Is This Cartoon Racist?

[anotheoldgit]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/11/03/00/2E0D2C0700000578-0-image-a-18_1446512382764.jpg

Tom Jones wants to get his DNA tested, just to be 100-percent certain that he doesn’t have any black in him.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11969379/Sir-Tom-Jones-Im-going-to-have-a-DNA-test-to-see-if-I-have-black-ancestry.html

[woofgang]

AOG, he's saying he wants to find out.....no mention of wanting to be 100% he has no black DNA.

[woofgang]

I think the cartoon is impolite and unfunny

[sp1814]

woofgang

You've fallen into the same trap as us.

Apparently, AOG was being 'mischievous'.

I'll explain - when AOG said "Tom Jones wants to get his DNA tested, just to be 100-percent certain that he doesn’t have any black in him." He was quoting from a website called Jezebel.

I understand he wanted to spark a discussion on this.

No.

Me neither.

[wolf63]

My mum told me that Tom Jones came from Tiger Bay and was of mixed race many years ago. She was always right - even when she was completely wrong.

The cartoon was not, to me, offensive but it was not very funny either.

[sp1814]

AOG

You wrote:

"Why do I alone always have to explain where I took my quote from?"

You alone don't have to explain where you took your quote from.

The thing is, there was no way we could have known it was a quote.

There was no indication that it was a quote.

Do you see how people could have interpreted this as being...

...oh...I see what you're up to.

Touché sir.

Touché.

I like your style.

As the longest serving member of the News site, I know what you're up to.

At least I think I am.

Hmm...that makes me think of a question I would like answered...

[jomifl]

AOG, You may think that the humanity is composed of various races but you are completey wrong. I know it may come as a shock to you as the justification for your bigotry crumbles before your eyes...if you can't accept it and can't take my word for it consult an anthropologist.

[retrocop]

Wolf63
Then she was probably wrong then because it was Shirley Bassey who hailed from the dock area Tiger Bay, Cardiff.
My father often recounted a man in his village returning from a day trip to Cardiff telling all in the Monkey Island pub Caerau that he had seen a "Blackess" in Cardiff.!!

[anotheoldgit]

Oh dear that feminist publication Jezebel is so out spoken, first this:

/// Tom Jones wants to get his DNA tested, just to be 100-percent certain that he doesn’t have any black in him. ///

And now:

/// The United Kingdom just debuted designs for its new passport. The theme is “creativity.” And whaddya know, it features seven men and just two women. Guess women need to be more creative! ///

http://jezebel.com/sure-are-a-lot-of-dudes-on-the-new-uk-passports-celebra-1740251277

Please note these words are now enclosed in the AOG system, meaning that they are copied and pasted from the original source, (in true 'Allo 'Allo! fashion I shall say this only once).

[The Builder]

I just showed that cartoon to a black friend of mine.

He had a good chuckle, then told me he was off for a test to see if he had any white in him ;o)

[-Talbot-]

AOG
Yes and it is not PC to say so, but the fact remains that in some ways, some races are superior to others.


I agree with you 100% AOG.

[Hypognosis]

@AOG

My knee-jerk reaction is that the cartoon -is- racist.

Backing that up with a cogent argument is going to be tricky. The whole drawing style is eerily similar to the "Giles" cartoons, which went extinct when I was in my teens but the tribespeople are less of a grotesque distortion than the internationally accepted caricature of the pre 1950s.

The subtext of white person= intercontinental traveller; Land Rover; career scientist; DNA test kit, while the black persons are low-tech jungle-dwellers is feeding off old racist preconceptions about who 'belongs' where. As tropes go, it's about as bad as it can get but maybe I am the one who is old fashioned and this is 'meta', now. Everyone knows the trope is bovine fertiliser, at heart but works as instant visual shorthand, *for this specific story*, nevertheless.

So no-one is likely to take the cartoonist to task for it.

[Hypognosis]

Did anyone see this episode of History Cold Case? (series 1)

//An apparently African skeleton, unearthed near a medieval English monastery, pushes Professor Sue Black's forensics team to its limits. Bone analysis offers clues about the true origins of the mysterious skeleton and facial reconstruction painstakingly reveals his face, not seen for centuries. The historical trail points to new evidence about British ancestry and the case takes an unexpected twist when they discover the tragic truth about how he died.//

Quote from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sbjp7

(Click "show more" to see this section).

[mrs_overall]

IMO the cartoon is NOT racist

[Gromit]

AOG

Jezebel is a feminist blog site

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jezebel_(website)

[anotheoldgit]

jomifl

/// AOG, You may think that the humanity is composed of various races but you are completey wrong. I know it may come as a shock to you as the justification for your bigotry crumbles before your eyes...if you can't accept it and can't take my word for it consult an
anthropologist. ///

If it has come to name calling, I would rather be classed a bigot than a complete fool as you appear to be.

Perhaps you would care to read some of this.

https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/the-major-and-minor-races-of-mankind/

I have read some of it and the first piece I came to was this.

/// Those who believe that race does not exist, or that Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid and Australoid are outdated terms of no use, might as well bail out right now and save yourself the exasperation. ///

Does he mean the likes of you?

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

Feminist Publication? Feminist Blog site? does it really make much difference?

[woofgang]

so not a biased view then
https://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/about/

[sp1814]

AOG

Can you please expand on which races are superior to others, and what ways?

[Hypognosis]

Intentionally or not, he has drawn attention to this:-

//His mother Freda was of Welsh and English ancestry and his father was of English descent.

He had thick, black curly hair until it turned white.//

Presumably this is "not news" to his fans but might upset any laying claims to him being any more than one quarter Welsh.

Unable to resist saying - curly hair, among white people; it's not unusual.

[Khandro]

AOG; As jomifl says; you really need to talk to an anthropologist, or even a biologist. Your source (Robert Lindsay) has unfortunately the same monika as the actor, but I can find nothing on him at all other than he has the blog from which you quoted.
Though we may organize ourselves into to different groups, tribes and nationalities our DNA shows that we are all descended from the same ancestor and so we are all related to one another.