The Boston Herald, the voice of old-school Boston racists, is in the national spotlight today for this overtly racist cartoon about President Obama and Secret Service breaches. The cartoonist is defending himself by claiming that, much like Stephen Colbert’s fictional character, he can’t see race:
[Jerry] Holbert, himself, responded to the criticism his cartoon received during an appearance Wednesday on the Boston Herald’s talk radio show.
He told the hosts that he had “no intention at all of offending anyone” and that he doesn’t “think along the lines of racial jokes.” While he acknowledged that his jokes can be “naive” or “stupid,” he said he was definitely not racist. He repeatedly emphasized that he “wasn’t thinking of the racial element” when he used watermelon toothpaste.
“I was thinking of myself,” he said. “I really like watermelon.”
After Holbert left the show, one of the hosts noted that the racist connotations of watermelon seemed pretty obvious.
Even Boston Herald talk show hosts know jokes involving black people and watermelon are racist.
The Herald’s editors “sincerely regret if we inadvertently offended anyone,” tweets WBZ’s Joe Mathieu. Yes, if any of you REVERSE RACIST WHITE GUILT SELF-HATING LIBERALS took offense at our obviously racist cartoon, we’re sorry you can’t get over it.
And just as we were finally able to say ‘New Boston’ with the election of Dorcena-Forry we still have Wacko Hurley and these regressive trolls to waive to the country. There are plenty of highly educated, highly skilled, culturally progressive young people of color who would love to work at some Boston companies that tell me ‘Boston is still racist’ and don’t want to move. And they would rather stay in Chicago, which is far more segregated and has a far worse history in some regards. I can’t really defend my home turf when shit like this is given half a page on a major paper and nobody wants to admit it was wrong.
Not until I searched this on wiki did it become apparent what the stereotype is.
that’s its usual context.
But that does not mean it’s not serious.
But Boston’s not responsible for the ignorance of people 1,000 miles away. I heard the same crap (Boston’s so racist) from people in New York in the 90s. The same New York that was crippled by at least a dozen racially motivated murders and/or riots between ethnic groups in the late 80s and early 90s. The New York of Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo. People who have never been anywhere near Boston seem to think some incidents in the mid-70s define the whole place forever, but their own city’s string of even worse incidents don’t define that city.
The fact is Boston has come a long way but it remains a target. Thanks to Boston’s equally dubious reputation as a haven for extreme liberalism, the American right gets great glee from citing some of the very people in our area who vote for them as some kind of proof that Boston is irredeemably racist and liberals are hypocrites.
They’d do the same for New York, but to the rest of the country New York means Sex and the City, Woody Allen, Seinfield, How I Met Your Mother, etc. Manhattan below 96th Street is widely represented in our culture as an exciting place where diverse peoples come together in relative harmony. Ethnic tensions in New York’s outer boros hardly register in the rest of the nation, but a black friend told me ten years ago, “Every morning we ride the subway to neutral territory, but after work this place is super-segregated.”
Our rep is actually a lot worse than it should be, I am just saying that this being on half a full page of a major paper doesn’t help in that regard.
But we do have a well-documented problem luring black urban professionals to local companies, and part of that is because of the Richard Russell treatment, the busing, and crap like this. Again, its optics, but this doesn’t help. Particularly since the non-apology stands by the cartoons intent as being non-racist.
I think this is a topic for another day, but I believe pretty firmly that Boston is a deeply racist city.
America is deeply racist. That’s my point. New York and Chicago are just as racist as Boston or anywhere else. Ferguson is the reality for most of black America in any part of the country. One of my best friends in Chicago lives in Old Town, a part of the city even Colbert has mocked for being very white, and has been physically assaulted by cops on two occasions. For him to say “oh no, not Boston” when the city he lives in has already physically harmed him on account of his race means we have a very serious racist reputation to address. Something this cartoon will only reinforce.
As long as things like this cartoon keep happening.
I was surprised to see that “the Herald’s editors” apologized for the cartoon, because I cannot imaging a professional 21st-century newspaper editor approving that thing for publication. I assumed that the paper must have laid off all of its editors.
It is not Boston. The New York Post has been just as vile and nobody outside New York thinks that reflects New York the way they’d ascribe this cartoon to “Boston” being racist.
But NY gets a free pass on stuff like this, even though NYC has as much of a race problem as does every other large city
There remains an issue here but in my experience no more than in New York, Philly, or countless other cities that seem to get the benefit of the doubt Boston’s not given. I think it’s driven by antipathy to Boston among conservatives nationwide and among most people in the media capital, New York.
