If you only look hard enough, you can find racism in a turnip...

And what the hell is your problem with turnips?

I dunno. I loathe race hustlers but the image made me feel very uncomfortable. I find it hard to believe the people who created it didn't think there would be any reaction to a black man having his face painted white after the fashion of the Black and White Minstrels/Al Jolson. And that was racist, however you look at it. If you wanted to make Obama look like the Joker, there are other options.

On the one hand, in the current political climate it is probably impossible to do any sort of caricature of Obama without someone crying racism. Heck, it's impossible to criticize the Obamessiah without something calling you racist.

On the other hand, caricature is an established and acceptable part of political life. One should not have to censor oneself just because some idiot somewhere will be offended.

The authors link to racism here is ridiculously tentative: Joker in an inner city criminal. Inner cities have lots of blacks. Ignore the fact the Joker is white, showing Obama as the Joker ties him to inner city black crime.

It's an inventive connection, if nothing else...

"I find it hard to believe the people who created it didn't think there would be any reaction to a black man having his face painted white after the fashion of the Black and White Minstrels/Al Jolson. And that was racist, however you look at it."

Al Jolson's the Jazz Singer came out in the late 1920s, if I recall correctly. That movie is almost a century old, and if the Joker Poster artist is in his or her 20s-30s, how aware of Al Jolson do you think that person is? Most people in that age group are not aware of movies like Birth of a Nation or the Jazz Singer. And thinking of them as cultural lodestones? Never.

Given that minstrel performances have been gone for a century, my view is that awareness of that genre of theater is largely gone from most of the population except those over 50 years of age. So claiming that it is hard to believe that the person who created this poster did not think about minstrel shows when creating this is less reasonable than you apparently assume. The poster artist almost certainly has no direct familiarity with minstrel performances unless he is 110 years old. And just because those performances were held up by activists a few decades ago during the 60s and 70s, as examples of media stereotyping, doesn't mean the artist would be familiar with them either. The artist probably was not even alive or, if alive, reading at that point. (Yeah, hippies are getting THAT old.)

The more likely explanation is the artist simply adopted a pop culture visual he was familiar with: Heath Ledger's Joker. (The use of that image is what makes me think the artist is younger. Older artists probably would use some other image.)

My opinion is, in the end, not really grounded in fact, only supposition. But I am giving the artist the benefit of doubt when considering bigotry. Your conclusion that this "was racist, however you look at it" is no more supported by facts than mine. But you presume bigotry, when other perfectly reasonable, race-neutral explanations exist.

I really do not like it you leap to the bigotry explanation first. It is an unfair and aggressive way to deny decency to other voices in debates. The stain you toss out there doesn't wear off the artist even if the very difficult task of providing innocense is accomplished.

Everyone should be presumed to have no racial motive until proven otherwise. My view is charges of bigotry must walk into the debate accompanied by evidence, not supposition, or be deemed to be in bad faith.

>>Given that minstrel performances have been gone for a century, my view is that awareness of that genre of theater is largely gone from most of the population except those over 50 years of age.

Spartee,
I'm not disagreeing with your point - but the minstrel tradition persisted longer in TV pop culture than you may realize.

(BBC broadcasts were widely syndicated outside the UK too). The following is from a BBC history.

"One hundred years after the "Nigger Minstrel" entertainment tradition had begun in London's music-halls, the convention was revived on television in the form of The Black And White Minstrel Show. This variety series was first screened on BBC Television on 14 June 1958 and it was to stay on air for over the next two decades. The Black And White Minstrel Show evolved from the "Swannee River" type minstrel radio shows. One year before it was first broadcast on television, George Inns produced the 1957 Television Minstrels (BBC TV 2 September 1957) as part of the National Radio Show in London."

I read that article and got thoroughly confused by what, exactly, the author was trying to say about the poster. The verbal contortions he went through trying to link Joker makeup to 'whiteface' were really impressive.

