2274 If you find it racist....

Thursday, February 19, 2009

...what does that mean?

All the morning talk shows today are upset at yesterday's New York Post cartoon. You can find it here. Everyone finds it racist. And violent.

Ok, I'll grant the violent. But it took me several minutes to wonder if it was racist.

My first thought was, "That would have been funnier if they'd printed it during the Bush administration."

My second thought was, "Are they saying the bill was written by chimps?" - a thought I've had myself. (Not monkeys, by the way. A chimpanzee is an ape, not a monkey. And humans are also primates. Let's get the terms right.)

It wasn't until after I'd heard the arguments about the cartoon being racist that I wondered if they were equating President Obama to a chimpanzee, and then I had to wonder why it was ok to equate Bush to a chimp, but not Obama.

So, am I insensitive to racial issues? Whoopie says that people who are racist are insensitive to racial slurs, don't even realize when they make them. Does being insensitive make me racist? I don't think I am.

In fact, by thinking that it's ok to equate Bush to a chimp, but not Obama, you divide the two solely on the issue of race. Isn't that in a way racist? To differentiate solely on the basis of skin color? To treat people differently based solely on the depth of their tans?

OK, I guess you do have to be sensitive to a person's history. You don't make Nazi jokes to people with numbers tattooed on their arms. But the whole issue is tangled in my mind.

Feminists went through this. Women want to be considered strong, capable, intelligent, and as worthy as men. We don't want to be treated differently just because we're female. But we do like it when men open doors and carry things for us. When The Man opens the car door for me AND adjusts the seat AND pulls the seat belt out and passes it over to my left hand, is he being a chauvinist pig, treating me like a child? (Yes, he really does do all that. He even guides me around with a hand on the small of my back.) I think we woman resolved it simply. OUR chosen man can ACT like we're small and delicate and need to be taken care of - but only in ways we define, and only with our permission. Another man better not try it, or we'd have to kill him.

Maybe that's how things that look racist work. It's allowed only with permission, and otherwise you have to be sensitive. But a man who treats a woman the same way he'd treat another man, not even considering her sex, is not being insensitive, and he's not being chauvinistic - in fact, that's what we'd want. So howcome we have to be so sensitive to race? Wouldn't the goal be to treat all the same with no consideration to color? Isn't that the goal?

So if it's ok to compare Bush to a chimp, isn't the goal to be able someday to compare Obama to a chimp? Is my being "racially insensitive" an indication of latent racism, or a sign that I'm more advanced than most?

It's very tangled. We have to feel our way. Someday I'll have to ask The Man if I've ever inadvertently offended him by saying or doing something I would have said or done to any other man.

I mean, like, is it bad if I forget he's Black?

So, back to the question. If you do or don't find the cartoon racist, what does that mean?
.