University of Virginia cartoonist on Ethiopian famine
by Carmen Van Kerckhove
We’ve tracked growing trend of racism on college campuses pretty closely here on Racialicious. See no. 6 on my list of top 10 trends in race and pop culture of 2006 for a bunch of last year’s incidents.
The latest one comes to from the University of Virginia, where a cartoonist for the Cavalier Daily, the student paper, drew the cartoon above (thanks Rob). He claims that his intent was not to mock the famine victims:
“I was not trying to trivialize famine,” the 22-year-old said. “When you have a food fight, you fight with food. This cartoon brings you to the realization that there’s a famine . . . and in general, people give very little thought to starving people in other countries. But I will admit that I really lacked the foresight in anticipating the reaction. I should have thought that they were going to think I was portraying Africans as savage and misshapen.”
Here’s what the paper’s editor-in-chief had to say:
Ladley declined to discuss personnel decisions but said he had approved the cartoon for publication. “This one came in late at night, after 12:30, and my initial reaction was, ‘This is offensive.’ But we print a lot of offensive things. The instant the public raised a question about it, we realized it was a mistake.”
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of
Kai wrote:
Whoa…
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 11:39 am ¶
JustPlainOl'Me wrote:
I actually went to law school at UVA (beginning in the late 90’s). The Cavalier Daily had a few questionable issues related to race back then. The school always seem to have a slight tinge of tension.
The school is somewhat diverse (especially when compared to my undergrad Catholic university which was about 92% white). However, diversity is meaningless (in my opinion) when the diverse groups fail to interact and work together in any way. That was the case at UVA from my experience. People didn’t really make an effort to get to know anyone outside of their little universe – and that seemed to be the case across the board: blacks, whites, “Persians,” “Asians,” etc. (Are Persian and Asian even acceptable anymore? I remember correcting a family member who recently used oriental. I don’t want to come across as ignorantly as they did.)
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 12:03 pm ¶
egypt4 wrote:
What’s really sad about this is that this week is such a huge holiday in Ethiopia–the new Millennium. And while there are many, many Ethiopians going hungry today, the famine was in the early 80s, probably when the cartoonist was a baby.
So add that to all the other reasons this is bad.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 2:13 pm ¶
dnA wrote:
All the Ethiopians I know wear clothes.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 2:28 pm ¶
Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:
LOL @ dnA
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 2:56 pm ¶
summer wrote:
I should have thought that they were going to think I was portraying Africans as savage and misshapen.”
why? just because he drew them as misshapen and mostly nude? shame on us for thinking he meant to portray them as he drew them. [/sarcasm]
True story, somewhat related but not really: Back in college, mid-90s, my roommate and I used to love to quote movie scenes. One that I admit that we used to say was from Eddie Griffith’s line in Jason’s Lyric: “Lookin and feelin like an Ethiopian. Let’s eat!”, before we went to the caf. Well junior year we ended up friends with a girl from Ethiopia (whom I’m still good friends with.) Guess what my roommate says before dinner? Yes. She did. The way B looked at us sobered us for good from that quote. We hadn’t really put people behind the thought. It was just something funny. Such idiots we were. Thank goodness she didn’t cut us off.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 3:18 pm ¶
DWS wrote:
So many Ethiopians tell me they look forward to the day when their existence is not synonymous with starvation and famine. Their culture is so rich and diverse with over 80 different languages spoken. Really… it’s time to move on.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 3:57 pm ¶
robin wrote:
I went to UVA, graduated in 2004..and there were numerous controversial articles related to race printed in the The Cavalier Daily @ the time, by the editor, that increased already rough racial tensions on grounds. :::sigh::: so I’m not surprised at this cartoon.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 6:31 pm ¶
Mireille wrote:
Many of the people in my apartment complex are Ethiopian and they usually seem to be well feed. They also have clothes and hair if I recall correctly…Strange.
I have the option of transferring to UVA after I finish my AA at Northern Virginia Community College. I think you can understand why I’ll pass on that.
God I hate UVA.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 10:28 pm ¶
jaybee wrote:
hmmm…. so if no one had raised a stink about the cartoon then the editor would have just shrugged his shoulders and went about his business?
the initial thought “this is offensive” really should have been his barometer. period.
Posted 13 Sep 2007 at 11:37 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:
Those look more like Aphex Twin than Ethiopians.
****
I’m with DWS.
Considering the rapid and unnatural shift in climate and destruction of ecosystems (e.g., Norwegian salmon), I want to see who’s laughing in the next 10-20 years.
Do we laugh at the potato famine? Considering the amount of Americans whose ancestors came from Ireland, I’d expect more jokes!
Posted 14 Sep 2007 at 8:11 am ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Jaybee: you hit on one of my biggest pet peeves right now:
How is it possible that noone 1) finds religion, 2) goes into rehab/counseling, 3) realizes they did something wrong, 4) decides to change their ways until AFTER they’re caught or criticized?
Side Note: One thing I love about A Christmas Carol is that Scrooge did his turnaround without losing anything in his practical status-quo:.If it were written today? Scrooge would be getting investigated for owing back-taxes to the crown, Bob Cratchitt would have threatened to quit and expose his shady practices to the world, and his nephew would have called him names, cursed his existance, spit in his face, and danced on Marley’s grave.
Posted 14 Sep 2007 at 9:23 am ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:
The cartoonist said he wanted to draw attention (no pun intended) to the famine in Ethiopia. How could he not be aware of his cartoon’s message: “There’s famine in Ethiopia because Ethiopians are fighting among themselves like savages”? According to the cartoonist, famine has no external cause. Ethiopians have brought in upon themselves with their uncivilized behavior.
Nice.
Posted 14 Sep 2007 at 7:38 pm ¶
simmie wrote:
So it’s only a mistake because people were upset? Hmm. Curious.
Posted 15 Sep 2007 at 12:25 am ¶
al wrote:
i saw it the way he apparently meant it. when you don’t have much food, a food fight is fought -over- food, not with food. i think it’s the way he drew the people that is really offensive.
also, to gatamala, i don’t think the cartoon is supposed to be a joke. political cartoons are often not ‘jokes’ and aren’t meant to be laughed at. also, a lot of people don’t understand the potato famine, which wasn’t exactly a famine, as there was food, it was just being shipped out of the country. i honestly don’t know enough about ethiopian politics to know if that is the case here as well, though i wouldn’t be surprised. either way though, i think there are jokes about the potato famine, and about potato eating amongst the irish in general. but again, i don’t support this cartoon, but i don’t think the artist intended it as a joke.
Posted 16 Sep 2007 at 12:15 am ¶
NancyP wrote:
White undergraduates never change. There are always a few bratty bigots who live to offend other people and gain fame by doing so. (Dinesh d’Souza and Laura Ingraham come to mind – and they have “grown up” to have lucrative careers being bratty bigots.). And a larger number of white undergraduates who laugh at the offensive material.
Posted 16 Sep 2007 at 9:22 pm ¶
Lemar A wrote:
This was on the columbus, dispatch about 30 years ago. Is this guy from Ohio or somewhere there? Why not be creative instead of plygirizing and worst yet to offend someone. Well, unfortunately for him, this only exposes him as a college student who trys to pass by plygirizing. May be he thinks histry means what is NOW! Huh! I wonder where this is gonna take him 30 years from now. You know what I mean? This guy is already famouse by creating some untrue and hostile image. I will never trust or hire this guy even if he wins some ICFJ or AAAS or some other journalism or cartoonist. NO originality, NO honesty, NO quality!
Lemar A
Posted 30 Oct 2007 at 12:53 pm ¶