I was reading the Boston Herald yesterday and I came across a startling comic. The comic is made by a series called "The Knight Life." The first scene of the comic has a drawing of a young black man listening to a radio. The radio announcer says, "Listen to this one folks. A grade school student is accused of shouting down his teacher in class!!" The next scene shows the announcer saying, "Not that it matters but you could probably imagine what ethnicity this kid is..." The young man looks over at the radio in disgust. In the next scene, the radio announcer says, "If we allow this savagery to continue, it will spell the end of America! Next up: A list of gun shops closest to where the president is speaking tonight." The young man now looks over at the radio and sighs.
At first, I was really confused when I saw this in the newspaper. What does ethnicity have to do with yelling at a teacher? In all my years of school, I've seen plenty of students yell at the teachers, children of all ethnicities. I think the point that this comic was trying to make is that there are larger issues in the world than talking back to teachers. I didn't think that the comic was funny and I think most people might find it offensive.
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I'm not sure I was totally following the comic, I would probably have to see it but it did sound like something that would be offensive. When you read/ see things like this dont you wish you had the creator right next to you so you could ask them what they really meant or what point they were trying to get across? I hate when meanings are unclear, like in a comic like that, in song lyrics, poems, tv shows or anywhere. Maybe its just my nosy personality though.
ReplyDeleteyeah i seen it. The Herald does stuff like this all the time. One of their columnists was suspended 2 or 3 years ago because on WEEI, a sports station, they were talking about a gorilla that escaped from the zoo. And the columnist said, "What did he get off a METCO bus?" unfortunately they have a history of this.
ReplyDeleteThat's awful! I never heard about that before. It's sad how some people don't think before opening their mouths.
ReplyDeleteWell, the comic in question is here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.knightlifecomic.com/2009/10/08/you-lie-4/
First, the comic is part of a series of comics of this artist's look on Rep. Joe Wilson's uncalled for (and extremely disrespectful - and, apparently, planned for in advance) interruption of a Presidential address to Congress.
What is interesting to note is that the races here are reversed - the interrupter is black and the speaker is white.
This particular comic addresses the racism and bigotry of much of talk radio - in which the hosts mask their racism and bigotry by using phrases like "You can probably imagine..." and "Of course, it goes without saying that..." and so on when it comes to misbehavior.
The next panel points out the irony when these same hosts praise people bringing firearms to an event in which the President of the United States is appearing at (which is what happened in NH and AZ). It intersects on President Obama, who faces the threat of assassination as President (2 were assassinated by gunmen, a third was averted) and as an African-American (MLK killed by sniper, and so on).
That was the attempt in a nutshell.