I'm a bit of a comic geek, so I can have a go at the Joker-the Joker was always portrayed as 'white' in that he was, literally, white, both in the comics and the TV show. But white like painted white. Harley Quinn white. His skin color wasn't natural and that helped signal his overall creepiness. There was, briefly, a version of the Joker on the cartoon show (there were several variations of the cartoon that aired at different periods in which the characters went through redesigns based on who was illustrating them. This one would have been sometime in the mid 90s.) where the Joke had green dreadlocks and wore a purple zoot suit, but his skin color didn't change.

As for the comic book Joker, there are a couple of different story arcs about his genesis. One was that he was a failed standup comic who took out a loan from some loan sharks to support his wife and baby while trying to make it as a comedian. He couldn't get anyone to laugh, the loan sharks killed his family, voila: the Joker was born. Incidentally, in this story arc the Joker and his family lived in a tenement-like setting in Gotham.

But the comic book Joker never told the same story twice when explaining how he became the Joker, so his origins are murky. Ledger's characterization of the Joker, which I think has eclipsed Nicholson's as the iconic Joker interpretation, doesn't have a backstory at all. He just is.

So is Obama in whiteface in this poster? Only inasmuch as he's done up like the Joker, who was a white guy in clown makeup, not what I would consider 'whiteface' makeup (the Joker wasn't trying to look like a white guy. He looked like a melting clown). If the poster artist meant to put him in whiteface, he could have shown Obama done up like Dave Chappelle when he plays white characters.

The connection between urban crime exists only insofar as the Joker is, like every other character in the Batman universe, in an urban environment. Every criminal in the Batman universe is an inner city criminal, because the stories happen in Gotham.

Theoretically, the artist could have given Obama's image the appearance of the Joker but left off the white part of the makeup, although I doubt it would have been as visually arresting. The image is meant to make you feel uncomfortable. Perhaps the artist also meant for it to be racist. I don't know, you'd have to ask him/her (I don't know who the artist is.)

What I fail to get is the link between socialism and the Joker, unless the artist is trying to make a statement that socialism undermines a functioning society, which is what the Joker's ultimate aim was. That seems like a stretch though.

Disturbing? Yes, political cartoonery is meant to be disturbing. Racist? I think it's harder to make the case that the image was definitively intended to be a racist caricature.

Well, every criminal except for Ras al Ghul. But his final showdown with Batman took place in Gotham. The most successful issues of the comics were the ones that were set in Gotham, so the comics had a trend of, even if criminals originated outside of Gotham (like Bane), having Batman battle on his home turf.

I would love to believe that all dislike for Obama's "socialism" is just out of love for the free market system, but the empirical evidence I have witnessed tell me that's just not so.

I know too many people who supported Ms. Clinton and her 'Hillary-care,' who are all of a sudden against this 'socialism' of Obama. What else can explain someone who fully supported Hillary's socialist ideals railing against 'socialism'?

And incidentally...sorry, this article irritates me the more I read it...many of the villains that Batman clashed with were white, especially the iconic ones. If the comic creators wanted to signal that inner city blacks carried the proposensity for crime internally, wouldn't they have had Batman fighting black criminals?

I think we like to pretend there aren't racists out there...

Can any of us honestly say that we don't believe there is a percentage of RACIST black people who voted for Obama merely because he was black? Of course not.
It would be just as foolish to claim that there isn't a percentage of racist white people who voted against him for the same reason.

"I would love to believe that all dislike for Obama's "socialism" is just out of love for the free market system, but the empirical evidence I have witnessed tell me that's just not so.

I know too many people...."

Citing your personal conversations is evidence of a kind: anecdotal. Anecdotal evidence tends to be disregarded by most people when discussing larger social trends. In fact, it is barely considered evidence at all, except to prove that one conversation.

"I think we like to pretend there aren't racists out there.."

No, people understand that pretty well. We also know that thieves, liars, spouse abusers etc., are present among us too. But we don't call people those latter things without direct evidence. Supposition is not enough. And calling people a thief or a liar without evidence tends to make the name-caller look terrible. It should be the same with allegations of racial bigotry.

Instead, people want to have a powerful label--bigot! racist!--to stigmatize idealogical opponents with. But they want the burden to be on the opponent to disprove the allegation. That should not be allowed, and guys like Jesse Jackson who use that technique to gain money and power should be called on it.

