The Incomplete Cynic

jeffmiller:

shortformblog:

“…if I add the context that Googling ‘George Bush monkey’ gives you over 3 million hits, and most of them are jokes where President Bush’s face is transposed on a monkey, you see what’s really going on. Democrats and advocates of civil rights are using the media to further an agenda at the expense of a woman who was probably so non-racist that the photo in question didn’t set off her alarms…”

— “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams • On the topic of Orange County Republican official Marilyn Davenport, who emailed a photo of an Obama “family portrait,” showing two grinning adult chimpanzees with a chimp-ish baby Barack. First of all — the Dilbert guy? What? Why!? But second of all, we agree wholeheartedly with the folks at Mediaite on this one. To compare Bush monkey/chimp jokes to ones directed at Obama is at best silly and at worst willfully evasive and/or ignorant. You don’t have to be a scholarly social critic to understand why a joke aimed at two different people could be construed as racist against one, and at worst stupid or unfunny against the other. To deny this seems like digging your head in the sand about what are and aren’t racial stereotypes in our society. Wanting to excise racism doesn’t necessitate pretending not to recognize it. source (via • follow) 

Without a doubt, the same “joke aimed at two different people could be construed as racist against one,” and no doubt it could be construed this way here.  But before this woman is denounced as a racist, we ought to consider what she intended, not how it would be construed by others.  In other words, her sin may be ignorance and not intolerance.  That distinction matters, because ignorance is forgivable.  Everyone has gaps in their knowledge, sometimes baffling ones.  

Moreover, there is something progressive about the woman’s mistake here.  If you take her at her word … that is, if she really didn’t realize the potentially racist undertone, perhaps it’s because we’ve evolved to a point where it wouldn’t even occur to a lot of people that placing a black man’s face on a monkey would be racist.  I think this is more plausible that you think.  

The solution for all of this, I think, is to strive towards a kind of dignity, which would entail, at a minimum, that we all stop putting politician faces on monkeys.  Maybe we could all stop drawing Hitler mustaches while we’re at it.  Maybe we could all stop acting like children.  Because if this woman had corresponded like an adult, and not an idiot, she wouldn’t be under fire.

Based on this interview, I’m inclined to cut her some slack. If those closest to her are really surprised, that means she doesn’t have a history of racist behavior.

I’ll let you in on a secret: white people - elderly, middle aged, and young, from all parts of the country and types of environments - say insensitive things about racial minorities all the time. About half the time they don’t even know or realize; most of the rest are attempts to be racially sensitive, which come out sideways and unrefined. A small sliver are intentional.

It’s about time we stop castigating people for unintentional insensitivity, especially when they are of longstanding good repute.

(Source: shortformblog)