A blatantly racist cartoon from Jeff Danzinger:
As Kevin says:
You can practically hear the “ah, so.” I mean – bowlers? Really? How Charlie Chan can you get?!
Which is too bad, because otherwise this would be a funny cartoon.
It’s so over-the-top — buck teeth? — that I reread it several times trying to see if the racism was “ironic” in some way. This is disappointing coming from Danzinger, who is usually better than this.
UPDATE: Today must be “racist caricatures of Asians day”. In a photo feature about kitchen decoration, The New York Times published a photo including what the Times described as “kitschy Chinaman” bowls.
Wow, on first glance I actually thought that this was a Winsor McCay comic. Both based on the drawing style and, you know, the 1905-era caricatures and sentiment displayed.
Jeez…
Damn.
The sad part is that it’s a pretty funny comic once you get over the rage – and funny in a “that’s a genuinely good joke that has nothing to do with racism”, not funny in an “oh God I laughed at a horribly bigoted joke I’m going to hell but it was totally worth it” way.
Seriously, the racist art style has nothing to do with the gag and just detracts from it.
as for the kitschy “Chinaman” dolls, I think it comes from the current fad of extreme kitsch popular with (generally liberal) hipsters these days. A handlebar moustache is cool if it’s ironic. Ditto tacky old-fashioned “harmless” racism.
Chink is offensive and nasty. Chinaman is hilariously antiquated. Like calling a black man a spook, or a white man a honkey. Or making fun of the Irish.
Of couse, the people who do this stuff defend it as harmless fun, pantomiming real racists in a completely non-ironic way.
I don’t think they’re racist, really. I just think they’re callous insensitive idiots.
Agreed. As a matter of fact, I didn’t actually look at the faces and at first I was wondering “why is this racist?”, then I saw the stupid caricature faces.
And those dolls. WTF?
Anywhere we can email and complain?
Chink is offensive and nasty.
It wasn’t until 1980 that the Pekin, Illinois high school changed the nickname of it’s athletic teams from “Chinks” to “Dragons”.
The Times changed the article without noting the prior wording. It now says, “Next stop is the kitchenette, a cunning study in red where plastic bowls with kitschy lids are lined up on an open shelf like the Nutcracker chorus line in Disney’s ‘Fantasia.'”
Write to him and express your outrage here: jeff@danzigercartoons.com.
Here is my ongoing correspondence with Jeff Danziger.
MY LETTER TO HIM
________________________________
Dear Mr. Danziger,
Your recent cartoon containing Chinese businessmen trying to sell electronics to a farmer was incredibly, laughably racist. Buck teeth? Slit eyes? Are you for real?
My first thought when looking at this cartoon was that it looked like it was from a different era, perhaps the fucking Stone Age.
You owe Asians and Asian Americans a huge apology.
HIS LETTER BACK TO ME
__________________________
Dear Ms. ____, Thanks for your note. In defense of my drawing style I think it’s possible to point out that I have several Asian cartoonist friends who routinely draw their fellow Asians in the same way. This is a simply parody, of people with whom I have no racist or political bent. Mexican cartoonists draw Mexicans who look like Mexicans in an exaggerated manner, as do cartoonists and caricaturists the world over. It is not done from racism, but from an obvious identity feature. To avoid this I would have to draw Asians with round eyes, which would look ridiculous, and probably denote an even greater exaggeration of racial differences.
I am old enough to remember (I actually date from the f- Stone Age you refer to) when we were very careful about stereotypes. I once drew an Arab with a large nose which excited strong criticism from Jewish groups, that this was a horrible Jewish stereotype. When I pointed out that the character was an Arab, they were nonplussed, and I heard no more about it.
I suppose you have no problem with the over-all message of the cartoon, that the Chinese, sensing a decline in their export market, are trying to sell the same consumer products to their own people in the Chinese countryside. I thought this was amusing at least. I don’t know how else to portray this, but I thought it was at the very least ironic. I’ve been to China, and have some Chinese friends. They are about the least racially sensitive people I know, and they have a widely encompassing sense of humor.
Nevertheless, I appreciate your writing and will bear your remarks in mind in the future.
All best wishes,
Jeff Danziger
MY LETTER BACK TO HIM
_________________________
Dear Mr. Danziger,
Your criticisms of my criticism, fall into predictable patterns.
1. I have (insert ethnic group) friends.
2. They do f-ed up things too.
3. That’s what caricatures ARE.
4. You have no sense of humor.
I will respond to these in order.
