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Controversies Editorial cartooning

Cohen’s “cap” cartoon raises question of racism

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cohen-cap-cartoon

David Cohen of the Asheville Citizen-Times cartoonist is taking some heat around the blogosphere about a cartoon depicting a black guy with a gun pointed to a white man saying, “I’m going to put a cap in your a**” and then showing Obama pointing a finger at a white guy and saying, “I’m putting a cap on your salary!” Many feel that David indirectly compared President Obama to a street thug.

Defending his cartoon, David says that he was just looking for a creative play on words to express a point about Obama’s policies.

A lot of my work, for those who have followed it over the years, is based on the glories of the English language and it’s many opportunities for satire and manipulation. When I heard about the salary cap proposed by the President, my mind looked for a comparable phrase that might be related and cartoonable. I have personally heard, not only in person, but also in published, broadcast music, the phrase,” putting a cap in yo’ ass”, not to mention a Chris Rock routine on Comedy Central.

Now, to illustrate that point, I drew a black man pointing a gun at a white man. Not to represent ALL black people; A black person. Every white person that I draw only represents that person, not all white people.

Cartoonists use shortcuts a lot of the time to get a point across; unlike columnists, we don’t have a thousand words, so we have to get to the heart of the matter pretty quickly and succinctly.

Were the black man’s characteristic facial features, track suit, threatening posture, and gun meant to represent ALL black people?

No.

H/T Rob Tornoe

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Comments 62

  1. I think this part of his response is more important:

    “Has there ever been a black man that looks and acts like that? I would say yes. The same way that there has been a white CEO that runs off to the Caymans with your bailout money in his fat, soft fingers. The same way that Bernie Madoff has once again given anti-semitic ranters fuel for their bigotry.
    I really like Barack Obama. I voted for Barack Obama. I am still working on how to capture him in cartoons. I hope that his honeymoon continues, but I also believe that he has qualities we need to help the U.S. gain back some of what was lost in the last 8 years even if it means some “tough love”.
    Putting a cap on CEO salaries is a symbolic gesture, but one that I applaud.”

    If this is really how he feels — that Obama is some sort of Robin Hood and his actions are righteous — then the cartoon failed because he equated the white CEO with an innocent white victim, and Barack Obama with a big black thief. I don’t understand how that’s supposed to communicate David’s approval of Obama’s salary cap.

    Giving him the benefit of the doubt here, the moral of the story is simple: If when you’re trying to justify your work you’re more likely to cite Chris Rock, slang and rap than you are Richard Wright, Octavia Butler, and W.E.B. Dubois, you might want to be a extra scrupulous with your racial metaphors.

  2. That last “a” shouldn’t be there.

  3. I’m actually glad for that artist’s statment for the cartoon, because I was looking for some shred of doubt to give him the benefit of. The cartoon by itself just doesn’t provide any context for seeing it in a non-racist way.

  4. All criticism of Obama is racism. How can anyone be against policies that are so right and pure and beneficial to the U.S.S.A without obviously being a racist? Woe unto him who recieveth not Obamassiah. Another cartoonist down in flames.

  6. “All criticism of Obama is racism. How can anyone be against policies that are so right and pure and beneficial to the U.S.S.A without obviously being a racist? Woe unto him who recieveth not Obamassiah. Another cartoonist down in flames..”

    Spoken like someone who hasn’t read the cartoon, the criticism, or the cartoonist’s response. The cartoon does not communicate the message the cartoonist says he was trying to communicate; it communicates the *opposite* message. The cartoonist failed and in so doing, inadvertently created a racist image. The cartoonist himself doesn’t seem to be racist, especially if you take into account his other cartoons on the AAEC site. He just f’d up here.

    But to Jim’s already hackneyed point (e.g., every single Obama article linked to by the Drudge Report ends up hammered with posts from people who’re astounded that comments like “Kenya’s favorite son” could be construed as racist)… Is all criticism of Obama racism? Of course not. But all *racist* criticism of Obama is racism, and all the sarcasm in the world won’t hide that.

