Defend the Afro on Michelle (who doesn't wear one)

[CreekDog]

please explain how funny this is.

[HardWorkingDem]

1. What was the hair style back in the 60's?

Wow. What a grasp.....

[CreekDog]

2. explain.

why is it funny to depict Michelle Obama in an afro?

[HardWorkingDem]

7. Let me try...

The other day I was talking to a conservative and he brought up Michelle Obama and remarked how "militant" she is. I asked him to tell me of some examples and other than silly stuff he really couldn't define why he sees her as "militant.'

Now, the artist is trying to depict the right wing perception of her as being "militant," hence, the hairstyle worn back in the 60's.

Hope this helps.

[CreekDog]

12. yes but where is the mockery of this on the cover?

even when Chapelle did his schtick the "blind black white supremecist" the entire thing engages in stereotypes, but mocks them the entire time.

this cover doesn't mock the thing it depicts, it just depicts it without apparent judgement.

[WinkyDink]

50. THANK YOU. THAT is why this cover FAILS AS SATIRE.

[JoFerret]

51. The "judgement" is something

the reader has to bring.

[CreekDog]

30. i asked you where the mockery was on this cover

*crickets*

[CreekDog]

4. angela davis

yes, i'm familiar with that.

but it is a racial stereotype.

[NattPang]

3. She is being portrayed as a radical Black

like Angela Davis.
Remember,
she's the angry Black Woman.

[CreekDog]

5. who apparently is in her 60's or 70's

:eyes:

[HardWorkingDem]

10. How old was she in the 1960's?

nt...

[CreekDog]

13. Angela Davis? You tell me how old she was?

Michelle Obama was a little kid back then.

[LowerManhattanite]

16. Not just a radical Black...

...but one a' them murderous, dangerous Joanne Chesimard/Assata Shakur cop-killin' Blacks.



Oh, it IS funny. He. He. He.

[CreekDog]

17. see the humor when we portray them as all the same?

it's just a riot. (whoops!) another funny! wow. :eyes: :sarcasm:

[cliffordu]

24. Yeah. I'm laughing my ass off.

:sarcasm:

[LowerManhattanite]

6. Imagine the outrage over a cartoon showing a catatonic-looking McCain ...

...with a large Viet Cong planted control chip sticking out of a gash in his head.

The folks who'll contort to okay the “fro” and the murderous AK-47 in her hands would shit worm-filled asteroids if a liberal magazine depicted McSame like that.

“We can't sink to that le-veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllll!”

[CreekDog]

8. "worm filled asteroids"

now if you could draw that (poorly) the New Yorker might just hire you. :think:

[HardWorkingDem]

9. Go pick up some conservative magazines over the years and...

you find they have depicted their candidates in a similar fashion. But remember, think of it in the proper context with similar connotations.

I have seen many covers that have done just this. And I can't recall which one it was, but a while back I remember the wingnuts were going nuts over some cover on an issue of American Conservative magazine.

[LowerManhattanite]

19. American Conservative magazine and the rest of the super-batshit wingnut

magazine ilk is akin to Walter Winchell's pifitul mimeo screeds he handed out on Hollywood corners after he became a national joke—and has just about as much audience reach.


The New Yorker has been one of the four or five bedrock “literary” magazines in the country for over seventy years and can be found in every doctor's/dentist's office and newsstand in the land. Getting one's work published there is a badge of honor for American writers—not so for the tripe you cite.

Hardly comparable. Hugely, hardly comparable.

[HardWorkingDem]

21. Someone asked.....

if the conservatives ever do this; yes they do. That was the answer and is an accurate answer. No one brought up circulation or other things.

[LowerManhattanite]

25. LOL. n/t

[JoFerret]

52. I am wondering whether this whole controversy here in DU

is serving a useful purpose.

Sure is good having Angela Davis back in the "news". Maybe people will read her books.

[last_texas_dem]

11. The afro is associated, by some, with black "radicalism"

Michelle Obama has been portrayed, in right-wing smears, as an America-hating, "whitey"-hating black extremist.

[CreekDog]

14. yes, and where is the indication on this cover that the artist is judging

what he sees?

i mean i thought this was satire.

perhaps next week they can do a cover with jewish stereotypes and money :sarcasm: let's see if folks will defend this then. :eyes:

[KittyWampus]

53. you are apparently unschooled in what satire is. How nice you display for all DU to see.

Satire depends on the audience being in on the message.

Believe me, just because YOU are too dense to get it, the New Yorkers' audience isn't.

BTW, the woman in the shower doesn't get murdered in Hitchcock's movie Psycho. After all, you don't see the knife entering her body.

[CreekDog]

18. do you fancy yourself an anthropologist?

[last_texas_dem]

20. No. Why do you ask?

[CreekDog]

23. your patient explanation to me of you know "black radicalism"

as a stereotype applied to Michelle Obama.

i couldn't be offended by the afro if i didn't already know when they were in vogue.