"There will come a time when the issue of race will benefit greatly from a period of benign neglect." ~French Philosopher

Ladies & gentleman, I think we're there.

If we could, for a few months, forget all about the issue of race, if all those who shout "racist" at every caricature & criticism, could keep silent that easy (and lazy) accusation, then Obama's "mystique" vanishes, and he becomes just another ordinary politician, and quite frankly, far from the best of them in terms of talent or experience.

(Yeah, hippies are getting THAT old.)

Thanks, Spartee. Just.. thanks.

A friend of mine on Facebook posted about this, and said he was very angry about it. We tried to point out to him that ALL presidents get whacked with political cartoon imagery, but he was adamant that it was prejudiced, hurtful and unjust, etc. and so on. (yes my friend is black, too.) I give up trying to explain things to these people when they are so adamant about being offended. It's okay to make white presidents political targets but not black ones. Okay. Whatever. To me, it's a non-issue. It was a poor choice of the artist, perhaps; because personally, I think I'm more offended that s/he used Heath Ledger's Joker persona to make the statement, rather than, say, Jack Nicholson's. S/He could have even used Ceaser Romero's Joker, from the old TV series, and I'd be way less offended. (Yes, I'll admit it - I had a crush on Ledger. Not that I stood a chance. I'm old enough to have been his mother!)

"Instead, people want to have a powerful label--bigot! racist!--to stigmatize idealogical opponents with."

"Socialist!"?

No that doesn't count, of course. One man's valid critcism is another man's stigmatizing ideological opponents.

Ha, good point, Phillip. I've noticed that many people who freely hurl the epithet 'socialist' around are appalled at people using the term 'racist.' I wonde why that is.

Spartee, you seem to have totally missed my point. I said I was speaking on an empirical basis based on what I have experienced.You quote me as saying

"I would love to believe that all dislike for Obama's "socialism" is just out of love for the free market system, but the empirical evidence I have witnessed tell me that's just not so."

ALL dislike. You get it? So for me to give one example is much more than anecdotal evidence as one example of this phenomena disprove the 'all' in that statement. Your comment that it would be invalid for 'larger social trends' is quite frankly insane, because you are hallucinating comments that I di not make, where is the comment about 'larger social trends.'

Please go to the nearest mental hospital quickly.

. . . the poster connects Obama to something many of his detractors fear but can't openly discuss. He is black and he is identified with the inner city . . .

President Obama is not identified with the inner city. He's a Harvard guy, rich, a lawyer married to a lawyer, whose kids go to a snooty private school. The closest he gets to the inner city is being driven in his limousine from his mansion to the airport.

Pseudonym, he's from Chicago.

If they are putting whiteface on him... aren't they saying WHITE people are evil?

Nah. They're identifying him with the Joker. The Joker is evil.

That the Joker is white and Obama isn't are kind of incidental. You could slap Joker makeup on Palin, too, if you felt so inclined, which would also identify her with evil. (She's already identified with wearing lots of face spackle.)

What I find weird is that the author is saying that by identifying Obama with an evil villain who is white, the artist is identifying him with....black people?

If the artist really wanted to get people riled up at him/her, they could have identified Obama with Sweetstick Max.

So for me to give one example is much more than anecdotal evidence as one example of this phenomena disprove the 'all' in that statement.

Are you missing a subject in this sentence? Because I'm trying to parse it and I can't understand it at all.

did anyone mention the Vanity Fair Cover of Bush last July caricatured as the Joker, and an agent of Chaos? No? Oh it musta been OK because... something.

Bush in Vanity Fair July 2008

coutesy of a Volokh poster...

Seems like I saw a caricature of Carter once in blackface... LBJ was always shown with huge ears. We skewer everyone. It HAS to be everyone.

If you criticize Obama, some people are going to scream racism no matter how justified the criticism. We all knew that was going to happen. I am more amazed by the author's insistance that Obama is not a socialist.

Since Obama was elected, the goverment now owns a big chunk of the banks, a big chunk of the auto industry, and is openly trying to take control of health care. I think someone needs to buy this guy a dictionary because this is the dictionary definition of socialism.

You know what Mr. Kennicott? Leave the psychological analysis of comic book icons to the real nerds.

