The delusion of hatred immunity at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

The delusion of hatred immunity

by Special Correspondent Thea Lim

Excuse me if I seem a bit dim, but this week I’m having trouble figuring out exactly what satire is. When satire takes the form of straight-up replication of offensive images and ideas, is it still satire? Or is it just imitation? And if it’s the case that imitation really is flattery, why is the New Yorker flattering Fox News?

At the heart of much satire and all bad satire, is something snarky and holier-than-thou, the belief that when someone (allegedly) enlightened articulates the exact same thing as someone unenlightened, it’s different solely because of the mouth it comes out of. Underpinning this kind of satire is often classism, ignorance and a pretty gross lack of self-awareness. The thing about last week’s New Yorker cover is that, like all quintessential hipster racism, it manages to hit (or oppress, I suppose) three birds with one stone. The hatred trifecta!

Instead of just being racist or ignorant, in the way E.D. Hill’s off-hand reference to a “terrorist fist jab” was, ye olde cover is simultaneously:

1) hateful

2) absolves itself of hatred: by creating and printing an image, that the New Yorker would immediately abhor if printed by a right-wing blog, the McCain campaign or poor old E.D. Hill, the New Yorker is saying that it’s above the censure that it lays on others; it’s immune to being hateful.

3) classist: an opinion that was hateful when articulated by folks in poor, rural areas, is clever when articulated by someone who reads high-brow art reviews, and can differentiate between camembert and brie.

According to my favourite website Dictionary.com, central to satire is the act of exposing or unmasking hatred that simmers beneath the surface of “polite society.” What is it then, that the New Yorker is unmasking? The fact that many people are suspicious of the Obamas? The fact that some people think Obama is secretly Muslim? I hate to break it to you New Yorker, but pointing out “Osama” and “Obama” rhyme is not exactly this season’s hottest exposé.

The cover fails as satire because it fails to unveil anything new about race in America, or the perception of Barack and Michelle. Satire without the element of exposure is just replication. The New Yorker cover simply reinforces hateful ideas. It helps propagate some pretty serious misinformation not just about the Obamas, but about black folks and Muslims.

And I would argue that the drawing of Michelle (who you’ve probably noticed seems much more menacing than Barack) adds in a just a little dash of its own latent hatred of strong black women. If you ask me, the only people who would find this cover funny, is people who on a conscious or unconscious level believe the misinformation this image is peddling.

This quote from the Daily Telegraph nails the New Yorker’s blindspot:

The New Yorker’s 630,000 or so readers know what the magazine is about. It has highbrow arts reviews, intelligent metropolitan opinions, and quirky, knowing cartoons. Woody Allen writes for it. Any regular reader would immediately ‘get’ that cover as it was intended. A not too subtle lampoon of exaggerated right wing
smears…

Actually, I have to disagree.

Attention all insensitive and arrogant hipsters, liberals and bobos, I’ve already said it here, but one more time: sadly, highbrow arts reviews, knowing cartoons, Woody Allen and even a lifetime subscription to the New Yorker are not an amazing elixir that will protect you from being racist, or classist, or sexist, or homophobic or ableist or just an all-round jerk. It’s not as if as soon as you pick up that Jim Jarmusch box set, no hateful words will ever be able to pass from your lips again.

Anxious Black Woman asks

are we, as a nation, truly sophisticated enough to make these kinds of jokes?

In a culture like ours where racism is institutionalised, everyone is racist. Drawing for the New Yorker doesn’t vaccinate you to racism. There’s always a chance that we might do and say something racist. To release that image into a culture like America is irresponsible because both the culture, and artist Barry Blitt as an inseparable part of this culture* (as we all our inseparable from our cultures, no matter what we may think of them), is not advanced enough in Anti-Racism 101 for that kind of satire. The New Yorker and Barry Blitt imply that they’re above racism, that they’ve reached the nirvana of tolerance. That’s pretty much the height of arrogance and the depth of self-awareness.

I’ve seen this attitude manifest itself in lots of different ways. I’ve known feminists who thought that any opinion they articulated was feminist - even when it wasn’t - simply because they identified as feminists. I’ve known people of colour who termed every slight against them racism - even when it wasn’t - because they were people of colour. And I’ve dealt with people who thought they were incapable of mistakes, and would insist until blue in the face that they were right - when they weren’t - simply because by their own logic, no act committed by their hand could ever be wrong.

It’s that same logic that makes hipster culture what it is. Whether or not they intend it, whenever a hipster dresses up in an NKOTB t-shirt and a fanny pack, they’re saying “I’m so clearly above actually dressing like this that it is funny.”

Input American Apparel into the equation? When they first began pumping their soft-core porn billboards into the main intersections of countless North American cities, they were saying “We’re so above exploiting women and women of colour that this can’t be offensive” regardless of how those billboards changed every intersection they loomed over, into sexually charged, pornified and sometimes unsafe spaces for any women walking through them.

How about Vice Magazine? This 2005 gem sent to us by reader Chairo called Hey Kids! It’s Time for some Dumb Myths and Smart Facts About Slavery!, pushes the idea that slavery wasn’t that bad. Due to my aforementioned dimness, I’m not even sure if this article supposed to be serious. But Vice is saying “We’re so clever, so above racism, that even when we publish an article that would fit nicely in a White Power magazine, we’re still not offensive.”

If you ask me the joke’s on The New Yorker, American Apparel and Vice. Unless you have your PhD in Anti-Racism 101, when you mock something that is hateful by repeating it, you’re not mocking it, you ARE it. There’s a level of insanity that underpins the false distinctions the New Yorker paints between itself and those allegedly ignorant, stupid right-wingers who actually think Obama is Osama. It’s a delusion: when you say something that is racist, I don’t care if you’re the ghost of Malcolm X: you are racist.