[last_texas_dem]

27. Then why did you post the OP?

[liberalmuse]

15. I'm finding this less and less funny.

My only laugh would be at a wingnuts expense for not getting that this was a jab at the outrageous crap they've thrown out there about the Obama's. I'm not laughing anymore. This isn't satire. This is Janet Jackson exposing her boob at the Superbowl. People trying to outshock each other is getting so goddamned old. Satire is supposed to be deliciously wicked by depicting/proposing something so outlandish that people with a rational mind (with that being a very important component) laugh at it's ridiculousness. It doesn't take any amount of imagination to tap into the toxic waste dump festering in the rabid conservative's mind to pull out all the ugly stereotypes, and then draw them on paper verbatim. I recognize that this was an attempt at satire, or perhaps it was more of an attempt to shock us, but it fell flat.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

22. Same here. At first I thought, "Oh, it's the New Yorker being too clever by half"

But then I read the various reactions to the cartoon, and a synopsis of the article about Obama in the issue, and I changed my mind. For one thing, there's no way they'd run a cover mocking McCain's war hero status. For another, the article on Obama in the edition is apparently very critical of his "cutthroat politics". If they'd run an article about the absurd rumors about him, it would be one thing. But they ran that cover and inside the magazine is an article that is on a par with the recent Vanity Fair smearfest about Bill Clinton. IOW, it's a smear job.

[AndyTiedye]

26. An Afro Would Look Good On Her

I haven't seen the picture in question, but I think Michelle Obama would look good with an Afro.

[CreekDog]

28. she would look good in anything

IMHO.

[AndyTiedye]

29. Yes, She Would

[vaberella]

31. All black women should dump the lye.

I have an afro and I'm extremely proud of it. Been natural all my life. As far as the satire...I'm not fond of it and I do find it offensive. Although, I realize that it is satire. If this was a perfect nation that understands satire, then I'd say go for it. Unfortunately this nation is not all "cerebral".

[CakeGrrl]

32. You have to buy into the cover as satire, or else it goes nowhere for you

If you accept it as satire, it piles on the fearmongering imagery: The afro of a radical/militant 60's era black activist, befitting someone who would have made a "whitey" rant at her church.

[Maddy McCall]

33. Afros are cool. I wish they'd come back in style.

I even had a 'fro in the late seventies, and I'm a white woman.

[vaberella]

34. Uh, it's been in style. Thousands of natural-haired black women have fros. Go to

nappturality.com . It's a forum for black women with natural hair. It never went out of style for Black women with natural hair, just the ones wearing lye (ugh) and the obsession with "braids". I have an afro and I regularly sport my fro.

[LowerManhattanite]

35. Let it go. T'was more satire that failed. Lotta that going around these days. n/t

[vaberella]

36. Ahh...had they added an emoticon I wouldn't care.

Although the cartoon added with the NYer satire was a fail of epic proportions for me.

[Maddy McCall]

38. I was serious...

I love fros.

I live in the deep south, and I rarely see one.

I do think they are cool, and when I was in high school, I had one.

I wasn't joking.

[vaberella]

44. Well it's not unpopular. Far from it. Check out the site and you'll

see afros galore and women loving their afro hair. A lot of them coming from the South. Black women need to get out of the racist mindset that straight hair is better, stop lying to themselves as they've been doing and embrace their beauty as God (if one believes in it) gave them. I have problems with women with relaxers or even weaves. It just annoys the hell out of me. I only know one woman in my family with a relaxer and we've been harassing her to rid of it. And don't get me started on texturizers/silkeners another more of the lye Black women succomb too so they could look a little closer to straight.

[Maddy McCall]

45. I will check it out.

Thanks for the information.

:thumbsup:

[MonkeyFunk]

37. Easy

it's a parody of the image right-wingers are trying to create about her.

Seriously, you're just being silly. This cartoon is not an attack on the Obamas.

[CreekDog]

39. when did i say it was an attack?

my criticism of the cover is not that it is an attack. it's that it peddles stereotypes and doesn't pass any judgement on them.

[MonkeyFunk]

40. Most people

who read the New Yorker don't require a big "sarcasm" smilie attached to it.

The outrage over this is just ridiculous.

[CreekDog]

41. considering you misinterpreted my criticism

you might consider that you've misinterpreted theirs.

[CreekDog]

42. what if they put Joe Lieberman on the cover and made him look Hasidic

in appearance? would that be okay? what if they did it to mock Jewish stereotypes?

it would be terrible.

[MonkeyFunk]

43. Yeah, it probably would

but that's because there isn't a big campaign to portray Joe Lieberman as hasidic. You just keep making it more and more clear that you don't understand what this cartoon is about.

[CreekDog]

46. there is a distinct minority view out there that considers him a senator from Israel (horrid)

it would be absolutely comparable for them to put a recognizable Jewish/Israel stereotype of Lieberman on the cover and it would be just as wrong.

i mean how many people really believe Obama is Muslim? About the same number that wouldn't vote for Lieberman because he is Jewish? Probably about the same number, and probably the same ignorant people.

that's why we don't show stereotypes in a way that, well for example, you could take that cover, cut off the New Yorker banner and date and start handing it out as a way to encourage all the negative stereotypes and conversations about Obama. it would work.

[Skittles]

47. hey CreekDog

Ignore is your friend - believe me, for some "DUers" it is not worth the time and effort to argue

[CreekDog]

48. i know, but i can't ignore MonkeyFunk (maybe others)

i don't want to miss them in the lounge. we can always spar out here. :rofl:

[MonkeyFunk]

49. oh shut up

You're tiresome. For a long time you accused me of being a troll. Then you started agreeing with me.

You think he should ignore me just because I disagree with him on this issue? Go kick your own ass.