Most of us are familiar with the whimsical children's stories of Dr. Seuss, but before he embarked on his career as a famous children's author, he had been a political cartoonist as well as a writer for "Private Snafu", a series of Warner Brothers cartoons created for the U.S. Army. Given Seuss' background in politics, it's really no surprise that many of his stories also play out as sociopolitical commentary.
Seuss was ahead of his time -- in this story, identifying memetic trends and clique behavior before the term was even coined. Note how he's distinguishing bird-brained mentality vs. the more clever manipulator, portrayed as a primate.
(I didn't produce this video, by the way. It was either this or the longer song-and-dance animated production that was posted on YouTube).
OK, so this rancid old shock jock gets canned over some racist and sexist remarks, apparently thinking he was funny by paraphrasing hiphop-style lyrics. ...And yeah, what he said was pretty stupid and offensive; I won't argue with that.
The knees of the liberal mediocrats have been jerking rather predictably. Let's string up this Bad White Boy and oh, what a shame people can't learn to be a bit more sensitive!
Reading today's newspaper columns and commentary, I did notice a repeated and glaring omission. The fact is, degrading racist and sexist comments far worse than Imus' gaffe (and have had an arguably negative impact on the Black community) have been being broadcast for years all over the airwaves courtesy artists who aren't Caucasian. Where's the outcry from Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over those remarks?
Is this really something a guy should lose his job over? (Not that he'd be destitute with what he's making, but still.) Why couldn't the offended parties taken a more fair-and-equal approach by simply exercising their own freedom of speech? They could have just called him a "dried up old dead-cat head" or something like that. (Which is kind of on the immature side, but hey, sometimes people can only learn if they get a taste of their own medicine).
Some may try to differentiate between Imus' remark and rappers by pointing out that Imus made a personal attack on a specific group of individuals, whereas rappers aren't directing their remarks at anyone in particular. On the other hand, consider how influential hiphop culture has been to an entire generation with regard to their attitudes about race and sex, and how those attitudes may have had an effect on black women as individuals. One possible silver lining in this is that it might open up debate with regard to issues like double standards and accountability. If Imus was only trying to paraphrase the kind of remarks common to the hiphop community, then why is it OK for the hiphop community to say those kinds of things in the first place?
I'd had this cartoon concept idea of caricaturing the various politicos as school kids, sitting at their respective cafeteria tables. Of course, someone else beat me to it -- here's a new series by Ampd Mobile called Li'l Bush...
This may have only been a matter of time, since more and more people are getting that general impression of Bush & Co. -- and that can only be a good thing. (Below is a cartoon from the inimitable UK artist Steve Bell.)
