To think that the Peter Brookes cartoon of Joe Biden in the Times is pretty offensive towards Irish people?

[Hedwigharlot]

The cartoon depicts him dressed as a leprechaun. It's like a depiction of Irish people from a Punch Magazine in the 19th century. Who thought it was appropriate? And why are the British media working themselves up into such a jealous frenzy over Biden coming to Ireland? Very poor behaviour.

@Cathy31 great post. Agree completely.

10 of Biden's 16 great grandparents were born in Ireland.

One of them left in the same month that Obama's g-g-f did.

It very touching that at Knock this afternoon he met (unplanned, unscripted, unexpected) the priest who gave his son the last rites in 2015. The diaspora throws up stuff like that.

I do think the level of emotion he shows is about family too. The man lost his first wife, his one year old daughter, the son who was set to follow in his footsteps. He described his sister as his best friend. I'd feel emotional about a wider family embracing me too, in his shoes.

And it is a thing with diaspora. You are always interested in when someone might have a connection. (You're from Ballybeg? Do you know the Sweeney's?). That's because there has been a rupture.

.

It's often interesting to hear people from America or Australia (even the UK though that usually isn't such a break) telling their family stories - they often know stuff about relationships, jobs, patterns of travel after arriving in the new country that have been lost in Ireland - the parts add together to make a fuller account of our shared past.

Hilarious you're complaining about Britsplaining when throughout this thread you seem to have been quite happy to borrow the othering rhetoric of some extremely fucking racist British nationalists.

Freudian slip…nobody in Ireland found it offensive in the slightest. It’s part of our history. The Black and Tans were brutal. My grandparents were in fear of them. As I said , they are part of our history and we did beat them in the end.
I found it interesting that it took until the next day for GB news and daily Mail etc to bring it up. They obviously had to google them.
The Black and Tans are indefensible and the only people who I feel could possible be offended are the All blacks and I’m guessing they couldn’t care less .
The anti Irish sentiment that ‘some’ parts of the British media is peddling is just so petty and salty

Oh ffs. If he had Jamaican ancestry and visited that country, would anyone complain?

Why can't people whose ancestry is Irish ever fucking mention it?!

Just to add, I haven't seen the cartoon. But agree it does sound dodgy!

Well said, it’s extremely offensive even if that wasn’t the intention.

@HouseByTheSeaside

The caricature is in the thread near the start, I don't know how how add to copy posts to a post I create

Is this worse than the cartoon I saw a few years ago of Donald Trump wearing a see you Jimmy wig and tam o' shanter when he visited Scotland a few years ago?
If so, why?

Hard to say without seeing it, being Scottish, knowing the history of the image, and knowing what message the cartoonist was attempting to convey about Scotland.

One think I dislike about the cartoon we are discussing here is the implication that a man who loves Ireland can't care for Northern Ireland. The offensive imagery without that would just be twee and irritating. But the political point means that the imagery is being weaponised against what we've been trying to preserve in the face of Brexit etc - hope for harmony on this island.

I mean it's far from the worst I've seen. I don't think anyone is terribly surprised by it. It's just a bit same old, same old, interesting timing with the anti-Irish dig there. Pity the Times printed it but their reputation is hardly up to much these days.

I doubt I'd know enough to say re Scottish example.

We’re used the English taking cheap potshots. Water off a duck back at this point.

It was a bloody stupid thing to say and made me wince.

The Black and Tans murdered people and like yours, my grandparents were also there at the time.

It's burned in all our memories, isn't it?

Conversely, the All Blacks are the national rugby team of New Zealand who waggle their tongues. How could anyone possibly mix that up?

I don't mind Joe Biden, I certainly prefer him to Donald Trump, and find his gaffes charming. But like many politicians he trades on his hinterland and I am not terribly impressed by an American president trading on his Irish heritage when it's much more removed than mine.

I'm less impressed by people saying it's just a Freudian slip

Great post.

