Reply #273: There are certain people, some of whom try to be well-meaning

[Number23]

but who still refuse to accept our country's torturous racial history.

There is a very good chance that the author of this cartoon did not have any DELIBERATE racial intent. Does that mean that his cartoon is not racist? My personal thought is that this cartoon, in addition to not being even the slightest bit funny, is definitely racially insensitive.

Some people believe that unless something is DELIBERATELY created for the purposes of disparaging people of a certain race, it cannot be racist. They fail to understand that some things can be unintentionally racist, but racist nonetheless. To be honest, sometimes something unintentionally racist can be far more hurtful than something that was deliberately crafted to be racist.

There are so many examples of this, I can't even name them. This is a picture of Michelle Obama that is currently all over the Internet. It portrays her as a chimpanzee and is deliberately racist. Some could easily argue that the NY Post cartoon was not DELIBERATELY racist, but honestly, would that a bit of difference to the people who know our President personally?

There was a story last year about a woman in Texas who got smacked down because she ran out to two children climbing a tree in their own yard and accused them of "acting like monkeys." The two children were black; the woman was not. She may not have been INTENDING to be racist in her comments, but they were certainly taken that way by the childrens' parents who filed a complaint against the woman and who was fined because of her actions.

Like I said, I don't know if the author of this cartoon was trying to be racist. He probably didn't even think about it that way. I don't think that he'll have the luxury of ignorance ever again, though.