But, given that reality, things like this don’t help
I totally agree with fenway that the ‘rep’ is relatively unfair compared to larger peers that are just as bad. But the way to reverse the reputation is not to insist that other cities are worse, or equal to us, but to actually reverse the racism itself. And I am confident that we are getting better, but this problem has to be addressed with an empathetic rather than defensive approach. The universal condemnation of this cartoon by most segments of the Boston media and public is a positive sign in that regard.
So racist, it took me a minute to get the joke.
That said, I could believe it was unintentional. Almost too racist to be deliberate.
the guy in the tub broke in! I thought he was a secret service agent that had to be up Obama’s rear so they don’t have another incident.
Man, racism aside, what a shitty joke.
Something along the lines of “Security breaches in the White House were worst than previously thought.” It was cut out of this reproduction.
It’s unclear (after looking for ten minutes or so) but it’s not Murdock.
Fixed (Murdoch is a former owner)
And has since had the cartoon changed. Though it does show the Herald needs diversity in its staff, since most copy editors should have caught this.
1) Why on earth should we believe whatever nonsense damage control the Herald is spouting? It can’t even apologize properly about this, for heaven’s sake.
2) The cartoonist is actually rather immaterial in all of this. The Herald has plenty of editors that look at this stuff before it goes to print. I’m just not buying the idea that not a single person flagged this before it was published. I’m sure it was flagged — and the editors must have thought it was hilarious. I mean… they can’t even properly apologize for it.
There’s no honest mistake to be had here. You ONLY make a watermelon reference to be racist.
I mean, “watermelon toothpaste”? If he had asked about watermelon Jolly Ranchers I could understand, but who buys watermelon toothpaste? At its best, it shows unconscious racism — which is still racism.
I don’t see any plausible “honest mistake.”
The watermelon reference only comes from one place, and that place is very very bad indeed.
<img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Who_Said_Watermelon.jpg/440px-Who_Said_Watermelon.jpg".
Link
What is the connection between watermelons and black people? I’ve never heard this reference so the cartoon just got a “huh?” from me.
That was my response too. I think it is one of those coded racist things that only people well-educated in how to detect racism know about. Or maybe it’s something that you only know about if you lived through some past event and I’m just too young to understand it. I’m often amazed at the things that turn out to be considered racist, but I guess that is the result of people wanting to be racist in a way that allows for plausible deniability.
This one is pretty old, and pretty vile– a similar thing is done with fried chicken.
I am surprised that people miss this– the syndicators picked right up on it, and changed the flavor to something else.
Beyond that, I don’t have any idea what a guy in a bathtub has to do with the Secret Service, whatever flavor of toothpaste he is talking about.
Yeah, it’s ugly.
Please.
Pointing out the ugliness isn’t the same as endorsing it. Pretending it isn’t out there doesn’t solve the problem.
If we can’t even stand the discomfort that comes from looking at an image that’s either (a) extremely racist, or (b) ironically(?) pointing out the racism of others, how can we expect to solve the very real problems and avoid the very real pain associated with the very real racism in our Boston, in our New York, in our Oxford Mississippi or in our Ferguson Missouri?
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Those who’ve spent any time in the south know all about the racism of this “joke”. There is nothing unintentional about it.
Here, for the edification other things that folks might not realize are offensive (each of these is real, and over the years I have had to explain to various associates, colleagues, and family members why each of these is racist):
– Little statues of black men holding lanterns in the front yard
– Referring to any specific black male as “boy”, in any context
– Referring to Brazil nuts as “nigger toes”.
– Referring to conveniently-located parking spots as “where the white folks park”.
– Referring to any neighborhood as “dark town”.
The list is longer. The cartoon should NEVER have been published. Jeesh.
This comment is actually the best proof the original intent of the cartoon was racist – if you don’t know the racist history, the “joke” doesn’t even make sense.
If you want the best example of the connection – with apologies for the inappropriate language – here you go:
Just saying, the guy may have legitimately not realized it was a problem. Even when corrected to raspberry like it was elsewhere-it’s still not really a funny joke. The man who broke in was a mentally ill veteran who was intending to harm people. The Secret Service also initially lied not only to the public but to the President about how far the guy got, and apparently covered up a previous incident where bullets struck the residence and shattered glass while the Obama’s were away, and that was a full year after the hookers and blow scandal.
These are very serious questions about the competency of an agency charged with protecting the President. This cartoon, intentionally or not, highlights the extent to which his race has delegitimized his presidency in the eyes of his own protectors as well as large numbers of Americans.