouting racist remarks to a bartender and co-workers, including that he was going to “kill some towelheads” and that all Arabs and their children should be rounded up and murdered… Roque drove a black Chevy S-10 pickup to a Chevron gas station and opened fire, killing [gas station owner] Balbir Singh Sodhi… [Link]
“I’m an American,” the suspect… said. “Arrest me and let those terrorists run wild.” [Link]
Ugh, this is so depressing, I want to vomit.
Maybe the cartoonist is merely saying Osama is a $#!+head… 😉
vomits
I’m sure people like this nice Japanese soldier were upset at those terrible propaganda posters about them…
Vikram, it doesn’t say your enemy is a Japanese soldier it says your enemy is THE JAP.
Is this your enemy?
Vikram
You missed the point by about a hundred miles
The WWII poster depicted a Japanese soldier.
Perhaps you need to see how cartoonists in the Arab media express themselves
Sure, because two wrongs always make a right.
Vikram, the very first propaganda poster says: “Don’t talk, rats (image of a Japanese person) have big ears” I doubt they meant that the Japanese government could hear across the Pacific, they meant Japanese-American civilians in the USA. Sure, the image depicts a rat in a uniform, but the point they’re making is that all Japanese are the enemy.
The Cooksey quote and the Sodhi killing, both despicable acts, were from Sept 2001. Cooksey apologized days after, and Roque, the shooter, was sentenced to death.
The toilet paper cartoon is from August 2005.
Isolated incidents in a country of 295 million comparable to the number of hate crimes/talk against other ethnic / religious groups. Both punished in a just manner. Cooksey will be painted as a virulent racist despite having this on his resume
Woe is us, rapidly descending into a cesspool of internment camps, revocation of freedom religion. Why I hear they’re not going to let girls wear their headcoverings in school and that a Muslim filmmaker critical of Christianity was impaled while motoring around town. Did you see the movie, Sum of All Fears or the current season of 24, isn’t it ridiculous all the steroetyping of Arabs and Muslims?
They’re called caricatures. They’re in the editorial pages everyday.
Never does, but picking a few random tasteless cartoons from the media here is a bit of an unbalanced view, considering that such tastelessness is the norm in the Arab media. Just as much as all tv shows are not of the Jerry Springer caliber.
Ah I see, the Japanese were very sensitive in their depiction of the West… like this ?
Comparison Between Japanese and American Propaganda during World War II
IfI and Vikram: You’re drawing some weird, insecure, backward-looking moral equivalences. The point is to improve the country we live in. Is ‘at least we’re better than Saudi Arabia and imperial Japan’ something to brag about?
So was Step’n Fetchit. That li’l guy really cracked me up! </sarcasm>
Never does, but picking a few random tasteless cartoons from the media here is a bit of an unbalanced view, considering that such tastelessness is the norm in the Arab media. Just as much as all tv shows are not of the Jerry Springer caliber.
Lets see Manish mentions racist things said by a Louisiana senator. You retort by saying that the Arabs IN THE MIDDLE EAST do/say worse things. So you are implying that – 1. There is nothing wrong with being an American racist because Arabs are racist too. 2. Its not racist because Arabs do it too. 3. Whats the big deal because the Arabs do it too. 4. The Arabs do it so when the Americans do it, its only fair/revenge.
Just the fact that when Manish brings up something racist an American has done, you feel incumbent upon yourself to bring what those Arabs do makes you at best an apologist for the racist Americans and in my opinion a House Negro.
We can always improve.
Speaking of those two cases you listed…in what ways can we improve?
Cooksey is not a representative anymore. Our entire society condemned his comments. Every mention of his name in the newspaper will have that quote. President Bush visited a mosque that same day and praising Islam as a great religion and a religion of peace.
The shooter was sentenced to death.
Like I said, justice has been done.
What more would you have done in these cases? Or do you expect the world to be absolutely pristine and nothing ever to go wrong.
My posting was to point out that the WW II poster was a symptom of those times. Both sides created such propaganda. To post only one side of the story is an unbalanced view of history. You drew the one sided equivalence to it in your original post. If cartoons like the one you posted were a common occurence, then it would be an issue. Unfortunately even such crap has to be tolerated like the KKK under the First Amendment.
Once again a caricature from decades ago . I thought you weren’t interested in backward looking ?
If you cannot debate the subject without making this a personal attack, then perhaps you shouldn’t participate. The moderators I thought were strict about that. None of my comments were personal attacks on any of the posters. Perhaps you should try some civility.
This was published yesterday and this, today.
Today.
Today.
If you cannot debate the subject without making this a personal attack, then perhaps you shouldn’t participate. The moderators I thought were strict about that. None of my comments were personal attacks on any of the posters. Perhaps you should try some civility.
