A draft version of this piece was posted in error. The version that follows is the corrected one.
– JKJr.
At least no one demanded that
insulting images be suppressed a la Charlie Hebdo. No blood at the publisher
was shed, and no one issued a fatwa against the artist, even if ritual murder
was in the air around the Statehouse. Beyond that there was little that was
edifying about the cartoon controversy – I intend that phrase in all its
meanings – at the Statehouse last week.
The image in question, of
course, was part of the editorial cartoon that Eric Allie drew for the Illinois
Policy Institute. It shows an African-American kid in a Cubs cap begging for
money for Chicago Public Schools from a rich white man who tells him, “Sorry,
kid. I’m broke,” even though his pocket overflows with cash labeled “TIF $.” We
won’t here discuss the issue the drawing addresses. What mattered was people’s
reaction to the drawing itself. Mayor
Rahm Emanuel described the cartoon as “unambiguously racist.” It’s certainly
unambiguously racial. And (depending on the audience) racially inflammatory. But racist?
The kid was widely likened to Little
Black Sambo, but that’s almost as ill-observed as Allie’s image. Sambo’s
African features were exaggerated to make fun of Africans; the Africanness of
Allie’s version makes a polemical rather than comical point about African
Americans as victims. It is the polemic, not the image, that I found offensive.
CPS is not a “black” school system; the enrollment is 62 percent un-black and
only about a quarter of the teaching staff is African-American. So why was the
supplicant characterized as African-American? Pretty plainly, to excite those who
believe that any public money spent on anything or anyone black is wasted. I
find this view ill-informed, but it is a political cartoon, which exaggerate to
make a point even at the risk of giving offense.
But who exactly took offense? Charles Thomas, an
experienced Chicago political reporter and radio commentator who is
African-American, said on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight, “We can’t assume that the
cartoon was racist.” Reminded by his host that legislators “unanimously”
decried it as racist, Thomas replied, “black people did not say that.” Black
legislators, yes, black people no. Thomas explained that black people of
Chicago see real racism on the job and on the streets every day. (A cop who
believes that all blacks are thugs because they are black is a real racist.)
However offensive they found the cartoon, Thomas suggested, his black audience
regarded it as trivial.
IPI CEO John Tillman said some of the agitation was
contrived by people “who want to introduce the subject to get political gain,”
forgetting in all the hubbub perhaps that his cartoonist introduced race to get
political gain in the fight over school funding. Tillman’s id, propagandist Dan
Proft, said the same thing in ruder language, calling the allegations of racism
a smear tactic by “race hustlers and identity politics simps.” Proft, who is
never quite right about anything, here was not quite wrong; certainly there was
no lack of people delighted to be handed a chance to brand a political opponent
a racist.
Oh, there was genuine outrage too, much of which seemed to
come from the younger among the press and political staffs, members of a
generation who went to colleges where mere insults are considered tantamount to
blows. These snowflakes would have melted to puddles in the Galesburg of Carl
Sandburg’s youth. “We believed that the sheenies on the quiet might be calling
us ‘snorkies’ and calling the Irish ‘micks’ and that would be all right with us
because that’s what we were,” he wrote. “But if they called us ‘goddam
snorkies’ or ‘goddam micks’ then we would look for bricks to heave.”
J. B. Pritzker’s running mate, Juliana Stratton struck a
common note. “You’re making
this more difficult than it needs to be, @GovRauner. The cartoon was racist.
Just say it.” Rauner’s reluctance to say it – and his obvious anger at being
hectored to do so – was proof to some that he himself is a racist. Me, I figure
he just doesn’t like being bullied into
endorsing a popular
creed. The spectacle reminded of an ugly
incident from World War II. Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to salute the
U.S. flag, or any flag, which offended the red-blooded patriots of Litchfield
to assault a group Witnesses proselytizing in that town; taken to the jail for
safety, some male Witnesses were forced by bystanders to salute or kiss a flag
as they entered the jail.
As she was being pushed out the door, Rauner spokeswoman
Laurel Patrick stopped long enough to explain that the governor “would never
try to talk anyone out of their reaction to any piece of art, political or
nonpolitical, right or left, good or bad. Those reactions deserve respect on
their own terms.” By the end of that week, this unexpected defense of freedom of
expression was as welcome as it was unexpected.
Contact James Krohe Jr. at CaptBogue@outlook.com.
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 6, 2017.
