|
Unforgivable!
New Yorker Cover Depicts the Obamas as Terrorists
By
Lloyd Williams
The closer Barack
Obama gets to winning the White House, the more
determined his adversaries have become to derail his
campaign by any means necessary. Remember how Hillary
refused to drop out of the race in May because she said
that June was the month Bobby Kennedy was assassinated?
Hint-hint. Or how one of her surrogates, former Senator
Bob Kerrey, stated that Obama might be a Muslim
Manchurian Candidate pre-programmed to hide his true
anti-American agenda until after becoming President?
Hint-hint.
Similar hateful
sentiments have been echoed in the caricature of the
Obamas contained on the cover of the July 21st issue of
The New Yorker magazine which shows the
couple sharing one of their famous fist-bumps in the
Oval Office, ostensibly celebrating soon after his
inauguration. What is disturbing about the controversial
tableau is that Barack is depicted in Arab garb complete
with turban, and looking suspiciously like Osama bin
Laden whose portrait has replaced that of a prior
president on the wall. The not so subtle suggestion
being made here is that a vote for Obama is a vote for
an Islamic radical terrorist.
Meanwhile, Michelle
is attacked in a different way, being drawn with a big
afro and a machine gun slung over shoulder in front of a
fireplace with a United States flag burning in it. These
images are designed to imply that she’s a Sixties-style
black militant who hates her country and advocates a
violent revolution.
How dare The New
Yorker put an automatic weapon in her hands! Are
they trying to get her killed? What the heck is its
rationale except to hint that she’s a traitor guilty of
treason who deserves to be shot? And why link a natural
hairstyle with anti-American sentiments, as if to say
that African-Americans who don’t straighten their hair
but wear it as God intended are automatically suspicious
and unpatriotic!
Listen, this
country has a rancid, wretched history of vigilante and
state-sanctioned violence when it comes to dealing with
black folks it deems a threat to the status quo. All I
have to do is mention a few famous martyrs like Martin
Luther King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Medgar Evers to
remind you of that long, ugly legacy of extermination
marked by thousands of lynchings and assassinations.
So, sorry, I’m not
buying New Yorker Editor David Remnick’s defense
of his periodical’s incendiary cartoon as a satire of
popular misconceptions about Obama. That shocking and
offensive cover was no sophisticated parody, but rather
a scare tactic, a fairly literal prediction of America’s
worst nightmare as defined by some race-baiting bigots.
Frustrated at
failing to derail his campaign, Obama’s detractors have
grown increasingly desperate. And desperate times call
for desperate measures. The power elite has ostensibly
declared open season on Barack and Michelle as they
stand poised on the brink of becoming the first black
President and First Lady of the United States with this
thinly-veiled appeal to the redneck class to do polite
white society a favor by putting a bullet in their
heads.
Remember how
Muslims all around the world reacted in unison to that
Danish cartoonist’s drawing of the prophet Muhammad with
a bomb tucked in his turban? Well, African-Americans
ought to have sense enough to complain to the New Yorker
and to boycott all of its advertisers for such an
irresponsible, potentially devastating hit job one would
expect from the Ku Klux Klan, not from a supposedly
intellectual, Ivory-towered publication.
Attorney Lloyd
Williams is a graduate of the Wharton School and a
member of the NJ, NY, CT, PA, MA & US Supreme Court
bars.
* *
* * *
Other Responses to Cover
To the Editors of The New Yorker:
Whatever your
intent—and I do believe that it was done with
malice and forethought--you have offended millions of
African Americans, Muslims, liberals, and patriots by
your senseless and tasteless fear-mongering and by
your recourse, in the cover of the recent issue of
The New Yorker, to offensive stereotypes that appeal
to the baser instincts of human beings.—Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis
* * *
* *
What's Up With the New Yorker?—With
images of a painting of Osama on the wall, the American flag
burning in the fireplace, while Michele (with a huge Afro
and an assault rifle strapped on her back wearing combat
boots) and Barack (dressed as a Somali Islamist) fist bump.
In all
fairness, I do not go along with The New Yorker's
claim, "the cartoon is intended as a satirical comment about
some of the distorted right-wing attacks on the Democratic
senator." In itself the cover is a right wing attack on
Barack and Michele. The New Yorker went over the top to
attract attention and support the Republican party and
especially right wing racists, especially with the added
images of Osama and "fist bumping" while the American
flag burns in the fireplace. Was it malice of
forethought? That's likely.