Ha! Thats rich coming from a person who tries to give context to statements like
“If I see someone (who) comes in that’s got a diaper on his head and a fan belt wrapped around the diaper on his head, that guy needs to be pulled over,” [Louisiana Congressman] Cooksey said. [Link]
May I suggest that you develop a thick skin because thats what you context providers tell us when we complain.
Just because racism isn’t an exclusively American phenomenon doesn’t make it any less racist. What next, let’s make torture legal because it is in many countries in the Middle East (including Israel, by the way)?
Quick, I’ll race ya to the bottom!
Vikram,
Manish pointed out a media trend that is pretty much what the more pessimistic among us expected. I read the post with disgust leavened by Manish’s sarcastic humor. Good to know, but I’m not going to picket in the streets over it. But you just went and added depth to this whole issue by being the sort of kapo who will find justification for just about anything done by those civilizing, democratizing westerners. “yes, sahib. That coolie will be beaten most severely. More nimbu panni?”
I agree that this is offensive.
I sent her a polite — but I hope not obsequious — email to let her know I found it offensive and explain why.
It’s just a small thing (I’m sure many of you would be a little more direct and less wordy…), but maybe if she gets a few letters she’ll think twice about publishing this type of thing again.
That caricature was insulting to all blacks. Toilet paper on Osama’s head is insulting to him, who may I remind you, wants to install the Caliphate over all our crushed skulls and liberal ideals. Again, I point at the editorial pages. There are an abundance of caricatures of people in the news of every ethnic group. Most people aren’t so hypersensitive, because they know it’s aimed at the individual, not the group.
Ugh. Can we do away with the house-negro/coolie-type retorts please? There are other far better arguments to be made (and mercifully have been in this string)
Sandy’s a dude.
funny how you resort to this every time you feel threatened, or hoisted by your own petard. “Moderator! Moderator!”
Btw, Vinod requests that people stop calling conservatives ‘House Negro’ or ‘Uncle Tom’ and debate the issues on their merits. I agree, it’s pointlessly corrosive and ad hominem.
How ironic!, Sandy is sometimes used a short form for sand nigg*r. BTW, Bush is shown as a rapacious rat with a taste for oil. What is the Rorschach analysis on that?
SMR, sorry, you’re right. But I’d like to point out that I used kapo as the slur, not coolie.
I’m going to have to disagree on this Irene. Towelhead, diaperhead, toiletpaper jokes….they’ve been applied to any man wearing a turban in the past, and are done so in the present. Middle-eastern-looking men are called this even when not wearing a turban…people are that stupid. I’ve been called hindu (insultingly, as in “whatever, we know you do that hindu voodoo shit”), dot-head, A-rab etc. despite the fact that i don’t wear a bindi. It’s NOT a Osama-specific joke.
Dude Vikram – Havnt u learnt by now that opinions contrary to what people here want to believe are not welcome here esp if u have a FOB opinion. As the moderators here have made it clear b4, this is a site for “2nd generation dudes only – preferably liberal”
What I have learnt is : Save urself some insults and post only if u think similarly, or on non serious issues or else go to a different forum where everyone thinks like u.
Welcome to circlejerk land my friend.
Babloo, I thought the Huffaker cartoon was pretty funny, and didn’t get why Manish posted it until I saw the toilet paper. Apparently, in order to counterbalance the portrayal of Musharraf as a political panderer, and Bush as a oil-hungry warmonger….Osama needed toilet paper on his head. It makes that particular slur ok, acceptable, and somehow symbolic of ObL’s crimes (since the guy didn’t come up with much else to satarize him.) It’s an easy, needless, tasteless shortcut…and should make anyone with a profile-worthy complexion rather uneasy.
Aten, I’m a FOB. I’ve been here for many years now, so maybe not so fresh…but I’m still an immigrant. So I don’t see how you can speak of some unified fob opinion. “The other side does it too!” is generally not considered a great argument, so if people here shredded it, I don’t see how we’re suddenly standing in a circle.
Dude Vikram – Havnt u learnt by now that opinions contrary to what people here want to believe are not welcome here esp if u have a FOB opinion. As the moderators here have made it clear b4, this is a site for “2nd generation dudes only – preferably liberal”
Aten,
You don’t have to be liberal to be vigilant about racial and religious slurs. You just have to have some self-respect.
And also, you’d be surprised at how widely read Sepia Mutiny is amongst Indian bloggers and blog-readers in India. It’s not just an ABCD thing. Do a Technorati search; you’ll see.
Oh the persecution!
Aten, I think you’re being unfair. Most of the spitting and hissing happens in the comments section – by other readers, not the moderators. And just the fact that those comments remain on the site should tell you that they’re perfectly happy leaving in other points of view.
