Word: cartoon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...week later, I received a call from the editor of The Tulsa Collegian, the student newspaper at the University of Tulsa. Apaprently, my cartoon had provoked a storm of controversy over its arbitrary comparison of Black men and rats. A sit-in at The Collegian's offices was threatened; copies of the paper had been burned and race relations on campus had been set back considerably by my white supremacist views...
...once again explained the meaning of the cartoon, and swore to the purity of my intentions. I submitted to a brief interview concerning my views on the death penalty. This hopefully reassured my friends in Oklahoma that I respect Black people somewhat more than they thought...
...issue lay dormant until last December, when I became aware of a controversy at the nearby University of Lowell. My cartoon had run in the school paper, The Connector, and had provoked a now-familiar outcry. According to a front-page story in the February 12, 1991 Los Angeles Times, "black students didn't find the cartoon funny and neither did university officials... The editors found themselves facing university sanctions that included six months' probation and 30 hours of community service and removal from the newspaper's staff...
...February, after consulting its attorneys, the University of Lowell announced that it would drop charges against the student editors. Apparently, the cartoon's racial insensitivity did not outweigh the students' right to publish as they saw fit. Or perhaps the administration just lost its nerve. In the current climate the Connector staff should greet this triumph of sound judgment with relief...
THIS IS NOT an isolated incident. Cartoonists are often criticized for the way they portray minorities. Even the most delicate cartoon on racial issues has the potential to offend someone. Newspaper readers do not often linger over subtleties of meaning in cartoons. The mere discussion of controversial issues, when met with the suspicion of racism, serves as a call to arms for many readers...