Was it
senseless and tasteless fear-mongering? Indeed!!! I
join others in denouncing The New Yorker and its
cover.—Rudy
* * *
* *
I encourage
Michelle Obama to show this cover to her two daughters
so that she can teach them that no matter what African
American women aspire to, no matter their
accomplishments, no matter their patriotism, they are
all considered by the "liberal" white press to be a
bunch of nappy headed, mean spirited, rifle toting
thugs who are a threat to the "American way of life."
That is the message that you sent to the American
people. And, we should never forget this atrocity
against us. I will never purchase the New Yorker
again and will encourage all those I know to do the
same. The trumped up explanation by the author of this
garbage is the epitome of a transparent lie. You have
no shame.—Peggy Brooks-Bertram, Dr.Ph., Ph.D.
* * *
* *
JOE SIXPACK is
probably not even aware of the existence of a magazine
called The New Yorker, and is certainly incapable of
reading any article in it. I actually thought Michelle
Obama looked good with the Angela Davis hairdo. As a
good mom, looking out for her kids in an obviously
racist country, she has good reason to exercise her
second amendment right to cling to her assault rifle.
The flag burning in
the fireplace was even more offensive to me than the
picture of Osama above it. The New Yorker has a
first-amendment right to engage in symbolic
flag-burnings, but must not, even in jest, attribute the
practice to anyone else.
This is the second
time The New Yorker has crossed the line. (See below.)—Wilson
* * * *
*
* * * *
*
Rudy,
Thank you for the
forward on the New Yorker cover. Like you, I'm not
swayed by the emotion or politics of Senator Obama even
though he is the better choice of the two senators
simply because the change that he suggests can at least
be proven by his lack of time in Washington. However,
the gall of the media to make Candidate Barack Obama
their exotic sock puppet is beyond reproach. Did
they ridicule the "angry white male" of 1994 by cloaking
him in a Klansman's robe, burning a flag with the Star
of David while gazing at a photo of Bull Connor on their
mantle? The exaggerated features of Michelle remind one
of the Hottentot or at least Pam Grier, so for whose
gaze are these caricatures? I agree, this isn't satire,
but it is sad . . . and tired.—Raymond
* * * *
*
Hmmmm, I DO at least sort of 'get'
the message behind the cover, but the problem of satire
such as this achieving the exact opposite of what was
intended is as old as the hills. As a Briton dare I
mention, in this context, that equally old stereotype
that Americans don't 'do irony'? Therefore, trying to
pull anything like this off may be considerably riskier
in the U.S. than in the UK. —Chris.
* * * *
*
So when I got the call from 23/6
early this morning, asking me if I could take on a
caption job for their site, I had not yet seen the New
Yorker's latest cover and did not realize what I was
getting into. They sent me the cover and asked me to
give it my magic touch. I studied it for hours and then
responded with something I never thought I'd hear myself
say. "Fellas, I'm stumped." . . . Seeing the Obamas in
Muslim and military garb just doesn't inspire the kind
of fleeting, amused chuckle educed by the best New
Yorker mini-masterpieces. . . . I mean, a picture of
Osama bin Laden on the wall? How is that funny? . . .
Sorry, New Yorker art department, but this misguided
"commentary" has alienated a nation of readers who can't
be bothered to think about the nuances and repercussions
of political media, and just want a funny picture to
laugh at, preferably one of a dog wearing a king's
crown. Barry Blitt just didn't have it this week. So I'm
afraid there's only one caption I can come up with for
this. "I don't get it."—Gordon Weinfarb
* * * *
*
When Joyce King gets back, join us
in asking her to update her piece on "dysconscious
racism." The New Yorker cover and their editor's
excuses are examples.Rhonda and I are definitely going
to try and find out if it's been updated because a lot
of our folk need to read and get to an understanding of
its pervasiveness, particularly among those who are
"liberal" and would never think that they were
perpetuating a systemic problem of major import.—Chuck
* * * *
*
Judging The New Yorker by Its Cover—A certain
amount of post-cover introspection is important at this
point. Perhaps your next cover should depict New Yorker
editors discussing/arguing about political cartoons with
its cartoonists. That might be a nice Manhattan-style,
oblique apology. Many of us would have seen your cover
as satire against Obamaphobes had you not placed Osama
bin Laden over a fireplace where the American flag is
burning. But the larger questions are: Why an oblique
cartoon? Why exactly did you feel it more appropriate to
scapegoat a Black woman and her mate? Why does Barack
look ofay while his wife is sketched as the one with
more cajones? Do you imagine you could have been any
Whiter in your subconscious, cartoonish decisions
regarding the Black male? And more importantly, Why
didn't you have the cajones to satirize and to
caricature the Obamaphobes directly?—Mackie J.V.