You want one more piece of delusion? From politico.com:

Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune defended [the cartoon] as “quite within the normal realms of journalism,” adding that “it’s just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there.”

As if because something is part and parcel of journalism it’s not offensive. Hey, maybe if that kind of rhetoric is part of journalism, it doesn’t mean that that kind of rhetoric is ok, it means that journalism isn’t ok.

Trying to point out this kind of insanity is a thankless task. When you call people on their delusion of hatred immunity, people will say you’re too uptight, too humourless, you take things too literally, you’re not cool enough to get the joke.

You know what? I’m ok with being a dim-witted square. If you need me I’ll be at home working on my beginner’s degree in Anti-Racism 101.

*This is not to say I think that we’re all unregenerate racists/bigots. I’m just saying it’s always lurking within us, and the only way to truly protect our psyches from being hateful is to recognise this; and then to be careful about what we say; and be honest and sorry the times that we do mess up.

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Comments

jesse wrote:

Well, I saw the Vice link, and I have to say it’s a variation on the usual right-wing talking points. I’m not a Vice reader, though, so I can’t say how usual that is. But if it’s supposed to be a kind of hip, liberal-ish, urban mag, then hell yes, that shit is just plain dumb. Much of it is actually historically inaccurate, or at best debateable.

For instance, the difference between indentured servitude and slavery is that the former ends. Indentured servants’ children were free, unlike slaves (in the US, we practiced a rather unique system of enslaving the children of slaves, something most other countries did not do).

But that’s just one of the glaring errors. Your point is well taken that hipsters often don’t get power dynamics, and neither do many Libertarians (who seem to deny they exist at all).

It’s politics for 12-year-olds, is what it is.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 6:50 am ¶
brian wrote:

Sorry if I derail this from the get-go, but I just read the Freakonomics blog and had to post this somewhere here:

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/what-is-the-most-racist-city-in-america/

They opened up a conversation on quantifying the most racist city, which basically led to a bunch of bullshit nonsense. And knowing their bullshit nonsense approach, which completely discounts humanness and stresses “incentive” I can only imagine they’ll find racism economically beneficial or will define it in ways that don’t even BEGIN to scratch the surface of what it is like to experience racism. Sorry. *PUKE*

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 7:25 am ¶
SoKoKo wrote:

I think this is brilliant. The most perfect thing I’ve read recently on what satire is, what it is suppossed to be and do.

I knew I shouldn’t have clicked on that Vice link though, the comments on the article and the subsequent interview with its author made me twitchy with rage tinged sadness.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 7:36 am ¶
bright eyes wrote:

I think the cover is racist, but I was discussing it with my dad, and his opinion was that it’s intended to make fun of white people who believe that Michelle and Barack are really so egregiously anti-American.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 7:38 am ¶
Paul wrote:

If the New Yorker ran picture of HRC as a castrtating harpy engaged in a lesbian embrace, then you can bet there’d be all kinds of uproar about it. Hell, look at the furor over a nutcracker.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 7:40 am ¶
gatamala wrote:

Exactly!!!

I love your cultural reference points (Jarmusch, camembert).

When I’ve had these discussions with folks about “how racism is not limited to south of the Mason-Dixon”, I feel like I’m in the odd position of “defending” people with whom I do have a conflict.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:37 am ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:

Thea–“You know what? I’m ok with being a dim-witted square. If you need me I’ll be at home working on my beginner’s degree in Anti-Racism 101.”

Friend, I think I’ll join ya. ::grabs a Tim Wise book::

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:41 am ¶
A. Taveras wrote:

There’s a big difference b/w Vice and New Yorker. The tone here is frighteningly dogmatic…no Phd in anti-racism means you have no access to satire or irony? I think the author might benefit from listening to the ill doctrine piece linked to just before this post…

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:44 am ¶
macon d wrote:

Good article–it helps to refute the “insider” claim that the cover is “just satire.”

I would add that one more element of satire, as I understand it, is missing from the cover–blatant, pointed exaggeration. The classic example of satire, Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” does have this. The most memorable part of Swift’s effort to point out the British abuses of the Irish people is the recommendation that the Irish eat their own babies. Of course, no one in England was saying THAT, but they were continuing to support policies that starved or nearly starved many of the Irish, and Swift’s satiric exaggeration effectively drove that point home.

So if the cover is supposed to satirize right-wing and even middle-American fears of the Obamas, it fails in this sense as well. None of those fears are exaggerated in that image–people do fear that Obama is a closet Muslim and even a potential ;terrorist, and they do fear that the Obamas will “paint the white house black,” along with the federal government. The only exaggeration, it seems, is the appearance of the Obamas–few think they’ll actually start dressing and looking like that. But that’s not enough pointed exaggeration for this cover to qualify as satire, let alone effective satire.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:48 am ¶
Matt wrote:

This is the best response to the NY cover I’ve seen.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:50 am ¶
Thea Lim wrote:

@ macon

I was thinking about mentioning a Modest Proposal, but then I got to thinking - would I have liked the New Yorker cover more if it had been even more over the top? I had trouble figuring out how exaggeration could’ve fixed the Obamas cartoon. Any ideas?

I do think exaggeration is why the Colbert Report (which I sometimes like and sometimes don’t like…) works - because Stephen Colbert says things that no right wing pundit would ever go so far as to say. Most of the time…

@ A Taveras

I don’t think the New Yorker and Vice are the same. I have actually on occasion read copies of the New Yorker cover to cover. I usually can’t get past the contents page of Vice. I was rather pointing out that the logic behind the New Yorker cover and that Vice article are similar.

