Came by to see if anyone posted on today's Day by Day strip by Chris Muir. Since no one did, here I go:
First of all, not linking to it. Dean's World carries it. Go look at it there if you need to.
If you don't feel like looking at it and you don't know what I'm talking about, the strip's final panel depicts Hillary Clinton in blackface. The context is Hillary's propensity to change her accent based on her audience.
Note to Hillary Clinton: Stay away from accents. If you want your audiences to feel like you are one of them, eat a cheese steak or wear a Cubs jersey.
Note to Chris Muir: You might be able to argue that this application of the concept is accurate since the white woman is affecting a mode of speech in order to pander to a specific audience. But the meme is toxic. It was wrong when Jane Hamsher did it to Senator Lieberman. It was wrong when Steven Gilliard did it to Michael Steele. It will never be right.
UPDATE: I see that Ed Morissey will be interviewing Chris Muir on Blog Talk Radio. Hamsher and Gilliard had their lame reasons. I am interested to hear why Muir chose to do this.
R.I.P. Steven Malcolm Anderson
Minion
of the Week
Can't decide if how she looks is more or less offensive than what she says.
It really is a tough call.
That said, I remember the howls of outrage coming from the right-wingers whenever Tom Oliphant shows Condi Rice as a buck-toothed parrot.
Bottom line for me: it's a political cartoon, folks. It don't work unless you scorch someone's ass.
Muir simply illistrated it for all to see. Kinda like the kid that pointed out the emperor wasn't wearing any clothes.
I can respect that this is your opinion, Ara. Having previously decried the use of blackface by liberals, however, I felt it necessary to be consistent.
Kevin, even though, unlike the Lieberman and Steele applications, Chris Muir is conceptually accurate, it's still wrong. There are other ways he could have chosen to parody Hillary. For example, he has used Star Trek images in various ways, he could have had something funny to say about the Universal Translator making Hillary sound strange, or some such.
Ted Kennedy is a drunken lout. However, I would be offended to see him depicted as a drunken leprachaun. Rosie O'Donnell is a blithering idiot. But the fact that her weight exceeds the Surgeon General's recommendation for her height is irrelevent, as is her sexual orientation.
No one needs to be reminded that defecating on a table at the Red Lobster is unacceptable, antisocial behavior. I wish this blackface thing would get to that point, along with all the other demeaning Identity stereotypes currently in vogue.
Again, she did this to herself. If Kennedy got drunk and started singing Irish pub songs I would expect someone to dress him up like a leprachaun. Much to the chagrin of real leprachauns the world over.
Hillary put herself in black face in action if not literally. Muir simply stripped away her stage makeup to show it.
I have no problem with what Muir did. It was fair and not an unreasonable exageration of what Hillary was actually doing.
Yeah, I hear Samuel Clements was a white guy.
But he’s dead. Maybe should complain about this.
When Rush runs for office, I'll be right behind you with the torches and pitchforks.