  7. Damn, I wish I could edit my posts here. That should’ve read “The President of Kenya,” not “Kenya’s favorite son.”

  8. Yes, it would be awesome if you guys could edit your comments, especially the ones with profanity.

    (please take that as a joke as it was intended).

  9. A good cartoon needs no explanation.

  10. I’m quite tired of these juvenile defenses for trash cartoons that should never be printed in the first place.

    First, there’s always people who whine about being “PC” whenever a legitimate issue is brought up. That’s not an intellectual defense of an artist’s work. It’s a childish non-defense–a knee-jerk response of people who can’t discuss cartoons properly, usually because they are unable to think of anything clever themselves.

    To say “well it doesn’t represent ALL black people” is completely full of wholes. According to that logic, you could draw the most vile depiction of a black man imaginable and say, “hey, it’s only this guy I’m referring to!”

    The cartoon is complete rubbish and not just because of the awful implication it has with race. I don’t believe Cohen is a racist. Worse. He’s an awful cartoonist that can’t implement a simple idea.

    The cartoons CLEARLY says that pay caps are wrong, compares them to theft, and has a CLEAR racial connotation with the title “Post-Racial America.” But Cohen didn’t mean any of that. How on earth would that be possible?

    Well, as Cohen says he was merely drawing a link between the words “cap.” How clever. Why bother with a point? In fact, he says he SUPPORTS pay caps and LIKES Obama. Not to put too fine a point upon it but: The man’s own political opinion contradicts the message of his own inflammatory cartoon.

    If editors think this is an editorial cartoon that deserves publication, they need schooled. And if Cohen can’t think of better ideas–and learn how to defend them–then he needs to quit cartooning.

  12. I don’t believe the cartoon is racist….it just doesn’t make any sense.
    This is how the cartoonist APPLAUDS the cap on ceo salaries is by equating it with a bullet from a mugger…??!

    Somewhere, somehow the cartoonist got the idea that political cartooning is not visual communication about politics but a vehicle to show off his creative play on words….(?)

    His explanation only proved the cartoon was a mistake.

    Hopefully, he will learn from his mistakes, that will improve the quality of his future cartoons.

  13. Matt Bors is spot on. The message of the cartoon is clear, whatever Mr. Cohen wants to say he believes. Besides being clear, the cartoon is also sophomoric, idiotic, badly drawn, and unfunny. Hard to believe a newspaper would run it.

  14. “…the cartoon is also sophomoric, idiotic, badly drawn, and unfunny. Hard to believe a newspaper would run it.”

    Ditto

  15. Soooooo…… If the president was white and the “cap in yo a**” fellow was white, would anybody raise a ruckus about race?

    Would anyone be foolish enough to say, “that bad mad is supposed to represent ALL white men?

    Double standards are standard procedure…

  16. “Soooooo?? If the president was white and the ?cap in yo a**? fellow was white, would anybody raise a ruckus about race?

    Would anyone be foolish enough to say, ?that bad mad is supposed to represent ALL white men?

    Double standards are standard procedure?”

    Red Herring. The objections aren’t based on the notion that he’s trying to represent “ALL” black men. They’re based on the fact he showed a big black thug mugging an innocent white man, and then showed Barack Obama mugging an innocent white CEO. The reason people would see that as a racist image should be self evident.

    If the President were white and the thug were white, of course nobody would “raise a ruckus about race.” And if my cheese burger were made of lettuce, my cardiologist wouldn’t raise a ruckus about me eating it.

  17. “Soooooo?? If the president was white and the ?cap in yo a**? fellow was white, would anybody raise a ruckus about race? ”

    The title is “Post-Racial America.” You conveniently left that part out of your brilliant analysis. That title, explicitly setting the cartoon up to be a comment on race relations in America after the election of Barack Obama, DOES lead one to think there is supposed to be a comment on race in the comic, yes?

  18. I agree totally with Milt Priggee.

    You said it, so I don’t have to!