The point I was making was that a person can’t make fun of something they’re implicated in, in a way that de-implicates them (is that a word?). To do that is really hypocritical and self-aware. I guess I am one of those radicals who feels uncomfortable and often angry when white folks make fun of racism for a white audience. Because of institutionalised systemic racism, it seems like a very dishonest way of distancing themselves from something they aren’t distant from at all.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:20 am ¶
Thea Lim wrote:

Oh haha, I meant “un-self-aware” in that last paragraph. Ahem.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:21 am ¶
Joe wrote:

Why do you have to keep grinding these stupid, stupid New Yorker stereotypes in your posts? Tell the difference between cheeses? Read high-brow art reviews? Criticize the cover all you want, just like every other whiny left blogger, but please, oh please, realize that all your silly tripe is one long anti-intellectual rant against one of the only serious general interest magazines left.

Bad news: being educated, reading serious books, and being engaged in cultural matters DOES make you an elitist. If reading the New Yorker - and because I assume you don’t know, most of its content is written by prominent journalists and cultural voices - makes me an elitist, then I am damn proud to be one, because it means I’m engaged.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:23 am ¶
dave wrote:

“I’ve seen this attitude manifest itself in lots of different ways. I’ve known feminists who thought that any opinion they articulated was feminist - even when it wasn’t - simply because they identified as feminists. I’ve known people of colour who termed every slight against them racism - even when it wasn’t - because they were people of colour. And I’ve dealt with people who thought they were incapable of mistakes, and would insist until blue in the face that they were right - when they weren’t - simply because by their own logic, no act committed by their hand could ever be wrong.” …………. this is a really important this that needs to be said over and over and i’m glad you’ve just given me a new way to put it. the remark about the person who thinks they’re right is a perfect analogy.

i’m unclear on the vice mag post … some of the language appears to be anti-racism but so much of the content is belittling …

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:28 am ¶
Zenobia wrote:

Let me give a hearty ‘fuck yes!’ to this post. If anything, the layer of hip, knowing irony makes it even worse. If a regular person is racist, they’re just racist - if a person in the know is racist, it’s fine. It’s all about being in the know about something that doesn’t exist and part of an imaginary in-crowd, isn’t it?

And it actually has nothing to do with being educated, reading serious books, telling the difference between cheeses, or being engaged, and more to do with thinking being hip and knowing means you somehow automatically do these things by being ‘hip’ to ironic stuff like that cover.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:38 am ¶
ash wrote:

“It’s a delusion: when you say something that is racist, I don’t care if you’re the ghost of Malcolm X: you are racist.”

I’ve had a few discussions w/friends about this. I see that often when people ‘mock’ bigots they end up sounding like bigots.

Mocking bigotry is also a way of coping. When someone mocks something I know they’re suffering from, it increases intimacy, empathy, anger at the cause of suffering. It’s complex. If Barack Obama had painted this exaggerated picture himself in a Q&A w/his supporters, I think its ridiculousness would be transparent, and the shit would be funny.

I think that so many people are in an uproar about it partly reflects the disconnection the majority feel from him, and from Black people and Muslims. The New Yorker might not be the best mag to facilitate these dialogs, but sometimes this style is refreshing in the face of all the PC tip-toeing around America’s bigotry.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:43 am ¶
A. Taveras wrote:

Thea-

I guess I don’t see how New Yorker or its audience can be implicated in holding these misconceptions about the Obamas. I understand that they are implicated in racism as we all are, but I don’t think the cover was satirizing racism in general so much as satirizing the specific misconceptions illustrated on the cover. Is it hypocritical to mock misconceptions you and your readership don’t hold?

I can agree the artist missed the mark, missed some visual cues, but not by very much. We all know the audience of the mag, and even if there is racism in that audience I think it is a safe bet that hardly any readers of the mag actually held these misconceptions or missed the gag.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 9:50 am ¶
macon d wrote:

Joe, it’s not the content of the NYer that’s being called out on the carpet it–it’s this one racist cover. And the cover’s worth talking about in all sorts of ways–there’s a lot going on in it, and in the varied responses to it. I also think, though, that it could lead to some well-deserved analysis of the magazine’s contents in racial terms. It’s very white, and the “diversity” that it does include seems mostly blithely celebratory, rather than critically aware of, let alone disturbed by, institutionalized white supremacy.

Thea wrote: I was thinking about mentioning a Modest Proposal, but then I got to thinking - would I have liked the New Yorker cover more if it had been even more over the top? I had trouble figuring out how exaggeration could’ve fixed the Obamas cartoon. Any ideas?

That’s a good point! I’m having trouble figuring that out too, by way of coming up with examples of such exaggeration. Maybe, as some have suggested, having this image appear in some clearly “ordinary” (that is, first of all, “white”) person’s thought bubble, perhaps as the person gazes at a much more realistic image of the Obamas. That would give it some context, and it would show that the cartoon’s images are those of “the right,” and not of the wishy-washy liberalism represented by the NYer. The image of the Obamas as it now stands, but inside a thought bubble, might then read more readily as exaggeration.

Maybe also somehow depicting them DOING some of the things people fear–surrounding themselves with an all-black staff and Cabinet, or literally painting the White House’s walls black? Again, I think that would work better if it were more clearly depicted as someone or some group’s exaggerated image of the Obamas.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:02 am ¶
Renee wrote:

The cover fails on many levels and just reinforces the conversations that we are not having about race and the systemic nature of racism. Claiming to be ant-racist magazine does not give one the privilege of promoting ideals that help to construct people as ‘other’. For POC this is simply not a funny take on our outsider status on society. If one must live with these characterizations to see them reflected in this manner minimizes the degree to which they are harmful.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:08 am ¶
Grisha wrote:

I must agree with Joe, above. There is an alarmingly anti-intellectual tone in everything I’m reading about this. More importantly, though, it seems we on the left have somehow lost our ability to choose our battles wisely. The cover of The New Yorker is the problem? Seriously?

