Comment by d_t_w | Hacker News Reader

Comment by d_t_w | Hacker News Reader

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Thanks, what an intriguing level of detail to draw from the cartoon, I have to admit I never read even the slightest amount of that from it.

To me the cartoon is staggeringly racist. Clearly, deliberately, outrageously racist. And I am deliberate in my use of the words "deliberate" and "outrageous" because personally I believe in Australia that the proprietor of this particular newspaper makes his money by manufacturing outrage.

To me the cartoon is as racist as the day is long, it's as racist as it is blunt. There's no finesse. There's no guile. There's no dog-whistle or wink to the unspoken. It's a full frontal racist scaling of the ramparts. Which is why I find your comment so intriguing, because you clearly hold a detailed opinion, well communicated, of many different facets you have drawn from the content and how they relate back to social issues in the Northern Territory and yet none of what confronts me occurs to you.

So can I ask you. If I were the proprietor of a newspaper that liked this cartoon but needed it to actually be racist. What would you change? Could you change anything to make this cartoon racist? Or is it not possible. Perhaps we just disagree on what racism is.

Personally, I can't think of a single thing that I could change to increase the amount of racism it expresses. I'm interested to hear your opinion.

The reality of life in Australia is that, if you are Aboriginal, you are vastly more likely to be abused as a child, you will die on average a decade earlier than the rest of the country, and as far as anyone can tell, much the same will be true for your children - life could be a little better for them, because the gaps seem to be narrowing, but they aren't narrowing fast enough to reach parity before those children reach adulthood. This is an uncomfortable truth for most Australians to hear, but at least it's talked about. What isn't widely talked about, and what is even more uncomfortable to a lot of people, is that poverty/abuse/anti-social behaviour can be passed down to kids by parents, and that this is why they are cycles.

It's hard to draw a line between pointing out uncomfortable truths in an effort to help, which I consider the role of a political cartoonist, and just slandering the Aboriginal people, which I consider racism. I give Bill Leak the benefit of the doubt because the policeman is Aboriginal. If the policeman was white, I would see the cartoon as blatantly racist, but I believe Leak deliberately made the policeman Aboriginal to contrast the two men: the successful policeman futilely trying to pull a kid out of a downwards spiral, the alcoholic absentee father unable to help, and the son who's already begun to inherit the problems of his father and might one day be in his father's position.

Even if I've read the cartoon correctly, I don't think it was very good, since it clearly failed to communicate its message. What I think of when I see it, though, is one of the Koori kids I went to primary school with, who we'll call Eli. Eli's father was jailed for drug trafficking when we were young, and didn't come back to Eli's mother when he got out. Eli himself grew up to be jailed when he was in his early twenties, after an assault related to drug trafficking, and Eli has a kid on the outside just like his dad did. Racist or not, effective or not, the cartoon accurately shows the process by which Eli ended up in jail.

I find it interesting that you choose to go into fine detail, again, about the facts of life and social problems in the Northern Territory as you understand them and to share your own personal anecdotes, as if these have some impact on the cartoon been grotesquely racist (or not).

Please understand that even as a johnny-foreigner I'm perfectly well aware of the state of affairs in the NT. You'll note that your not the only Australian that reacts to this cartoon by earnestly explaining their understanding of the social problems of indigenous communities (though the other responding to me is also perfectly comfortable stating the cartoon is racist, but strangely chooses to respond to me, rather than any of the comments claiming the cartoon is not racist, go figure).

I'll posit that everything you mention, to some degree, is common knowledge in Australia. I don't accept that Bill Leak was genuinely trying to play an informative role here. We are also plainly ignoring the fact that this cartoon came in response to reports of aboriginal children being tear-gassed in Don Dale, so it's obviously an attempt to re-apportion blame, no?

If you'll humour me one more time. Imagine that the police-officer is out of frame, just a hand. Can you suggest anything that would make the cartoon of the two remaining aboriginal men racist? Let me help you, perhaps you could exaggerate some physical features, or include some negative stereotype? Has the author missed anything? What would you add to change their representation to be a racist one? It's fascinating that your only suggestion to turn the original cartoon from "not racist" to "blatantly racist" is the ethnicity of one character. Is it true (and it's hard I guess not to deliver this without the tone of an insult, so apologies) that you're perfectly aware that the caricature of the two remaining characters is deeply, deeply racist, it's just that you're comfortable with all the stereotypes they contain? It is racist, but it's ok, in short.

In case you're considering explaining further fine details about aboriginal life, let's say the cartoon was of three greedy hook-nosed sinister jew bankers. I've put literally every trope in I can, exaggerated every physical characteristic, every negative stereotype. Would that cartoon become not-racist because there's some element of truth the idea that Jewish people are a merchant class? And would your time be spent well explaining that to me in fine detail?