  19. Well said by Matt Bors, Cohen set himself up for racial comparison,and apprantly can’t see his or her own racism in thier own cartoon statement , all people can pop caps in other folks and C.E.O’s come in all races and gender, so take alook at yourself, before making a “good ol’ boy joke”…power to the grass roots

  20. I believe one does not “put” a cap in another’s *ss. One “pops” or “busts” a cap in an *ss.

  21. Mike Lester again is to be congratulated on having the wisdom to select parents so obviously to his liking.

  22. Here’s the funny thing: This cartoon never saw print.

    So a cartoon that probably would have gone virtually unnoticed has been posted on several blogs (without the cartoonist’s consent, no doubt) and viewed by thousands of indignant blogophiles.

    There must be a word that describes this type of scenario.

  23. As several have pointed out….if you need to explain the political cartoon, it’s pretty bad. I also don’t understand how a street thug holding up an innocent pedestrian at gun point represents the President and bank and financial moguls.

  25. The cartoon is inaccurate regardless of it’s racial implications. Black on black crime is statistically much more likely than black on white crimes.

  27. “Black on black crime is statistically much more likely than black on white crimes.”

    So’s white on white crime, asian on asian crime, latino on latino crime, etc… Not sure what this has to do with the cartoon, though.

    And Ted, the cartoon was published on the Internet at the AAEC’s site. It’s not like indignant bloggers looking for something to be upset about went leafing through David’s bedroom dresser to find it.

  28. Blogger outrage has a way of publicizing cartoons. The Danish Mohammed cartoons languished in obscurity until a group of mullahs went on a speaking tour to show them months later. My “Terror Widows” became the most viewed editorial cartoon of the decade thanks to right-wing bloggers who were outraged.

    The guy on the left is Joe Everyman because, in editorial cartoons, a person not somehow indicated to be specific is assumed to symbolize a class or type of people.

  29. ” So a cartoon that probably would have gone virtually unnoticed has been posted on several blogs (without the cartoonist?s consent, no doubt) and viewed by thousands of indignant blogophiles.

    There must be a word that describes this type of scenario.”

    Fair Use.

  30. “The Danish Mohammed cartoons languished in obscurity…”

    And deservedly so. Their cartoons really sucked.

    “My ?Terror Widows? became the most viewed editorial cartoon of the decade thanks to right-wing bloggers who were outraged.”

    I don’t mean to change the subject here, Ted, but do you have any idea what those same right wing bloggers had to say about Ann Coulter when she wrote in her book, ?I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.? ? Just curious.

  31. I think it would be more relevant if the caption was something like “A Continuum of American Muggings” and the thug was white or Italian or anything else – doesn’t matter, really.

    Because the most important point of the cartoon is that Obama IS no better than a street thug. He’s just a fancied up version of a weapon wielding petty thief who’s plan IS to steal as much cash as he can from every honest citizen as possible. That is what thugs do, wether in an alley way or the White House.

    I wouldn’t think it mattered whether the offender in panel #1 or the victim in either panel #1 or #2 was white, black, Italian, Asain, Latino, Korean, Vulcan or a hologram of Ernie Kovacs.

    The point I got out of the cartoon is that Obama is no better than a common street gangster, that he’s just using the force of the Federal government to do the same thing any common street trash punk with a Glock does – take what doesn’t belong to him to further his own selfish, hate-filled, vengence driven agenda.

    The sad thing is, the only mistake the cartoonist might have made is that in making thug #1 black, it gives Obama apologists fodder to redirect the cartoon’s point away from Obama’s Socialistic, tyrannical policies and nature and hide behind the worn out, thread bare, cowardly and intellectually vacant accusation of ‘rascim’.

    Which is totally non-surprising -if you can’t handle the heat of an opposing point of view, then destroy that opponent by intolerantly and hatefully accusing them of intolerance and hatefullness. Saul Alinksly 101 is on full display here in the attacks on this cartoon.

    Frankly, I think the crook in Panel #1 is less scary.

  32. “Blogger outrage has a way of publicizing cartoons. The Danish Mohammed cartoons languished in obscurity until a group of mullahs went on a speaking tour to show them months later.”