And not for nothing, if one were to respond to this columnist’s choice of sniffing out racism as, in itself, a progressive act (which it’s not…it’s an exercise for armchair activists to feel they’ve accomplished something) in kind, one might wonder about the choice of Woody Allen and The New Yorker as signifiers of the problem. Why not dispense with the list entirely and hint at the racism of “rootless cosmopolitans”?

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:29 am ¶
Joe wrote:

Macon D, the content of the magazine isn’t being called out on the carpet because ranting phrases about telling different kinds of cheese betray that Thea Lim doesn’t actually read the New Yorker. It’s a magazine for smart, educated people and all the sideswipes at it for being elitist are really just dressed up anti-intellectualism. I think all this hooplah about the New Yorker is mostly herd-minded bullshit - how many of you really have a sophisticated rubric for judging satire rather than repeating the opinions of people more knowledgable than yourselves? This “satire has failed and is really reinforcing racism” crap is absolute bollocks. How STUPID do you think most Americans are? How elitist are YOU for thinking that some people (Midwestern, White, Republican) might just not “get it” and for a second believe that the New Yorker is espousing the view that Obama is a scary Muslim?

And as for “institutionalized white supremacy”, is that just a code word for them not having any minorities on the staff? Would a corollary be a Black-targeted magazine with no White people on the staff? The absence of minority is not the espousal of supremacy.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:29 am ¶
coco wrote:

here are some other ways the comic could have communicated the idea that inaccurate portrayals are being imposed on the obamas (from outside):

– showing the obamas at a birthday party, getting terrorist accessories as presents from conservatives

– showing a conservative, drawing graffitti of a mustache or adding a terrorist accessory to a poster of obama — defacing his image

–doing the original cover drawing, but smearing it over the cover

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:35 am ¶
Joe wrote:

PS: have any of you read the wonderful sixteen-page article on Obama’s experience as a politician in Chicago? Guess not.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:39 am ¶
Joe wrote:

Oh, and double sorry, the YOU is a general you and not pointed at you Macon :-p

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:39 am ¶
Zenobia wrote:

We all know the audience of the mag, and even if there is racism in that audience I think it is a safe bet that hardly any readers of the mag actually held these misconceptions or missed the gag.

That’s exactly where I think it fails, if you’re supposed to be able to tell it’s not racist simply because such lovely people would never think such awful things, then it’s transparently actually racist, classist and elitist on another level. I’m not saying the New Yorker is (The New Yorker, elitist? Never!), or that all its readers are, but that cover certainly is.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:40 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Joe -

Calm down.

1. It’s a magazine for smart, educated people and all the sideswipes at it for being elitist are really just dressed up anti-intellectualism.

Doubtful. The New Yorker is not the only magazine ever created on the planet for smart, educated people and just because you may like it, it doesn’t mean it is above reproach. I personally don’t care for the New Yorker as it tends to bore the fuck out of me - even though I can easily work my way through Foreign Affairs, Legal Affairs, the Economist and other semi-dry publications. I’ve have also liked some of the works by writers for the New Yorker (like John Seabrook’s No Brow) without actually liking the mag.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

2. For the record, the absence of minority is highly suspect. It is not necessarily the espousal of supremacy, but it is a clue that there is something amiss.

3. I liked Thea’s piece because she makes a very good point - that a certain viewpoint does not make you immune for racism or immune to committing racist acts - even if you think you are above it all. Educated people can be just as racist as the uneducated. And the whole idea that the NYer is above reproach because it caters to smart people is ridiculous.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
Winn wrote:

If only the author of this post had mentioned the linked Vice article was by Jim Goad, I wouldn’t have bothered. Google him sometime. From his hipster-racist-before-the-term-was-popularized zine Answer Me! to his book The Redneck Manifesto, a much longer and more mind-numbing version of the Vice article, to his familiarity with the inside of a correctional facility, to his associations with people like Boyd Rice and Michael Moynihan, and you know exactly what to expect from him. He’s made a career of being aggressively “anti-PC”, and also being intellectually dishonest and deliberately obtuse has not derailed that career one bit. Of the many things she has done to disappoint me over the years, one of the biggest reasons I lost respect for Margaret Cho was her championing of Goad.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:52 am ¶
macon d wrote:

Joe wrote: “how many of you really have a sophisticated rubric for judging satire rather than repeating the opinions of people more knowledgable than yourselves?”

What?! The post that inspired this thread uses an extremely sophisticated rubric for judging satire, which you might have realized if you’d read it carefully, rather than quickly (and ironically) dismissing it as an “anti-intellectual rant.”

Joe, you display your own lack of sophistication about the realities of race and how it works by wondering what institutionalized white supremacy is. Go do some reading on the concept–there’s not room in this thread to give you a crash course in something you’ve denounced, in a purely anti-intellectual way, before simply understanding what it is.

And I imagine the NYer does have black people, and other non-white people, on its staff. But they probably get regular compliments from their white co-workers for being “articulate,” and “not like other black people,” and maybe even for being “a real credit to your race.” Statements like those from whites represent institutionalized racism, since the attitudes they spring from no doubt affect hiring and management practices. But again, if you can’t see all that, you’ve got some catching up to do.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:53 am ¶
Maria_Elena18 wrote:

A round of applause. This is being sent to every one in my inbox. Thanks for sorting and articulating the thoughts I could not.

Brilliant!!

