Wednesday, June 02, 2010

If You Are Going To Write About Potentially Sensitive African American Racial Issues, Perhaps It's Best Not To Use A Craps Metaphor In Your Headline

Screenshot from Talking Points Memo


Really, not that big of a deal, but I was still a little startled by it. Most people would know not to use, say, watermelon and fried chicken illustrations in an instance like this, but craps imagery used to be right up there with Aunt Jemima in the stylebook of stereotypical racial iconography. Here's a reference image, from Bob Clampett's fabulous (yet... troublesome, to put it mildly) 1943 Warner Bros. cartoon Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs:


So anyway, like I said, not that big of a deal, but I'm just saying.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

How Censored Eleven of you, Peteykins!

Peteykins said...

Haw, right!

Most of the "censored 11" are not so great, but Coal Black is an extraordinary cartoon and really not mean-spirited or negative. Tex Avery's "All This and Rabbit Stew," however, is pretty hard to take.