    Blogging mullahs? Say what? My understanding is that the Danish mullahs went to Egypt to talk with religious leaders about the things they faced in Europe. They brought a collection of insulting cartoons, including the ones from the Danish paper, and the folks in Egypt took it from there. I didn’t hear about a “speaking tour” and I really don’t see how it connects to bloggers.

    “My ?Terror Widows? became the most viewed editorial cartoon of the decade thanks to right-wing bloggers who were outraged.”

    Whoa. Not the week I’d have brought THAT up.

    “The guy on the left is Joe Everyman because, in editorial cartoons, a person not somehow indicated to be specific is assumed to symbolize a class or type of people.”

    So what you’re saying is that we’ve reached the point where you can draw a black man and he simply represents “Joe Everyman”?? Because the guy on the left is for-sure a black man, and I thought that still carried a certain subtext in this society.

  33. “The guy on the left is Joe Everyman because, in editorial cartoons, a person not somehow indicated to be specific is assumed to symbolize a class or type of people.”

    Wait, I’m not sure what you’re saying. Are you saying you think David Cohen intended the thug on the left to be “Joe Everyman”, or are you saying the white guy he’s mugging is supposed to be Joe Everyman (the latter is how I interpreted it)?

  34. Darrin, yes, the cartoon was published on the AAEC site, but the implication is that it was published in the Citizen-Times. I doubt that there is a large audience viewing Cohen’s cartoons daily on the AAEC site.

    Matt, I don’t see how it falls under Fair Use. If a print publication wanted to run the cartoon along with editorial comment, they’d have to get the permission of the copyright holder.

    I suppose I should have prefaced by saying the cartoon is less than enlightened and I’m not defending the cartoonist at all. To me, by posting this cartoon, Cohen lets his slip show. Worse, it demonstrates what I have seen all around the South, and maybe it’s what Cohen calls “Post-Racial America”… new generations of Americans who don’t realize that they are as racist as their forebears, a kind of Quiet Racism.

  35. Ted,

    The posting of it here and on other blogs in the context of criticizing/commenting on the comic falls under fair use and that is what is drawing attention to it.

  36. “?Black on black crime is statistically much more likely than black on white crimes.?

    So?s white on white crime, asian on asian crime, latino on latino crime, etc? Not sure what this has to do with the cartoon, though.”

    It has alot to do with this cartoon. I feel it is overtly racist in it’s attempt to capitalize on supposed white male angst. I understand what the cartoon is attempting to do, however I feel it is ill conceived.

  37. RS — I hear tinfoil hats will keep Obama from stealing your thoughts, too…

  38. Soooo…. All the cartoonist had to do to “hide” his frightening racism was make the THUG WHITE…

    Ta DAH! No racism of any sort….

    To compare Obama to a white thug, or an asian thug or martian thug cannot be racist, right? Right.

    You can say, “Hey, Obama! You’re a THUG!” -that’s not racist.

    But if you say, “Hey, Obama! You’re a black THUG!” – that is VERY racist ’cause, uh, you mentioned his race.

    Also, to keep the “Post-Racial” statement, the cartoonist would have to make the innocent victim black which would have made the role reversal funnier, I think…

  39. This is Irony Illustrated. The White Man in the Mohair Suit is being robbed twice. That he is being robbed by a black man each time is immaterial, unfortunate but the crux of the biscuit in 99% of these discussions. It always is. It’s even the default mea culpa in Coles red herring apology. Or as Bors said, “The man?s own political opinion contradicts the message of his own inflammatory cartoon.”

    Coles admits falling in love w/ a play on words resulting in a cartoon whose message he didn’t intend. Clever is harder than it looks. He made a wrong turn assuming the hilarity to be generated by equating two disparate meanings of “cap”. However, the resulting cartoon unintentionally but correctly depicts BHO as someone taking money from White Men in Mohair Suits. -or Socialism.