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:54 am ¶
Joe wrote:

Latoya, I was only talking about the insinuations of this article about what the New Yorker’s readership is like - the unnecessary comment about cheese (will I have to repeat that again?), art reviews - rather than actual content. To me, that means something like “wow, people who like reading serious stuff by important authors sure are elitist!” Anti-intellectualism. If the actual content bores the fuck out of, fine, I said nothing claiming that not liking the New Yorker’s content makes you stupid.

And I agree with your point number two, that it *is* suspect, but isn’t automatically white supremacist.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:58 am ¶
macon d wrote:

Latoya wrote: “2. For the record, the absence of minority is highly suspect. It is not necessarily the espousal of supremacy, but it is a clue that there is something amiss.”

I’m glad you added this distinction. The NYer doesn’t openly espouse white supremacy–it operates within a (largely unconscious) white supremacist framework.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 10:58 am ¶
Joe wrote:

Whoa, macon d, I was only taking issue at the stereotyping of the New Yorker. I don’t disagree with the body of this article but did get a tl;dr whoop-whoop from it. And I don’t disagree with you that the original post does use a good schematic to decide that this is crappy satire (even though I think it’s about as silly to call it racist as it was when the legions poured out for the “Assassination of Barack Obama” debacle a while back).

But the seething masses of commenters - not even necessarily on this website, but across the shitosphere - who cry racism at the slightest urging, who all claim to know good satire when they see it but probably can’t explain when it fails, well, fail.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 11:02 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

@Joe -

1. If the cheese comment chapped your ass, fair enough. Snooty cheese eating elitists is a well worn stereotype, I’ll grant that.

2. The entire idea of “serious” journalism and “serious” lit kind of bothers me, because the structure by which to judge these two things has been so informed by a racist/sexist/classist paradigm, it’s hard for me to see where people aren’t just following well worn paths to deem something worthy or unworthy.

3. Something doesn’t have to be white supremacist for it to be racist. It doesn’t make sense, in this day and age, for a publication like the New Yorker to be located where it is and to cover the topics it does and still remain overwhelmingly white. You have to work at that kind of thing, or espouse the kind of attitudes that make it difficult for minority writers to want to stay on staff. Either way, something is more than amiss and I highly doubt a magazine with PoCs in a position of influence would have let that version of the cover walk out of the door.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 11:17 am ¶
gatamala wrote:

“anti-intellectual” ?

As macon has explained, If I were you, I’d be careful throwing that phrase around.

At the heart of much satire and all bad satire, is something snarky and holier-than-thou, the belief that when someone (allegedly) enlightened articulates the exact same thing as someone unenlightened, it’s different solely because of the mouth it comes out of. Underpinning this kind of satire is often classism, ignorance and a pretty gross lack of self-awareness.

Sean Hannity couldn’t have done a better job than this:

And as for “institutionalized white supremacy”, is that just a code word for them not having any minorities on the staff?

****

More importantly, though, it seems we on the left have somehow lost our ability to choose our battles wisely.

Who’s the “we”, what are the battles and who gets to define them?

The institution: the “left”

The white supremacy: singular (exclusive) definition of battles, terms, priorities; any deviation is deemed unwise.

Thea states, “central to satire is the act of exposing or unmasking hatred that simmers beneath the surface of ‘polite society’… Satire without the element of exposure is just replication.”

As we have seen, those being satirized can [and will] expose themselves.

***
LDP, you’ve got the Metro Commuter’s canon down pat! That’s how we do “intellectual” inside the elitist Beltway.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 11:46 am ¶
Fiqah wrote:

@Thea: This was a fantastic write-up, I’m SO glad you did it! I actually was talking with a group of friends about a faux McCain cover that Wonkette posted (I wrote about it too, but please take a look at the original post - http://wonkette.com/401266/greatest-ever-new-yorker-cover). I thought the cover was WICKEDLY well-done satire, because I read it as an obvious take off the Obama cover. However, a friend presented a very astute counter-argument: the images on the fake McCain cover are overtly racist and offensive in the same manner as the Obama cover, and most of the comments on the Wonkette post adopt the same tone (the terms “suckee suckee” and “gilfliend” abound in the comments thread. I shit you not.) In cases like that, where satire ends up perpetuating what it intended to lampoon, is it STILL satire?

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 11:52 am ¶
Joe wrote:

absence isn’t necessarily assertion. You folks enjoy your whining! Ta ta.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 11:58 am ¶
sk wrote:

calling out the new yorker cover for *what it is* does not make one an anti-intellectual. i am a subscriber to the new yorker, and i agree with most of the critiques made of it (at least here at racialicious). the problem isn’t that the new yorker thinks better *of* us than most americans do, the problem is that the new yorker thinks it is better *than* us, for all of the reasons that thea and latoya have documented on this site.

i’m sorry that you feel that being smart and stuff is being attacked or something; it’s not, and the complex cultural analysis at work right here is proof of that. doing a little more reading and listening in the “shitosphere” could help you with that, unless it’s too anti-intellectual for you.

man, it’s like what chris rock said that one time: what do you have to do to be a racist? shoot medgar evers? i mean damn. thea put it right: in a society that operates (at least in part) by institutionalized racism, everyone is racist. so don’t take it personally; just get to work.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 12:06 pm ¶
Thea wrote:

Hi Joe,

I thought I should respond to the cheese comment since it keeps coming up.

I don’t have a problem with intellectuals. And I quite like camembert and brie. I’ve also seen almost every Jim Jarmusch movie. I adore Junot Diaz who is the New Yorker’s “it” writer of the moment. I used to really like reading the New Yorker. (I don’t read it anymore because I’m now interested in different things, not because of any ideological reasons. Though after the Obamas cartoon I might change my mind)

What my problem is, is when people associate education or intellectualism with goodness. Defenses of the New Yorker cover (including your own) insist that the cover is not problematic, because the New Yorker and its audience are intellectuals, are cultured ie are above racism.

