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Controversies Editorial cartooning

‘Race baiting’ Stantis cartoon riles black community; calls for firing

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A Scott Stantis cartoon that was not approved for print was accidently posted on the web last Tuesday angering members of the area black community who argue that the Birmingham News is trying to discredit black leaders.

Woods was most disturbed by the editorial cartoons by Scott Stantis that were a commentary on the use of race in the campaigns. In the version of the cartoon published Tuesday, Langford and Mayor Bernard Kincaid pat candidate Patrick Cooper on the back while pasting two labels on his back, “white” and “Republican.” Another version that appeared online for a time Sunday had the label “honky” on Cooper’s back.

Woods went on to say:

We need to get rid of him (Scott) for making such a drawing, but the buck stops with who’s in charge. Somebody had to approve this race baiting.

The newspaper has denied any conspiracy to discredit black leaders has express regret for the the accidental publishing of the cartoon.

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Comments 4

  1. LOL I like the honky version better. I wonder how much of a “mistake” that really was when it ended up online.

  2. Sorry, Scott –
    It looks like you can’t comment on racial issues without someone accusing you of being racist.

  3. Interesting. It sounds like the cartoonist is suffering by the very problem he tried to illustrate, reverse-racism. The white candidates (and cartoonists) have to watch their vernacular P’s and Q’s, but everyone else can label, discriminate and generally say and do whatever they want without suffering a backlash.

    Unless he really is a big jerk, I doubt he sat down one day and thought to himself, “Hmm. How can I most effectively tick off (insert race here)?” Most likely he thought, “The past aside, what these people are doing in the present isn’t okay, I think I’ll commentate on it.” Though, “honky” made it harsher, at least the printed version shows they attempted to soften it. The online version was probably a matter of uploading the wrong file.

    And that just happens so rarely on the Internet, doesn’t it?

    Of course, without knowing the full back story on the issue(s), I could be wrong about everyone’s intent and motive, but I just get really tired of “selective application” of the First Amendment. It gives them the right to complain, yes, but to call for his firing for expressing HIS opinion? NOT okay.

  4. C’mon, let’s not be harsh on the cartoonist. It is his or her right to express an interpretation of reality through the rendering of lines and text. OK, so the word “Honkey” is just as bad as others that are used to represent minorities, but the idea is to make people think about a situation.
    In any good cartoon, there has to be an element of truth to make the caption work and be funny or amusing; in this case, the point of reverse-racism is made very clear (and in a funny way).
    At this point, any reasonable person will look at the picture and make a judgement. He or she can then digress or agree and start a conversation about the matter at hand and go DO something about it.
    Get people talking! Find views! Seek the truth of the matter! Most importantly, folks should move on beyond the scope of the cartoon (or daily) and get to business.

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