    “WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW’ -Newsweek Feb.16, 2009

  40. I don’t know anything about this cartoonist, but I’m guessing he’s quite young. For his sake, I certainly hope so, as that would be the only excuse for stunning ignorance. If he’s over the age of, say, 25, then there’s absolutely no excuse for his ever penning this cartoon, much less his rather pathetic rationalizations to the obvious response.

    To get anywhere in this profession, one needs to develop an inner-editor in their brain. He may indeed have been influenced by Chris Rock, but once he started to pencil out the cartoon, he should have seen right away that there was no way it would translate from a comedy performance to print. Yet he did it anyway and actually submitted it. The only excuse for that is youthful ignorance, something we’ve all experienced, and hopefully learned from in order to move up in the profession.

    His response should have been something like, “I heard Chris Rock’s voice in my head while doing this and truly didn’t intend for it to have racist overtones. Now that I look at it again, in light of the controversy surrounding, I see how it would be interpreted that way and regret not finding a better way to express myself”. That would end it. Instead, his childlike denial only serves to dig the hole deeper, one that he may not get out of.

  41. An editorial cartoon has a completely different resonance than a joke in a stand up comedy routine. Verbal jokes fly so hard and fast in a monologue that one has to work hard to pull them out and pass them around, even if one were inclined to take the trouble to do so. Anything that shows up in a print context, whether in a printed publication or on the web can be slowly digested, analyzed, picked apart and shared with a click.

  42. Darren,

    What I was trying to say was: In this context, the black guy on the left of the cartoon is clearly “Generic Black Guy.” If the artist wanted him to be a specific black guy, the guy needed to be labeled or somehow indicated to be said specific guy.

    Since that’s clearly not what was intended, the cartoon failed to convey its creators’ intent.

  44. I think the first panel should’ve said
    “Gimme your money” or I’ll put a cap etc…
    To tie both panels to theivery. He could just be trying to kill the guy in the first panel, in which case, it makes no sense.

  45. Abell,
    Funny, I could have sworn I already pointed out that when lefties disagree with you, they resort to attacking, belittling and attempting to smear those who they disagree with, instead of dealing with the substance of the disagreement.

    I appreciate you using yourself to highlight that relevant point again.

    But I would like to know if a tinfoil hat will protect Obama’s daughters from Jeremiah Wright.

  46. I was just reading Wiley’s comment and it made me think back on every other cartoon that’s ever stirred the pot here at TDC, regardless of what our personal views might be on the cartoon.

    Maybe I don’t really understand the industry. Infact, I don’t really understand alot of things. But isn’t the editor just as much to blame as the cartoonist if a cartoon that is so obviously loaded creats such a negative reaction? Do editors even look at the material their cartoonists submit? Or do they feign ignorance and act just as shocked as readers do when a cartoon doesn’t sit well with a reactionary public?

  47. Garey. . . .A Reactionary Public?
    ( not to mock you, but ) choke, gasp, cough.

    What? The press/media/corporate owned literati is STUPID/REPUBLICAN ?

    GOSH……WHAT A FURPRIZE!

    KRANKY { Bane of southern, confederate, unreconstruted racists } gonna K you boys!

  48. I have a sense that I should be very offended by the reaction to this cartoon. And as soon as somebody in the blogisphere points out what it is exactly, boy-oh-boy will I ever write some angry words!!!

  49. David Cohen here.
    First, I did go back to the blog that Alan excerpted my comments from and apologize to anyone who was offended by the cartoon. The fact that almost all of the comments sent to me were negative convinced me that my intent with the cartoon was far from clear; certainly not the idea that I was trying to get across.
    I support President Obama. I voted for him and feel like if anyone can get us out of the mess that we are in, he can.
    I’ve been drawing for almost 40 years (sorry, Wiley), and out of the hundreds of cartoons that I have drawn, it distresses me that this one, the one that is probably the least clear that I have drawn, has caused me the most notoriety.
    I’m just a cartoonist trying to make his way in the publishing world. And I am aware that the cartoons have to speak for themselves; they don’t come with explanations!
    So I am doing what all of my friends and professional associates have told me to do—–move on, keep drawing, don’t give up, get it right.
    And having an editor will help……..!
    One more thing about my association with the Asheville Citizen-Times. I am a free-lancer with them, doing two cartoons a week. I am not an employee of theirs, nor am I an employee of the Gannett Corp. The cartoon did not run in the Citizen, and I doubt that it would have. Since joining the A.A.E.C. I have been posting my work on their website, and the only person responsible for it’s posting is me.
    Thanks to all of the posters who have given me advice, criticism, and understanding. I take it all in, and am trying to find the lesson to learn from it.
    In a side note, a lecturer at a university in Sydney, Australia contacted me and asked to use the cartoon. He wanted to show his class the cartoon and get their reactions before he showed them my explanation of it. The point that he is trying to illustrate is how people react before they impose their own belief system onto something.

