Now as I stated elsewhere I respect the right of the cartoonist to put that out as it is granted in the constitution. What got me was that none of his editors or co-workers ever raised an objection or poised a worst case scenario.

Sorry again I may be an idealist but I am not Pollyanna either. We all have the tendencies within us, but while a lot can learn to be better, some refuse to. And that’s sad no matter how you look at it.

As someone who lived and taught high school in Houston for several years around 2001-2003, I can strongly attest to the fact that racism, prejudice and discrimination are alive in well there as well as virtually every other segment of this country.

While I applaud you and your circle of peers for being removed from the idea and struggle that is discrimination and racism, it belittles the day to day struggles and strife of so many–in your very city–who grapple with issues so intangible yet impacting that they have a hard time getting an even moderately fair shake in society.

This is just stupid. The cartoon had not a thing to do with race. The idea is that the stimulus bill was so wrongheaded that a chimp could have done it (and given the likes of Pelosi and company, it could be argued that one did).

But please…PLEASE…keep injecting race into everything…because all it’s really doing is making everyone realize just how moronic political correctness really is…and pointing out who the race pimps really are…

Possibly, possibly. But just because someone isn’t willing to say something in public, doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking it. People are emboldened to be jerkwads on the internet because they feel safe and mostly anonymous. Jerks on Talk@ or Blog@ are one thing, because this site caters to a fairly small demographic: comic book geeks. Jerks on YouTube or XBox Live are a much greater population, and are more likely to be indicative of the population as a whole.

When was Obama ever selling Mighty Ducks II?

Are you saying that all a black man is good for is to sell Emilio Estevez movies?

(Damn this is easy. I should get a job as a race baiter.)

“No offense, Ken, because I agree with most of your arguments, about how we SHOULD be, but this… I hate to say it man, but I think those you mentioned are more of a majority than either of us would like to admit.”

A majority only because you have the internet f***wad theory at work plus a small portion of a certain group (online videogame subscribers who never matured due to parents coddling them). It seems larger than it is, but when you get out in the real world, it’s not the case.

You know, I’m going to have to deal with the shitload of debt prior generations gave me, I’m not going to let them give me their prejudices and ways of creating division among people (I know that sounds hopey-dopey but dammit, the Mighty Ducks II really moved me, and if you bought it when Obama was selling it you can buy it now).

Which is, I suppose, progress.

No offense, Ken, because I agree with most of your arguments, about how we SHOULD be, but this… I hate to say it man, but I think those you mentioned are more of a majority than either of us would like to admit.

Seriously?

Man, I need to get out more.

If they’re white, is that racist?

What’s wrong with believing in good in people? Stop being all dark and Watchmen-like, people, be more like Superman.

Could you explain what you mean by the victim mentality being wrong? There are people who use the color of their skin to set up excuses as to why they can’t accomplish ______, that it is set against them, and I just don’t accept that defeatist mindset because that negativity spreads like wildfire (like to the internet *rimshot*). That’s giving up on yourself. I don’t deny some racism still exists, but it is not as prevalent as some would want you to believe (like…(sorry Dan) Al Sharpton).

What color are the unicorns in your neighborhood?

Setting aside the idea of caring about race being part of a victim mentality, which is actually a factually wrong opinion to have, where do you live?

I agree completely – my point was simply that there have been SO many slurs throughout history that it’s exceedingly easy to feign insult when one is used. I’ve said already I consider the mis-reading of the cartoon in question as justifiable, if not correct. Getting offended at eggplants is just silly. Examples of these accidental offenses are just growing like Topsy. (*)

I recall a group coming out against the phrase “To welsh on a bet” as it was historically offensive to people from Wales. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the phrase had long since mutated to “welch” on a bet, and unless you worked for a grape juice company, would not be offended by it.

I learned most of my favorite offensive phrases from members of the group they were intended to offend. An ex-boss, a member of the Twelve Tribes, would regularly remark that he’d get a better price “after I jew the guy down a little”. And it was a black fellow who told me of the far more rankling version of the phrase “jury-rig”. Steal them back – laughing at something is the single best way to make something powerless.