Blanton
* * * *
*
I live in
Carrollton, TX and read The New Yorker regularly,
especially when articles by Seymour Hersch are
published. (This will change immediately.) I write to
express my disgust and disappointment with this month's
magazine cover. While I understand and love satire, I do
not think the magazine accomplished the goals stated by
your editor in a CNN interview two days ago. One of the
strengths of satire is timing, but the timing of this
offensive cover is totally off. There are many
uninformed voters who do not know Sen. Obama and many
voters who do not want to know him. This magazine cover
will be used by those who relish in the use of fear,
negative stereotypes, outright lies and racism to defeat
candidates worthy of consideration and to elect
incompetent ideologues like George W. Bush. The Senator
has spent so much time, effort and money working to
dispel incorrect information about him—much
of it unnecessarily disseminated by the news media—that
it has been harder for him to focus on solutions to
problems he feels he can resolve as President. The
New Yorker is not helping to solve any problems,
especially the biggest elephant in the room—American
ignorance and racism.—Rhonda
* * * *
*
The New Yorker's Auto-Reply
Thank you
for writing. We appreciate your comments and, if you have a question,
we’ll do our best to respond. However, owing to the volume of
correspondence, we cannot reply to every e-mail individually. About
this week’s issue: Our cover, “The Politics of Fear,” combines a number
of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious
distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and
Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall— all of them
echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is
meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to
prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this
cover. In this same issue you will also see that there are two very
serious articles on Barack Obama inside—Hendrik Hertzberg's Comment,
The New Yorker and Ryan Lizza's 15,000-word reporting piece
on the candidate's political education and rise in Chicago
The New Yorker.
* * * *
*
To the Editor
As journalists and human beings we all understand that
public life is not a kindergarten and that politicians
and others in the public eye are always at risk of hard
rough challenges. We also believe that journalism has
the right and the duty to expose falsity and corruption
wherever they are found.
That being said, we believe there are certain bounds
within which responsible journalism must find itself
constrained: we have no right to rob people of their
dignity, their privacy or their reputations. And, as
your Justice Holmes once said, Freedom of speech does
not give anyone the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded
theatre.
Your editor, David Remnick is quoted by Howard Kurtz of
the Washington Post as defending the Obama cover as a
'satire' – as a way of making fun of all the rumors. We
confess that we and everyone to whom we have spoken,
must have missed the point of the satire. We see no
'fun' in it. What we see appears to be a clumsy,
maladroit drawing which is obviously directed at the
Obamas personally and not at 'rumors'.
Satire – if it is satire – requires wit and point, it
requires art, in turning the obvious on its head to
illustrate the truth hidden beneath. Satire does not
need to be amusing, but it should be able to provoke an
insight, a glimpse of a larger truth and the
recognition, wry or rueful, perhaps, that we have been
led, perhaps even tricked, into a new point of view, a
perspective hitherto unnoticed.
Your plain, bald posterisation of the major untruths
circulated against Barack and Michelle Obama does not
provide any of this. In the present state of race
relations in the United States and round the world, this
is incendiary stuff, the equivalent of shouting fire in
a crowded theatre.
It seems calculated to provoke hatred and contempt for
Barack and Michele Obama and other people of colour,
and like, the Danish cartoons featuring the prophet
Mohammed, likely to incite violence.
All of us have been readers of the New Yorker over the
years and none of us can remember anything so patently
inhumane or propagandistic ever appearing before
anywhere in the magazine.
We think you owe the Obamas and the world, an apology.
We are three senior journalists from the Caribbean with
over a hundred years of experience between us.
* * *
* *
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* * * * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
posted 16 July 2008
|