  50. This discussion/debate has been a perfect example of how someone learns to draw political cartoons.

    You learn by doing it.

    Drawing, posting and collecting the reactions to your commentary.

    Seeing what went right and what went wrong.

    Thank God there was no editor involved with this cartoon. Because he/she would’ve obviously killed it along with any chances for David to learn anything from this cartoon and experience.

  51. From ’82 to ’86 my office was literally right next door to Mike Peters.

    He taught me to find somebody, anybody to bounce my ideas off of. Somebody outside of the editorial page. Somebody who saw the world and cartoons the same as I did. Somebody who I could trust to give me their honest opinion of my ideas.

    Mike said, If that somebody who sees the world as you do doesn’t get it…..it’s a pretty bad idea.

    An extra pair of eyes always helps.

  52. “Garey. . . .A Reactionary Public?
    ( not to mock you, but ) choke, gasp, cough.”

    Yes Joe, a reactionary public. A reading audience that reacts to what it sees in print.

    And don’t worry, you can mock me any time you want.

  53. All this questioning of racism… doesn’t anyone remember that, in fact, Obama may be half black, but he is also half white. If something like this had been drawn for Bush, nothing would have been said… why do we assume to take the position of defending a black man, rather than just saying our “President” can handle sarcastic commentary?

  54. One thing that is worth mentioning: the tax money that funds everything that Obama has proposed, and his salary, and his mansion, and his wife’s staff (to the tune of $1.25 million) and the billions that were spent for the US Government to nationalize the auto industry are taken from the taxpayer at the point of a gun. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who “voluntarily” decides to not pay their taxes.

  55. Oh, and to Dee above: yes you are correct. Everything that has been done “for” the black man, such as welfare, food stamps, and other social programs are done with the assumption that the black man is unable or unwilling to help himself.

    These people are making the assumption that Obama can’t take it, because he is black. Take a look at my site, and also at the site featured above with Jam Donaldson at conversateisnotaword dot com — she is brilliant, honest, and outstanding.

  56. “But I would like to know if a tinfoil hat will protect Obamaâ??s daughters from Jeremiah Wright.”

    RS, I think it’s nice that even a right-wing nutjob like yourself stops to think about the children. I just wish you would do it somewhere else.

  57. Obama went to the Wrights church” for how many years? ..but i guess he wasn’t payin attention. Remember what he said to Joe the plumber…”we’re just goin to even things out a little…” anyone remember animal farm?

  58. Is there a specific rule here about feeding the trolls, or is that an across-the-board Internet thing? Either way …

  59. guy,
    I like it here! The warm reception for differing points of view make it cozy.
    But if my posts dent your feelings that much, you might consider an alternative strategy…you can relocate your own browsing habits to somewhere more accomodating of your point of view, like the Tookie Williams Memorial Blog, the Chairman Mao Fan Site or possiblly the Angel Davis For President.Org chat room.

    Good luck.

  60. “or possiblly the Angel Davis For President.Org chat room.”

    I don’t have to join a campaign… I’ve already got the president I want.

  61. OK, I just htough you’d like someone a little less radical than Obama, and Angela Davis sprang to mind.

    I’d have figured being such a leftie you’d have thought she was cooler anyway – I mean the Rolling Stones never did a song about ol’ blood and guts Barry…

  62. What does that have to do with barbecue?

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