1. I have no doubt that you have Asian friends, and friends of other races as well. Just like dating a person of color, or having a child of color, or really ANY relationship with a person of color, this does not prevent you from doing or saying racist things.
2. This isn’t about what your (unnamed) Asian cartoonist friends are doing. I didn’t see their cartoons, and I did see yours. I condemn all racist representations of all ethnic groups, and their doing it doesn’t make it ok.
Your argument that Chinese people lack racial sensitivity derails the main point. This isn’t a cartoon addressing Chinese people in China – the cartoon and its effects are specific to here – the US, populated with plenty of Asian Americans facing racism in the here and now.
3. Your definition of “identity feature” seems to be “something that all Asians have”. Again, your argument fails. All Asians do not have buck teeth or slant eyes, and nor do all white people have “round eyes”, as you term them. There is always more variation within groups than between them.
There is also a difference between racist caricature, which your cartoon clearly is, and actual caricatures of people. You are clearly capable of the latter, as in seen in your cartoons which contain crowds of white people. They’ve got differences in height, hair, nose, eyes, dress, etc., unlike this, which played on old racist stereotypes of Asian men dating back over a hundred years. You’re a better cartoonist than this, obviously.
4. Ah, this argument. Well, on this one, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I choose to think that taking action to protest racist depictions of Asians is important, and that the racism that Asians and Asian Americans face from these depictions matters. I think that the prevalence of media denigrating people of color is important. If I’m called humorless, by implication, I can live with that. You’re right that the message of the cartoon is great – it’s the racism that fucked it up.
Here are some links that might be of use to you. The first deals specifically with racism in cartooning, and while not about Asians and their depiction, have great general lessons for cartoonists of ALL races.
Racism 101 for White Cartoonists: http://incontemptcomics.com/2009/02/19/racism-101-for-white-cartoonists/
How Not To Be Insane When Accused Of Racism (A Guide For White People): http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/12/02/how-not-to-be-insane-when-accused-of-racism/
I hope that these help you in your work, and in dealing with the concept of racism. I also hope that you do not take the consequences of racist imagery lightly. It’s dehumanizing, it hurts, and it bombards us all from the time we’re babies, playing into deeper racist messages that people of color are indistinguishable and basically, don’t matter. They have contributed to Asian/Asian American women’s media hypersexualization and Asian/Asian American men’s media emasculation. Your cartoon is a tiny part of a bigger picture, but the fact that it’s one incident doesn’t absolve you from your complicity in carrying out the racist agenda of denying people of Asian descent basic humanity.
I look forward to your response, and your apology.
Katie
Wow, Katie! Great letter!
Thanks, Amp!
Here’s his latest, a non-apology of the kind we know so well.
__________________________
Well, all I can say is you have my sincerest apology, although I am not sure what I actually did wrong. I can only suggest that you look at the overall quality of my work, most of which secures with the poor, the disenfranchised, the war orphan, the less favored and the laborers on the field of general human improvement. After reviewing a few years of that work I trust you will come away with a better opinion, rather than a condemnation based on what I can only guess is one recent cartoon. I’ve been doing this for quite some time and have, over this time, been criticized by nearly everyone for everything. But when they are asked to look at the totality of my work, they usually moderate.
All best,
Jeff Danziger
The thing I found shocking about the cartoon was the invocation of the Great Leap Forward, which was a disastrous policy that caused the deaths of millions (wikipedia says 30 million is disputed as possibly too high– I don’t know what a good medium estimate would be). Is there a plausible argument that the prosperous parts of China selling to the poor parts would have a similar effect?
Last letter. I’m tapped out. If he writes back, I’ll post it, but that’s it.
“These physical imitations have roots reaching as far back as the late 19th Century, when Chinese immigrants first arrived in the United States. Images depicting Chinese people as slant eyed and buck toothed were widely used to transform Chinese immigrants into something foreign, other-worldly, and inhuman. These illustrations became propaganda that was used to legitimize excluding Chinese persons from employment opportunities, public schooling, social services, and ultimately even from immigrating the United States altogether in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which is the only act in American history that has ever specifically barred one ethnic group for entry into the United States. “
This is the legacy that Chinese Americans live with, and that all people of East Asian descent in the US deal with. Increased hate crimes and attacks, harassment starting from childhood, and all the awful rest of it, with direct relationship to the representation of Asians and Asian Americans in the media.
You can rest on your laurels when you stop drawing racist caricatures. Your private non-apology to me is meaningless. What would be worthy of respect is a public apology to people of East Asian descent for the racism, and a promise to educate yourself so that it will not happen again. I will not hold my breath, though.
-Katie