What I’m saying is that being interested in elite pursuits does not equal enlightenment when it comes to social issues. Sometimes in highly educated, literary and elite contexts, there is the sense that racism, homophobia, sexism are problems that only beset people who are into action movies and team sports.

That’s not true. I’m pointing out that anyone can do or say racist things. The fact that the New Yorker is very well-written (you’ll get no disagreements from me there) doesn’t mean that the ideas couched in that brilliant prose (or drawings) are never hateful.

When I see that cover, I see people who have no right to excuse themselves from hateful thoughts, excusing themselves from hateful thoughts - on the basis of their subculture, education, region or class bracket. That’s arrogant and inaccurate.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 12:14 pm ¶
Rob Schmidt wrote:

This issue comes up frequently in the Native American field. People will repeat the stereotypes first articulated a century or two ago, but slap a “satire” label on them and claim that inoculates them. Wrong, I tell them. If your imagery is indistinguishable from racist imagery, it’s racist also.

If the New Yorker wanted an effective satire of the right-wing beliefs about Obama, it could show the White House transformed into a mosque, Obama calling the faithful to prayer, Americans bowing and scraping toward Mecca, while Michelle and other black nationalists stand guard and downtrodden white folks file past in chains. Then readers might (emphasis on might) get the idea that this is an over-the-top rendition of America’s fears.

Incidentally, I totally believe that many Americans are too dumb to get the New Yorker “satire.” Again, I look to the Native field for confirmation. Show Americans an image of a Plains Indian chief and ask them, “True or false: This is a typical American Indian.” I’m guessing the “true” answers would fall in the 70-80% range. (Correct answer: False.)

Polls show that roughly 53% of Americans believe Obama is a Christian. The rest aren’t sure or think he’s a Muslim. If it comforts people to think “only” 47% of Americans are too brainwashed to process the fact of Obama’s Christianity, so be it. I’ll concede that Americans are less ignorant about Obama than they are about Indians.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 12:39 pm ¶
Bob Simpson wrote:

I am a New Yorker subscriber and yes it does have some brilliant even provocative articles within it. I also enjoy the witty “hi brow” cartoons which at their best, poke me in the brain and force me to think.

The biggest problem with the New Yorker is what is absent within its covers. The articles rarely reflect the incredible ethic and class diversity of NYC. It’s like a Woody Allen movie. It’s a New York in some alternate universe where virtually everyone is white and of a certain social class.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 12:58 pm ¶
A wrote:

Damn, *applause* nicely written. Who is this Thea Lim? Does she have a blog of her own?

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 1:56 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

Er…you all know that wasn’t me with the “anti-intellectual” blah blah blah, right?

I haven’t eaten cheese since 1992.

::Ponders changing screen name to “Vanessa L Williams,” decides no one will get it, moves on…::

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 3:32 pm ¶
Chairo wrote:

Vice magazine have been spitting their bile for years.
Everything written in this article sums up vice magazine so well. “we hire gays and ethhnics how can weeez be racist?”

I think people need to do some serious reading up of vice; about stuff like the “do’s and don’ts” lsits
check the comments to the do’s and dont’s

The vice tag are mostly sexist, and homophobic but they’ll occasionally dip into usually faux racism at asians

And in response to accusations of bigotry they’ll spout; “dude we’ve got gay dudes working here tch”

I struggle to understand why all the different progressive blogs haven’t attacked them yet. I’ve seen very small write-ups by

A friend told me about an article which was titled something like; “how to get a black girl back to your place”

To the person who mentioned Goad and his bigoted credentials; i think the problem here is the fact that the magazine gave him space to air his nonsense.

Alt and indie culture is depressingly white straight and male. I like posting on drowned in sound sometimes; but there’s a disturbing air of sexism and homophobia you’ll get. Most people will give off the air that they abhor racism; but in response to
this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/anarchy-in-barcelona-as-lydon-is-accused-of-racist-attack-on-singer-873744.html

you’ll get this initial knee-jerk defence from Wsms who evidently couldn’t care less about racism:

http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3698185

and then Sexism from the supposedly liberal indie/alt site: http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3709052

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 4:20 pm ¶
Slush wrote:

Wish I had time to say more, but great post, Thea! There are times when *who* is saying something and who they are really makes a difference, but it worth identifying what situations fall into that category and what do not. Satire is about the actual achievement of spoof, not the relative achievement by personal individual standards.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 4:26 pm ¶
Chairo wrote:

Re:” Alt and indie culture is depressingly white straight and male. ”

I’ll just elaborate.

There’s a culture of heterocentrism, lite faux racism, and sexism from this subculture
Irony immediately makes everything OK

it gets to the point when you’ll get any female guitarist referred to as a dyke, and there isn’t even that much effort put into pretending the assertion is ironic.

I think there’s this notion of an ironic label, that’s so obviously being attributed to

But again this attitude just feels like a weak deception; WSM who are bigoted aren’t really made fun of for being WSM.
Can you even think of a politically incorrect cartoon character that acts like the south park boys, and Sarah Silverman. Rosie O’donells performance kinda sums this all up; what was she making fun of? it obviously wasn’t racism.

from aficionados of this kinda “ironic” crap you’ll the “oh stop crying, whinging etc”
They won’t say that when Chris rock is calling bullshit on white racism, or magaret cho
Making an observation doesn’t = fascist
but there’s this almost mc’carthy type hunt for anyone who isn’t down with ultimately unfunny racist observations.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 4:30 pm ¶
Chairo wrote:

edit. politically incorrect POC cartoon character that pokes fun of white straight males

looking at the disproportionate amount of racist jokes for POCS in comparison to racist white jokes kinda tells you something

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 4:34 pm ¶
Paul wrote:

Can we agree to stike “McCarthy-like” from Internet discourse. People throw McCarthyism around like Nazism when they mean that people oppose their point-of-view. That term does nothing to advance the conversation and is often used ahistorically. Sorry, but that burns my muffin.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 4:51 pm ¶
brian wrote:

If I remember English class correctly, satire is supposed to make those who believe in what is being satired feel uncomfortable about it and question their belief in it. Judging by the response this comment has gotten on conservative blogs, that’s clearly not the case. Have the editors of the New Yorker forgotten this? Or are they too “high brow” to worry about what words mean?