The Joker has never stood for anything except wanton and random chaos. He's not an 'urban virus' he doesn't mirror racial violence - he's just chaos. I've been reading/ watching Batman for decades now, I know what I'm talking about

Really the argument he's trying to force this into would have been more effective if the artist had used Two-Face: an ugly, monstrous psychopath that lies in the true heart of a man who presented himself as urbane, just, and sympathetic.

Real nerds would have known that.

I guess someone din't took his "Chill Pill" this morning...

What the hell it is all about? It looks like every leftist able to hold a pen is trying to find racism biased against Obama everywhere! What if, by any other reason, the poster was just a dumb joke? Would it had any value if he was dressed as batman?

Here's the problem as I see it; there's way too many race apologists in the United-States looking for a way to use the race card. Mr. Phillip Kennicott is just one of them.

I think it is quite hypocritical the way people accuse anyone who defends Obama of 'playing the race card,' then get mad when the liberals do the same thing by accusing them of being racist.

Kind of reinforces me why my mother used to punish both my brother and I no matter who started the fight.

Personally I think both the people who are too quick to accuse people of racism AND the people who are too quick to accuse people of using the race card, are both the type of people this country could do with out. Loudmouth kneejerk blowhards.

Yeah, racism has nothing to do with this. It's a current cultural icon applied to the President, period. The psychological history of the Joker is great to discuss though..

Fox News currently has the poster up side-by-side with a very similar image of Bush, published last year by Vanity Fair. That, of course, elicited no protest.

And because, like The Joker, I have skin just this side of the color of fresh Wite-Out, this means that I am: 1. Actually black, 2. "Carrying danger with (me) like a virus," 3. Your choice here.

Ooh! I vote #2! "Carrying danger within!" Now you can get a big cape and maybe some press-on dagger fingernails!

Cool!

How about they just make fun of Obama because the idiots that voted for him bought into empty buzzwords from a man with little experience and about which little was known. If the american public cared to take off the rose colored glasses and realize what they have put into office, there would be massive mobilization to stop this social insanity

"How about they just make fun of Obama because the idiots that voted for him bought into empty buzzwords from a man with little experience and about which little was known. If the american public cared to take off the rose colored glasses and realize what they have put into office, there would be massive mobilization to stop this social insanity"

That's just stupid. Many people who voted for Obama always vote Democratic, because they believe in big government social democratic beliefs. Nobody 'fell' for anything, they were sick of the Republican and went for the Democrat. Simple as.

Didn't help that Sarah Palin was a religious idiot...

I agree with Eric, its comparing a wacko nutjob character and Obama's socialist (or state run/organized) policies.

A commenter at Volokh's points out that it would have been more accurate to portray Obama as Two-Face...

The Joker was an anarchist. Isn't anarchy the opposite of socialism?

And about "Socialism," I'm going to grab the definition just one comment up from SIo "Socialist (or state run/organized)", and say that by definitions, if Obama is the Head of State, whatever he does is going to be something state run, or socialist by that definition. I'm going to ask that if you're going to criticize Obama, it's not enough just to say that what he's doing is socialist, and therefore bad, it would be a stronger argument to point out exactly what is wrong with a particular thing being "socialized."

ummm, sorry bill, you dont vote "for" somebody because of who they are running against or because of who is currently in office. Unfortunately you have to make a choice between two candidates and in this past election they both sucked, but honestly, one you knew, and one was an empty f'ing suit who never hid the fact he was a socialist. Last time I checked, this country was founded on the priciples of indidual freedoms and the responsibility that comes with. That big eared prick in the whitehouse thinks he can just wave his magic wand and we will all live in bliss. Sorry, I do not want to support the huddled masses that have made poor choices in their lives and want me to pay for it. You want some of that, move to Venezuela or Cuba.

Might the picture just be saying socialism's a joke...? Or is that too easy?

:/

Clinky, I think most people have a good general definition of "socialism" that we don't have to spend much time playing too many word games with it. In general, socialism refers to the government assuming many functions for producing goods and providing services. Now, we all know that it's been a fairly long-standing tradition for state governments to do some things such as building roads, and somewhat more recently, the federal government assumed responsibility for air traffic control. The federal government's role in providing for the common defense is, of course, explicitly called out in the Constitution, as are some law enforcement functions.