Oh, and btw, I’m FOB and proud of it. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t generalize and speak for me.
thanks Cicatrix. Please let’s NOT start again with the tired old FOB v. ABCD/South Asian crap again that only serves to insult, marginalize and isolate a portion of mutineers. It’s so tedious, and obviously after 900 threads on the topic the only thing we’ve found is that not everyone agrees. No big shock there.
I am beginning to think that there is truth to this underlying ideology. Well, if people cannot have a debate from all sides of the spectrum (isn’t that what this web site is purported to be ?), then in what way is it any different from the close minded people who opinions are being dissected in most of the threads. If people are so quick to call me names and labels, then I think it more reflects on their mentality than anything else. Ah well, it is friday, you folks have a good weekend.
Don’t you find all political cartooning sort of, well, vile? Was there ever a time when political cartooning didn’t trend toward the very worst instincts? Toilet paper rolls, political leaders as devils or satans, fangs and all, really, it so very often veers off into yuckiness. Which is not to excuse any one particular cartoon. It’s all gross caricature. I never find any of them funny, and the cartoons certainly don’t make me think in any new way about an issue. They do nothing to change my mind. Why do newspapers even have them? They should just have a blank space instead, with a caption that says: draw your own version of little hatreds and predjudice here. You too can demonize here: look, all Democrats are traitors to country and cause. Look, all Republicans are war-mongering devils. That way, everyone may be happy.
Your favorite libertarian-conservative, i.e. House (insert standard derogatory term here) signing off………
Btw, Vinod requests that people stop calling conservatives ‘House Negro’ or ‘Uncle Tom’ and debate the issues on their merits. I agree, it’s pointlessly corrosive and ad hominem.
Ok I will stop calling people HNs. Btw I would never call a thoughtful conservative like Vinod or MD a HN. I reserve that for brown Western apologists who defend everything Western not on merits but because its Western. I will restrain myself in future.
MD, I see your point, and very much respect it, but I think of political cartooning as one of the greatest freedoms of speech. Often cuts straight to the heart of the matter, brings the flaws in each argument squarely front and center, knocks down pompous politicians down a peg, slyly says what everyone’s thinking but can’t say for fear of recrimination and outrage….a great cartoon can do as much as, if not more than, a great editorial, I think. Of couse, when bad, it’s nothing more than glib, inflammatory, name calling.
From what I can see of huffaker’s work, he’s not bad.. which makes the toilet paper all the more disappointing.
What’s somewhat problematic in this chain of comments is not that the cartoon is insulting to many desis, which it clearly is. It is that our response is the ineffectual comments indicating our exasperation at the racism of the American majority, the letters begging them to treat us fairly, etc. etc.
That’s ridiculous.
This sort of cartoon is exactly what one could reasonably expect from the American imperial media. Nothing particularly wrong with that. Its what the Romans were probably saying about the Visigoths 2000 years ago.
But the answer is not trying to get in the good graces of the American elite. Unless and until desis have the power (primarily economic, somewhat military) to stand up to the American imperalist regime, little can be accomplished. That is a pretty good goal though, and achievable in my mind.
After all, the Romans laughed a lot less at the Visigoths after Rome was sacked.
Vikram, If you take a look at SM’s comment threads since it began last year, you will see that “debate from all sides of the spectrum” is more than tolerated. People certainly might disagree with your opinions, but it is irresponsible to say that debate and discussion of differing view points is outlawed here.
Vikram, I am FOB. I would hate it if, due to a feeling that this site only caters to ABCD opinions/ or only liberal views, you decide not to put out your views. If the comment section became an echo chamber of ABCD liberal views than it will be a sad loss.
Wow..slow down there Hari Chandra…you just blew me waaaaay past my perch on the liberal end of the Sepia spectrum. What exactly are you advocating by Unless and until desis have the power (primarily economic, somewhat military) to stand up to the American imperalist regime? Military?
I suppose there’s a reason they are pictures and not words… to make it easier on the target audience?
er, that should be
you blew waaaaay past my perch.
(very poor motor skills. sorry!)
What are you going to do, fly a few planes into some skyscrapers?
RC, There is a time line for the F in the FOB ; You have been posting here for a while as a FOB.
Cicatrix:
OK, so I was exaggerating a bit and doing my best JNU-prof imitation rant about American imperalists, which I don’t really believe.
I do believe that nations, and their primary cultural outlets, trend to treat other nations, and people relating to that nation, differently based on their standing in terms of global power.
Its not reasonable to expect that the U.S. media would treat South Asians with any level of respect, given the lack of general South Asian influence on the world. Influence in today’s world, I think, is primarily economic, though partly military as well. I think that finding some equals to the U.S., economically and otherwise, might add to some more humility in the press.
Vikram, as you can see, the tides turn often at Sepia, so no need to feel so persecuted.
Punjabi Boy:
I was thinking more in terms of buying trillions of dollars worth of U.S. treasury bonds (as China does today)