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:01 pm ¶
brian wrote:

Also, is “getting” the New Yorker equivalent to intelligence? The “educated and intelligent” humor articulated in its pages (and elsewhere) is one perception of intelligence and education pushed by the privileged elite white class. Maybe when 95% of the universe doesn’t get a certain brand of humor it’s not because they’re too dumb but because the humor is too bad? Probably not the case either, but if we’re letting the “majority” decide what is intelligent/funny/educated/cultured…

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:07 pm ¶
Winn wrote:

@ Chairo,

“To the person who mentioned Goad and his bigoted credentials; i think the problem here is the fact that the magazine gave him space to air his nonsense. ”

Why wouldn’t they? The creators of Vice are huge Goad fans who took inspiration from his 90’s zine, Answer Me! Ironically, Goad is about as far from an urban hipster as you can get. His magnum opus is probably his autobiography, Shit Magnet, which makes this abundantly clear. But it also gives his particular brand of “look how brave I am, I’m just speaking the truth that PC liberals and minorities try to suppress” bigotry and misogyny that much more traction with people who read Vice and others of that ilk. He’s authentic, see? His perspective is refreshing and brave after all that whining from women and people of color, right? No one will call Goad for what he is, a self-loathing misanthrope who managed to catch a zeitgeist in which airing your ugliest thoughts is mistaken for transgressive courage (or satire). And as long as there are sycophants like the editors and readers of Vice, there will be people like Goad, Rice, Moynihan, Adam Parfrey, Peter Sotos, and countless others embraced by hipsters unwilling to acknowledge that regardless of how “edgy” or “subversive” their hatred may be, at the end of the day, it’s still plain old garden-variety hatred.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:14 pm ¶
Sewere wrote:

@ Thea

Awesome post. Not only did you break the racist shit down, you took it to a deeper level of anti-racist understanding.

@ joe:

absence isn’t necessarily assertion. You folks enjoy your whining! Ta ta.

Nooooo. Don’t go, without you all we would end up doing is whining and forgetting all the BIG IMPORTANT THINGS we should be focusing on, like the war, the economy, the republicans, which cheese to have with what wine /sarcasm.

@ Joseph

::Ponders changing screen name to “Vanessa L Williams,”

You owe me a trip to the printing office, I just spat all over my stack of papers reading that.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:15 pm ¶
Chairo wrote:

@ Paul

“People throw McCarthyism around like Nazism when they mean that people oppose their point-of-view”

at least quote what I said and criticize it.

It isn’t simply that a lot of these alt-hipster kids oppose my point of view. When you see Vice and a lot of what they write, and their audience, and then you look at Perez hilton and the abundant bigotry in his comment section you walk away feeling like there’s waves of hidden bigotry out there; it’ll manifest itself in the lack of POC ppl working at New Yorker; the all white cast of hit shows, or romcoms; in the comments of imus; and the defence of imus.
In that internet space you won’t simply get a disagree; you’ll get such a wave of derison and then blatant racism; that isn’t simply saying “we disagree”; its saying you’re not allowed to have your opinion; we’re the majority and we’re louder and more important than you are.

<—check the stuffwhitepeoplelike.com comments on topics such as diversity, and having black friends

It feels like you’re subtly being coerced into being acquiescent to bigotry

The reaction you get from some white folk when you say a racist joke isn’t funny, or you don’t laugh kinda feels like another example of this ubiquitous societal coercion. The person who’s said the joke won’t have to be aware of their actions, for those actions to be carried out.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:28 pm ¶
jvansteppes wrote:

Re comment#5, Paul do we really need to go back to the competition over whose maltreatment is more acceptable to the media, Hillary or Barack? FYI, homophobic discourse is JUST AS ACCEPTABLE to American media as Islamophobia and racism and all of it is worth raising a stink about.

Chairo, hooray for you! I have been flipping out over Vice for years. Its very popular in Montreal because some of its founders are here and I would love to push them down the stairs, American Apparel bathrobes and all. The do’s section may as well be called ‘women we’d like to fuck and if you don’t want to fuck them you’re a homo’, and I’ll never forget the headline ‘black babies or white babies, we decide once and for all who is cuter’.
Its seems to me that this kind of racism is so popular because people think its actually transgressive, but there’s no analysis of what pushes boundaries and what serves to build the up, as if there’s no difference between Richard Pryor and Dane Cook because both use bad words.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 5:29 pm ¶
Mogs wrote:

great article.

“by creating and printing an image, that the New Yorker would immediately abhor if printed by a right-wing blog, the McCain campaign or poor old E.D. Hill, the New Yorker is saying that it’s above the censure that it lays on others”

EXACTLY! I was thinking something like this earlier, but couldn’t articulate it.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 6:15 pm ¶
Paul wrote:

Chairo:
Fine, so how is that analogous to McCarthyism? There’s no governmental involvement nor any subpoenas nor a blacklist. Thus, even though you may feel coerced, your analogy doesn’t hold water.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 6:31 pm ¶
Chairo wrote:

@ Paul

“There’s no governmental involvement nor any subpoenas nor a blacklist.”

