Racists Calling Non-Racists Racists

There was an uproar recently over a cartoon in the New York Post showing a slain chimpanzee—a reference to the recent chimpanzee attack in that city—and one cop saying to the other, “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Hysterically, this was branded “racist” by many commentators. No, not against chimpanzees; against blacks. Apparently, all the rest of us are supposed to see a chimpanzee and automatically think of an African American. Even though the previous stimulus bill was in fact written by senior members of congress, none of whom are black; even though George Bush was regularly portrayed in editorial cartoons throughout his presidency as some kind of simian, without anyone calling this “racist.”

Quite obviously and quite literally, the racism in this case is in the eye of the beholder. It must have been precisely those who objected to the cartoom who were racists. We now have the whole thing upside down, the racists in command, and angrily charging anyone who is not racist with racism.

Now comes a second example: the mayor of Los Alamitos, California, now says he will resign, for the crime of sending a few friends an email in which the White House is portrayed with a watermelon patch on its front lawn. And even conservative commentators are objecting to this.

Nobody sane is left.

But how is this “racist”?

Let's consider a parallel with another ethnic group. Imagine, when John Kennedy took the presidency, a cartoon showing a potato patch in the West Lawn. Would anyone have been up in arms? I doubt it—more likely, Irish Americans would feel a swell of pride at the image. I say that as an Irish-Canadian myself. I love potatoes, truly, and am proud to boast that my roots have tubers on them.

Most nations, after all, are rather proud of the food they eat, seeing it as part of their cultural heritage—even if, as with the Irish, it was poverty that led it to that food in the first place. One small town in Alberta, settled by Poles, announces its pride in its ethnic heritage with a statue of the world's largest pierogi. Who there could have thought they were insulting themselves?

Are Italians ashamed of spaghetti? Are the French ashamed of quiche?

No—to object to the association as “racist,” one must first accept the premise that any reference to a distinct African-American culture is demeaning to African Americans. Which is to say, you must believe it incontrovertible that anything done, created, cooked, sung, or made by African Americans is inferior. That there is something wrong, in other words, with being culturally African American.

I have trouble with that.

Now you must excuse me. My corned beef and cabbage is getting cold.