It's reasonable to ask the question about exactly where the line is: for example, is a munincipal-owned water system socialism or not? It may be. Does it work? Yeah, more or less. But it's an exception, and the main reason it came to be that way was because nobody could get a private-sector solution to work once it became commonplace to bury water systems under paved roads.

Most people's definition is that socialism begins where the government takes over functions that, clearly, are better done by the private sector. We have socialized auto makers now. Since the advent of the automobile, no government in history that has ever tried to get into the car-making business has ever succeeded. The Soviets tried it on a massive scale, and they experienced a massive fail. Soviet-built Ladas were, by all accounts, terrible cars. Yeah, somebody is going to bring up the Volkswagon, but that wasn't really socialized; it was a subsidized and politically favored private-sector entry. And besides, look where that sort of thing got them.

I can point to a gazillion examples of fail when governments have tried to push the private sector aside. It would be a much shorter list to count up the times when governments did this sort of thing and succeeded. Consider this: we already have socialized auto companies and a partially socialized financial industry. And we're looking down the barrel of a socialized health care industry. If they succeed in pulling that off, can there be any doubt that the oil industry is next? And man, if you want to see some corruption, wait until you see a socialized oil industry. It'll make the U.S. look like Mexico.

Lujlp - Apropos of absolutely nothing in this thread, I answered your request for a fish/female joke in the Muslim mermaid thread a few days ago.

Sorry must of missed it

Just saw it, funny

"And because, like The Joker, I have skin just this side of the color of fresh Wite-Out"

Amy I think you're the only white woman in southern california that I have seen without some fucked up skin.

Let's say no to orange people! Let's say no to wrinkles!

The problem with trying to make Obama the face of urban street crime is not that it's racist, but ridiculous. Obama is. . . the only word I can come up with is effete. He comes across about as menacingly as Don Knotts. In drag. His wife looks more threatening than he does. Bill Clinton's wife looks more threatening than Obama does.

>>I dunno. I loathe race hustlers but the image made me feel very uncomfortable. I find it hard to believe the people who created it didn't think there would be any reaction to a black man having his face painted white after the fashion of the Black and White Minstrels/Al Jolson. And that was racist, however you look at it. If you wanted to make Obama look like the Joker, there are other options.

If it made you uncomfortable, that is your own personal interpretation and resulting feelings. I would argue the only thing wrong with the picture is that people might interpret it in a way that makes them uncomfortable. Otherwise it has no real negative impact. Are non black children going to see this picture and become anti black? Are people going to see this picture and think, "That's right! Obama's black. He must be an inner city criminal"? So let's say, instead, the artist used a plain old picture of Obama with a picture of a horse's ass superimposed over his face. That certainly has far more of a direct and negative meaning. Would you also feel uncomfortable about the horse's ass picture? I suspect most people who are 'uncomfortable' with the joker picture would be relatively ok with the horse's ass picture. They would, likely, laugh it off as political nonsense (or just declare it plain old fashioned idiocy). My question is this: If you, and the others who feel uncomfortable with the joker picture, were to treat the joker picture the same as the horse's ass picture, what would be the negative impact???

A black man has been elected POTUS. In certain aspects that is a very good thing. However, he not only should be treated as any other POTUS, he needs to be treated the same for the benefit of the country. Wide ranging criticism of the POTUS (in my opinion) helps keeps him/her from running too rampant with the enormous power of the office. And as long as some people see Obama, because of his race, in a way that makes them "uncomfortable" to treat him like any other POTUS, don't we run the dangerous risk of not keeping the enormous power of the office in check?

Lastly, Obama is now the most powerful man on earth (or in the top 2 or 3 depending on how powerful the POTUS actually is). He and his supporters are laughing all the way to the bank (in a manner of speaking). Uncomfortable feelings regarding some abstract ribbing simply isn't equitably warranted.

Yes, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

A commenter at Volokh's points out that it would have been more accurate to portray Obama as Two-Face...

That would be racist because he's half-white and half-black. Or something.

Click my name for my reaction to it.