Poor Little New Yorker
The absence of Walmart and cars and highways and chain restaurants makes it easy to get sucked in to this city, which really is its own little world. On the occasion that I’m able to escape the island and head back to Texas or Oklahoma, I’m reminded of how the other 99% live. How I used to live. How I sometimes wish I still did live. Or could live. Or might live again someday.
New York is ahead of the game on some things and on others they appear delusional–like they’ve strapped on some paper wings believing they can fly. It’s funny to watch and its usually harmless, but the other day, New York got caught with its pants down.
I was sitting back in the recliner in my friend’s house in Oklahoma City, a couple of nights ago, trying to internet and ignore the local news on the television, when I heard “Obama” and “New Yorker.” I looked up and saw the now infamous cover and my jaw dropped. The first words out of my mouth were, “Why are they doing this to him?” Had I been in New York when the story broke, I think my reaction would have been much different. I might have even thought the cartoon was brilliant. I might have thought everyone was stupid for making a big deal out of it. Being in Oklahoma gave me a reality-check on the rest of the country.
I can hardly compare the cartoon to anything else I’ve ever seen. The cartoon itself, isn’t bad. That really is the way people have been portraying Barack and Michelle Obama. What made it such a bad move on the part of The New Yorker was that they don’t seem to understand that people really do think those things. An overwhelming number of people. It’s not that they dislike Obama or even hate him, though they might–it’s more that they fear him. He has a weird name, he’s black, he wants to change things dramatically, he has followers that are more like disciples, AND he has a legitimate chance of being our leader. Change = Fear. Always. There are a large number of people who really do believe he is the antichrist and that God won’t bless an America that allows gay marriage and abortions. It really is a problem for some that his middle name is Hussein. Black + Hussein + Africa = Muslim = Terrorist = Middle East = Osama Bin Laden = 9/11 = the annihilation of our country = end of the world = hell.
They are even fearful of Michelle Obama, although that fear seems to have been manufactured. She’s, of course, black and she’s a woman, and she works, and has an education, and was even her husband’s boss, which must mean she is your regular, everyday, angry black woman who is on a mission to punish every white person in her path for the pain and suffering they brought to her forefathers.
As absurd as all of this sounds written out, it’s very true that these are thoughts that are in the heads of people all around us. People who are racist aren’t going to come right out and say that they are racist. Sure, there’s exceptions like the Klan and Neo-Nazis and Skinheads, but those extremists make up a small percentage of racist thinkers and feelers. The most dangerous thing about the majority of racists is that they don’t even know they are. For the most part, they are regular, everyday people. They’re good people who mean well and work hard and try hard and they’d probably even bring you a casserole if you were sick. They’re you and me and everyone of us fears change.
The New Yorker could have illustrated almost anything else that is wrong with our country, but not something like this. Not something we, ourselves, can’t admit.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
You really hit the nail on the head with this post. It was a very poor choice by The New Yorker. Good one, MF.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Ok, I agree with everything you said there. But somehow I think you also explained the reasons why I think that cover is brilliant. It’s not “just another cover”. It’s in-your-face, it provokes you, and then we have no choice but to talk about all those things. All those clichés that people think when it comes to Obama, that are inaccurate and cause him to be seen as a charicature. But maybe this is the “foreigner” in me talking. I do think there is an element to that kind of “humor” that is not very American. And maybe that’s where the brilliance of the cover lives. Do I make any sense?
July 18th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Ana: I know what you’re saying–and it’s probably the foreigner in you. It would be great if everyone looked at the cover and immediately saw it as a joke and if it convicted their own minds, but it doesn’t. The fear is that great. So great that these things that seem so absurd to some of us are like God’s word to others.
The only people who got the joke were the people who already think these things that are being said are completely asinine. However well intentioned, the cover only ended up giving everyone else a picture to go with their thoughts.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Ana B. and MF, I think The Rude Pundit summed up both your concerns when he wrote (edited for the good Christian folks here at MF):
Here’s the thing: anyone who doesn’t see the cover art as satire already believed that Obama was a terr’ist out to secretly destroy America and get rid of apple pie and porn. No one’s gonna look at the cover and say, “Well, right there, it proves Obama hates this country.” Conversely (and this is the reason the cover fails as satire), there’s not a one of those Obama-hating conspiracy nuts who’s going to look at a magazine called The New Yorker…and think, “Well, shee-it, haven’t they made us look quite the fools with their hyperbolic representation of a possible Obama presidency. I’d better call Merle and Jesse and tell ‘em the cross-burnin’ is off.”
The link to the full post:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-yorker-cover-really-well-at-least.html