Thanks again for the conversation, this has been a fine example in my experience of discussing racial issues with Australians.

In the case of Jewish stereotypes, consider two fictional cartoonists in 1938. One is in Nazi Germany, and uses the most stereotypical Jewish caricature possible sitting on a train next to a pile of gold bars, to justify confiscating the possessions of Jewish emigrants. The other is in Britain, and uses the exact same stereotypes and the exact same caricature of a Jewish man, this time standing in front of a locked door and menaced by a dog with Hitler's face, to shame the British government over its pitiful intake of refugees. The first is an attack on the Jewish people. The second is an attempt to help them, and I believe a cartoonist would be justified in having drawn it.

Which role did Bill Leak try to play? I believe he bungled an attempt to get the rest of Australia to talk about and fix a problem, but I'm open to the idea that he may have been throwing bigotry around blindly, or trying to shift blame with no intention of doing any good.

I appreciate the contrast you are drawing with that comparison, it's a clever one.

It seems that we agree that, in isolation, the caricature of two bare-footed, slack-jawed, slovenly, drunk, ignorant, impoverished indigenous Australians is racist. At least neither of us can think of anything we would add to exacerbate it.

In my example of the hook-nosed Jew, the Jew is the hate-figure. In your counter-example Hitler is the hate figure.

Who is the hate figure in this cartoon? The racist generalisation of the indigenous man. Surely that's problematic?

You're aware that the cartoon was posted in a paper that has history of writing articles titled "Blacks find ways to get high", the cartoonist has a library of similar content where the hate-figure is indigenous, and that this particular cartoon was aimed (and succeeded comfortably) to shift attention from the case of indigenous children being tear gassed.

I'm comfortable that it is racist dross, I'm hoping that I've managed to at least raise that thought with you in a compelling way.

Thank you for so eloquently making that point. That is also how I interpreted the cartoon.

I have no idea how we can help Aboriginal Australians break out of this spiral. I truly hope we can find a way.

> Thanks, what an intriguing level of detail to draw from the cartoon, I have to admit I never read even the slightest amount of that from it.

When I saw the cartoon I thought it was clearly political satire. When have political cartoons not been heavily dependent on context and difficult to understand if you weren't familiar with what had been happening during the week?

I've heard/read a fair amount of support for and against the cartoon. Some support for it has apparently come from people who have actually gone up to remote aboriginal communities. Some people think that it's a truthful depiction of the problems that are happening up there.

Most of the coverage from the fallout of publishing the cartoon, seemed to me, to be about how racist it was. A lot of outrage. Some stuff about 18C. More outrage. Panel shows with a token aboriginal. Yet more outrage. I honestly don't recall anyone examining what problems indigenous communities actually have. So I guess the cartoon was a failure; it used racist, racial stereotypes and no positive outcome came from it.

We're seeing more and more silliness being imported from the US and UK. Ayaan Hirsi Ali cancelled a talk because of security fears recently. She's been here before and given talks. What the hell changed? I think just this Thursday there were students planning to protest a screening of the Red Pill that was organised by other students at the University of Sydney. Everyone wants to live in an echo chamber. I don't know how we move on from this.

I want to stay on topic. Damn the LNP for screwing up the NBN. I will not get the shitty version of it in my area until 2019.

Satire would suggest humour? Like you I've read all sorts of discussion of the cartoon, not once have I heard it described as funny. Perhaps I'm reading the wrong articles. What is satire that is not funny, crap satire?

I was familiar with the affairs of the week, I just didn't read the precision of the OP because I don't think the cartoon was clever. As noted, I thought it was deliberately provocative, outrageous, and deeply, deeply racist.

I find the Australian commentariat interesting:

> So I guess the cartoon was a failure; it used racist, racial stereotypes and no positive outcome came from it.

We agree, the cartoon is racist. So why all the circumlocution around the central point? Is it because it raises uncomfortable questions about Australian culture? Is it really appropriate for your Prime Minister to, of his own volition, choose to exalt a cartoon that includes racist, racial stereotypes?

I expect the OP is a reasonable person, and I suspect I won't ever receive a response to "How would you make that cartoon racist?", because literally every ham-fisted racist trope has already been applied. There's nothing subtle about it.

I'll posit this. That cartoon would never have been printed in The Times of London, The New York Times, or The New Zealand Herald. If it had been we wouldn't collectively expend one iota of the discussion required in Australia to ascertain that, yes, it is racist. It's not really a question that requires much inspection, but here we are.

I'll accept our British, Kiwi, and American friends if they choose to contradict me on that.

And yes, the NBN is a disaster. We're in agreement again.

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