Let me see…
Caricature involving exaggeration of Serena’s *personal *distinguishing features like cheekbones over generic racial stereotype traits like lips and nose? Check.
I’m going to go with “No”
How would you say the lips in this image compare to Serena’s actual lips?
About right for a cartoon, I’d say.
I mean, you don’t think there’s anything comparable between the features in this and Knight’s cartoon, do you? Because if you did, I’d recommend an eye test.
The owners self-censor; the creators (the designers and artists of yesteryear) have no say and we don’t know what their intent was.
But let’s consider the scenario I theorized as true: the creators didn’t intend racism, but were merely following stylistic conventions set in place by people who certainly did. So in this case there was no intent to be racist, but the content of the cartoons is universally* derided as being racist based on its visible attributes which very very very obviously correlate with classic deliberately racist caricatures.
- universally, that is, except by the analysis you seemed to have been proposing, that of ignoring everything but the creators’ intent. Which brings us to a very important point in this discussion - is it possible at all to determine if an image is racist without knowing the author’s intent?
Because if it is, then I don’t see how authorial intent matters at all - if it’s possible to assess a caricature for racism based purely on aspects of its visual design, then those aspects are racist even if the author didn’t consciously intend them to be.
(At which point you get into the other debate going on in this thread, that of whether the image has visual aspects that correlate with classic racist images. I think it does; other dispute the idea.)
The only thing not comparable is that one caricature has her doing something deemed positive, and the other negative. So, the former gets to be not racist and the latter is racist.
I brought up lips because their thickness in size is similar. If you don’t think so, I’d recommend the same eye test for you.
In fact, in the newer pic, Serena’s lips are even a bit thicker.
Sigh. This again?
Not once in that post did I mention anything about disagreement, let alone saying that disagreement proved I was right. Not once.
I specifically described having a “temper tantrum.” And, in case you thought I was exaggerating, I gave examples like them putting the same comic on the front page of their newspaper and claiming the PC people are out to get them.[SUP]*[/SUP]
I then gave the alternative, the way someone would react if they knew they weren’t being racist. They would see that they upset people, and they would apologize. I specifically worded my proposed apology so that they would not at any point admit they were wrong or that they had been racist.
All I did was point out that these guys were doing all the things that people who are trying to be racist do when confronted by it. I pointed out that their behavior was inconsistent with someone who wasn’t trying to be racist.
Your representation of what I actually said is completely and totally inaccurate. I find it extremely difficult to see how you could have interpreted my post in that manner.
If you disagree with my argument that these actions are consistent with being racist, then give me reasons why I’m wrong, please. Or give evidence of non-racist people who reacted in this manner.
Changing what I said and then being snarky about it won’t refute anything.
- I also could have repeated the previous mentions of them crying out about censorship because people are upset at them.
No. They are not. Not even remotely. Her lips are normally proportioned, with an actual chin beneath them. They are no larger than her nose or eyes or that chin I mentioned.
They do not in any way resemble the racist cartoon I provided to show the racist lips. You know, where they take up nearly 1/2 the face.
I can’t understand why so many of these cartoons focus on her lips. Won’t call it racist but bias certainly seems at play.
The misplaced emphasis distorts to the point that that I don’t Serena Williams when I see them. I see “an artist using his imagination to approximate SW because for some reason he’s not able to discern and stylize the features that make her face distinctive”.
You might need the same eyetest as Peghead.
You might need the same eye test as Mr Dibble, Fiveyearlurker, and myself.
BigT To be clear, the racist cartoon you mention is as you say. I meant only about the Serena image.
Are you even serious? You have outlined the ways that people are permitted to disagree with you which involves apologizing for being so wrong. And anyone who deviates from your opinion who does not apologize is proving to you that they are wrong. That’s a ridiculous and impossible way to have an honest discussion.
The people who do not see this as racist really need to learn some cultural sensitivity and learn about the history of the depiction of african americans in the media – movies, comics, art, etc. The picture, whether it was intended to be insulting and derogatory or not, IS. All you have to do is compare it to how the depiction of blacks have evolved before and after civil rights, to understand this – the exaggeration of racial characteristics (fat legs, fat lips, etc.). It’s a tribute to the pre-WWII style of racist comics.
I would like to note that Angelfood McSpade is a character created by counter culture figure and underground comix artist Robert Crumb, who at the link is noted to have said that “he saw the character as a criticism of the racist stereotype itself…” Please do have a look at the rest of the Wiki page. One can certainly find similar images that were intended to be racist for the sake of being racist, and not satirical in nature. Just thought I’d point this out.
On the contrary, the people who project racism at every opportunity need to tone down their sensitivity.
I read “project racism” as “act in a way that everyone else sees as racist”. (Sort of like how I project intelligence and virility.) It took me a moment to realize that you were telling the whiners to shut up.
A thought experiment:
A non-prejudiced, non-racist, artist draws a lifelike picture of Serena Williams. He is then blinded, but being an artist, decides to continue in his work, and draws another picture of Serena. Despite his idea that his spatial recognition abilities and uncanny knack for drawing lifelike portraits has been retained, and his idea that he could still produce lifelike images, he is informed when he is finished that the second picture shows Serena with enormous lips and nose, large white eyes, and other poor representations typically associated with racist imagery.
Is the picture racist?
Yes.
I’m a firm believer in the possibility of accidental racism. A non-racist can accidentally stumble into making, say, a racist comment. The biggest difference between the non-racist and actual racists is the non-racist usually realizes his error and apologizes.