Blue Crab Boulevard

Wrong

The other day, Hillary Clinton made a fool of herself while at the same time showing a complete contempt for her audience. She did so by altering her accent to sound more "Southern" while addressing black audiences. This is pandering. Today, Chris Muir, the author of the Day by Day Cartoon strip that appears on a lot of conservative web sites, responded. By making a fool of himself.

I was quite emphatic when a left-wing blogger put Wolf Blitzer in blackface. I am not intending to give Mr. Muir a pass. Was Clinton's behavior worthy of ridicule? You bet. But not in this manner. Blackface is a particularly insensitive, downright hostile, stereotype. It should not be used unless it is in a context of teaching the foolishness of the past. This is not acceptable - and it isn't a political correctness issue, I think. There are some things that needlessly give offense when a point can be made in another manner. Blackface is one of those things.

(This should be interesting, however. The left should spring to Muir's defense as they did with others who pulled this on the left, no? Unless the raging double standard comes to the fore again).

UPDATE: My good friends over at Just Barking Mad are taking a somewhat different stance on this. Let me put it this way, just to clarify. What Clinton did is demeaning to her audience. She was pandering - in the first degree. But a scathing point ridiculing her behavior could have been made without using symbology that a lot of people find deeply offensive. If the use of this symbology is acceptable, why is the regular use by Arab cartoonists of Nazi symbology to describe Jews beyond the pale? Personally, I would have done it differently. Regardless of the merit of slamming Clinton's demeaning pandering toward her audience, some things are best left out of the discussion. I have a problem with the use of blackface by anyone, left or right. I have the same problem with certain other symbols out of history. The use of those symbols, regardless of the intent, is simply not worth the collateral damage they cause.

Blogosphere, Media | Gaius Thursday, 26 April , 2007

By Hurricane Shirley, Thursday, 26 April , 2007 @ 12:17 pm

At least the comic strip is obvious; pandering is a passive-aggressive form of ridicule. Neither is acceptable. Ridicule is never helpful and almost always harmful.
By Rightmom, Thursday, 26 April , 2007 @ 1:07 pm

“It should not be used unless it is in a context of teaching the foolishness of the past” My opinion is that it exactly the context in which it is done, Hillary is showing the foolishness of the past in talking down to her African American audience and the strip is stripping her hatefulness down to the truth. I cannot believe this rich, white woman is able to continue to talk down to people and get a pass from that same group of people. I am offended for them.
By feeblemind, Thursday, 26 April , 2007 @ 3:40 pm

I think HRC left herself open to this because of the phony ebonics dialect. It in itself was over the top. When the left has portrayed people like Steele in blackface, it was solely to attack an apostate black that had rejected the gospel of liberalism. The two events are like comparing apples & oranges. The day by Day Cartoon was FUNNY. Usually that strip is way too subtle for my feeble mind to comprehend.
By Sissy Willis, Thursday, 26 April , 2007 @ 5:36 pm

I wonder what Thomas Sowell would say?
By Rightmom, Friday, 27 April , 2007 @ 8:15 am

“If the use of this symbology is acceptable, why is the regular use by Arab cartoonists of Nazi symbology to describe Jews beyond the pale?” because they not only use cartoons to hate on Joos they will actually kill them and unless I am mistaken I don’t believe the cartoonist of Day by Day is going to be wiping out the African American community, just my take:-)