For the societal coercion I wrote about there is government involvement.
In wider racial discourse, “white patriarchy” will be the force i’m speaking of.

I shouldn’t have said “mccarthy like” granted; but the general point i was trying to make which you must have understood by know is that, things like VICE aren’t simply saying “hey kids, you’re opinions are wrong”
They irreverently tell you “our opinion is better. ”
They’re indoctrinating kidsinto a certain way of thinking; by exploiting the lethargy middle class white kids have when thinking about “tiring issues” like racism and homophobia. The sexism they exhibit actually manages to surprise me with how normalized its become; the male contributors will write really terrible things about women, and female posters will contribute to the “discussion” without addressing the male pig-mindedness; again they’re acquiescent after prolonged coercion.
They’re schooling kids to be cool with bigotry as long as there’s the pretence that its wrapped up in irony.
When you disagree with this general air of nihilistic cynicism in polite company (face to face scenario) you might get a snide laugh, utterly “random” comment like “but what is racism REALLY. aren’t we all just racist homophobes”

In impolite company you’ll get this: http://www.viceland.com/int/v12n5/htdocs/hey.php

which allows these kids to air their BS

Paul btw I am conceding that my usage of the term was improper.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 7:05 pm ¶
dirkdiggler wrote:

i’m not sure what the uproar is. sarah silverman has built her career playing the i can’t be a racist because i’m a liberal schtick for a long time now. and she’s got a show on comedy channel, so you know, it’s all okay.

Posted 23 Jul 2008 at 8:56 pm ¶
Gorgeous Black Women wrote:

I personally think the New Yorker cover put together all the insinuations and accusations going around, whether on your work e-mail or on cable news. That’s the lens from which I saw it so I don’t understand the ruckus. I felt like they were calling people on kit and perhaps they’d move on to issues of relevance, not on deciphering whether Michelle fits their definition of uppity black b—h and why white people don’t like her.

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 7:20 am ¶
Matt wrote:

The articles rarely reflect the incredible ethic and class diversity of NYC. It’s like a Woody Allen movie. Ummm.. 20% of the ethnic makeup of NY is Jewish. Woody Allen is… oh nevermind.

Btw, on the edge of much anti-intellectualism is antisemitism. Especially when the city of New York is used to represent liberal intellectualism and elitism. “Woody Allen writes for it” is a good way to start building the connection between the magazine and anti-Jewish stereotypes. And it’s a pretty common (mis)conception that it’s powerful Jews who are trying to sabotage Obama’s campaign. This comment from the linked Telegraph article, btw, bothers me a lot because it adds in conspiratorial elements:

It has been suggested that we haven’t seen/heard from the Clintons for awhile. I would suggest that we just did, via the New Yorker cover. It’s both hilarious and sad.

I haven’t seen anything like that here, but I do think it would be good if we took anti-intellectualism seriously.

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 9:57 am ¶
SarahSimone wrote:

Thea,

I just wanted to say that I think this was a great post. The post, and your response to Joe, express the problem with this New Yorker cover perfectly. You managed to put your finger on exactly what the problem is, something I’ve been struggling explain to other people. Thanks for this!

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 1:12 pm ¶
Cameron wrote:

Is naming your band Black Kids hipster racism?

(2/5 band members are black, 3/5 are white)

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 3:35 pm ¶
Thea Lim wrote:

@Cameron

Haha, a friend of mine really likes that band and I’ve wondered what’s with the funny name. I don’t know enough about their music, ethos or lyrics to judge, but their name does kinda bug me. I’m willing to accept though that that could be a more subjective thing and not necessarily something I could build a hard case for hipster racism on.

This is what the leader of Beirut (the band) says about their name:

“One of the reasons I named the band after that city was the fact that it’s seen a lot of conflict. It’s not a political position. I worried about that from the beginning. But it was such a catchy name. I mean, if things go down that are truly horrible, I’ll change it. But not now. It’s still a good analogy for my music. I haven’t been to Beirut, but I imagine it as this chic urban city surrounded by the ancient Muslim world. The place where things collide.”

Gah. That kinda annoyed me. “It’s such a catchy name, it’s not political…” There seems to be a pretty big lack of interest in Beirut itself and more of an interest in hijacking the aesthetics of the name for the band’s own purposes.

One argument I’ve heard many times when I try to call something hipster-y on its racism is that you can’t judge aesthetics on political grounds. When I wrote a critique of Wes Anderson last year (the article that first led me to Racialicious!) a lot of hipster friends said, “How can you judge Anderson’s politics when he’s really just about aesthetics? He’s not setting out to make a political statement.”

That makes me furious! So just because someone was too oblivious to recognise that their art had political (or racist or whatever) under/overtones, they’re excused from whatever offense or hurt they may be causing? I think not.

Oh wow, that was a long response to a very short comment…

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 3:48 pm ¶
Free wrote:

Satire: A literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject often as an intended means of provoking or

preventing change. [The irony of hipster racism.]

Posted 24 Jul 2008 at 8:41 pm ¶
espere wrote:

check out this “hipster bingo” on the incredibly wack hipster racist site - hipster runoff

these days, these fools are using “nigsters” in lieu of “blipsters” to describe black people
and “AZN” to describe asian people
there are also queer-directed slurs

there is so much ignorance being perpetuated.

what, then, must we do?

http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2008/07/search-for-perfect-alt-bingo-board.html

this is by no means the most racist thing on the site. but browsing it can be pretty depressing.

Posted 25 Jul 2008 at 11:07 am ¶
k wrote:

vice is still at it….their most recent issue is called “the mexican issue” i don’t even know where to begin with the pointlessness. you’ll just have to check it out

Posted 30 Jul 2008 at 6:41 pm ¶