(*) You see what I did there?

Oh, and seriously my fellow white people: Get over Al Sharpton.

I’m just saying. Maybe this is why DC shelved the Showcase collection last year.

The italian word for eggplant, “melanzana” is often used, localized as “Moolie”.

Down around here, our local AAA team, the Iron Pigs was going to name their mascot “Porkchop”. Someone piped up that “porkchop” was apparently a slur against Puerto Ricans back when Hoover was in the whitehouse. They changed the name to “Ferrous”

Don’t worry if you don’t know all the ways to insult people – there’s an entire cottage of industry dedicated to letting you know when you have offended someone.

…or some people just don’t care about race being interjected everywhere?

I’m 24, and I truly believe my generation (as a whole, not counting those idiots on XBox Live or the comments of Youtube videos) does not give a toss about race. It is all the generations prior that have this guilt about it, the victim mentality, the need to raise a fit about everything they perceive to be racist, and try to dump it on future generations. I’m just refusing to have a part in it.

The cartoon should stand because it requires people to have a little bit more knowledge about government and what really occurs in creating legislation, instead of just thinking Obama every time someone says government. Having to think about something or have knowledge about current events should not automatically be a strike against it. Society is already dumb down enough as it is, I’m not going to let it try and go any further.

And Sharpton is nothing but a race-baiter, using the ignorance of people who have bought into the victim mentality to bully people into making them go away via $$$ (which then isn’t paid via taxes). The man has made a fool of himself repeatedly such as Tawana Brawley, Duke Lacrosse, his rants against jews and mormoms, he does not deserve the attention.

I have, thankfully, not heard this as a defense. Because if I had, I would have a sore finger and throat from all the laughing and pointing. Even if someone could get through life not knowing of such epithets, one would have been educated about it from all the times it was brought up during the election. Every time somebody made a sock monkey Obama doll, or a “Obama in ’08″ t-shirt featuring Curious George, we were all reminded about the traditional slur. I’ll go so far as to say that the people bringing it up did more to re-popularize the classic racial insult than anyone since the death of Richard Pryor, who used the phrases like Picasso used a paintbrush. In a monologue about visiting Africa, he said he brought himself to tears when he realized that in the time he had been there, had not said, heard, or even thought the word…well, you know… He declared the word “dead”, that it had no more meaning to modern people. Damn I wish that were true.

To play devil’s advocate, I myself had never heard the slur “porch monkey” until I saw Clerks II. It’s not even in the lyrics to “Colored Spade” from “Hair”. I did know about the oft-used parallels between our black and brown bretheren and our arboreal ancestors.

So I guess it is possible for such slurs to pass from public knowledge. Luckily, there will always be the easily offended who will remind us of them. Does anyone recall the woman who sued an airline because a stewardess proposed to choose who would have to give up teir seat by doing “eeenie meenie miney moe”? Because aparently at some point in world history it wasn’t a “tiger” you were trying to catch by the tow. And similarly, the person who protested a high school doing a production of Agatha Christie’s “And The There Were None” because back when it was written, the poem featured in the play was about about ten little “indians”?

You read The Judith Butler Reader?

You are an academic wanker. There is no hope.

This is interesting. I was wondering the other day if we might run into more of this as younger generations, unaware of the details of the history of racism in this country, produce more and more media.

It reminds me of a grocery ad that was pulled: various items of produce cross-fade into the faces of smiling consumers. At one point, an eggplant fades into an African-American girl. Apparently “eggplant” was a racial slur at one time. Of course the ad was rightly removed because it was offensive to some. But no one I asked had ever heard of this particular slur, perhaps meaning that one more tiny piece of of our racist history is vanishing into the past.

Two stories, mixed as one.

A) An out of control monkey shot dead in Conneticutt.
B) The stimulis bill which many critics of it have deemed it as out of control.

This reminds me when the Lord of the Rings movies came out and some charge racism, due to the fact that the vilains soldiers/creatures(forget the names) were created from mud and were dark.

This says alot about the person lobbying these charges then anyone else.