Is this worse than the cartoon I saw a few years ago of Donald Trump wearing a see you Jimmy wig and tam o' shanter when he visited Scotland a few years ago?
If so, why?

Yes I would say it's worse, the caricatures and meanings behind them bear far too much resemblance to 19thc cartoons which were specifically anti-Irish and racist, and the Biden one depicts the Irish in exactly the same way.

I've not seen the Trump one but I'm assuming it was poking fun at Trump rather than Scots. What I'm trying to say (and probably not very well) is that the Biden caricatures are targeting the Irish as much, if not more so, than Biden. Whereas the Trump one I imagine was not specifically intended to stereotype Scots or portray them offensively (a tam-o-shanter cartoon doesn't really seem to have the same connotations to me, historical or otherwise). But as I say, I haven't seen it. If for instance Trump had been portrayed as a drunk Glaswegian - sadly still a common, offensive stereotype - then that would be completely different IMO.

I'm sure others would disagree, but I think it's a hideous cartoon. I lived in a very Irish area of London in the early 90s when anti-Irish discrimination was still pervasive and it makes me wince that this kind of shit is still being portrayed in the mainstream media, and I'm not even Irish. But I also think Biden's gaff was pathetic on his part.

I think the Black and Tan / All Blacks mix-up must have been a slip-up @limitedperiodonly . Not Freudian, I agree. Just a slip. The man isn't into rugby. He stutters and gets his words wrong. And as a joke it would only offend Irish people. So surely just an error.

And like fuck was the All Blacks/Black And Tan thing was just an innocent gaffe or Freudian slip we shouldn't worry about.

It was not intentional but Biden made a mistake which was very bad. Either he didn't know the difference between the Black and Tans and the All Blacks, or he didn't know or care whether Ireland and New Zealand were different countries with Prime Ministers and people and that. Probably both. Maybe he doesn't know New Zealand exists.

That's not as weird as it sounds I went through US immigration on my British passport and my NZ colleague was detained because the US immigration fuckwit hadn't done geography at school. And she had a gun.

Whatever the toss, that's not conducive to international relations, is it?

Maybe Biden is senile or maybe like most US presidents he doesn't give a shit what happens outside the US. That wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility for Presidents of the USA including Barack Obama.

Therefore I don't see why anyone of any country would think any of that was good or accept crumbs just because POTUS came from the Old Country.

That's just needy

It was, as I said, a Freudian slip and was laughed about here in Ireland. It was the pearl clutching in some uk media that made me wince. I’m sorry, but how can people in the uk be offended about the Black and Tans.

Also, the judgement about how is Irish he is???
There are millions of Italian Americans, African Americans , Latino Americans who who may have a similar family tree and also Cling onto their culture.
My aunt has been in the US for 70 years, her great grand children all have Irish names . They all go to catholic schools and being Irish is a massive part of their identity. Why all the judgement??

Come on.

How could Biden mix up a vital part of the history of Ireland with an important but arguably less important part of the history of New Zealand unless you didn't know or didn't care @belleager ?

I don't think it was malicious. I just think Biden fucked up as he often does because he doesn't know or doesn't care.

As my Irish aunt used to say: "He's a bit of a romancer".

I understand the feelings of the Irish diaspora. I'm part of it, as many of us are in Scotland, England and to a lesser extent, Wales As an Englander, I am used to being dismissed.

But Biden is the latest of a long line of US presidents parading his Irish credentials. That's okay. All I ask is that he gets it right and people don't make excuses when he gets it wrong.

Yes, it's offensive. Of course it is.

I’m sorry, but how can people in the uk be offended about the Black and Tans.

@Fimat how unimaginative of you not to realise how afraid Irish people who travelled just over the water to Britain in the 1910s were. My dad came over when he was just a baby. Do you think his parents should have gone to the US? If it was you with a babe in arms and your husband had got a good job in the London docks would you have refused to follow him? Possibly but probably not. We sometimes went to Killarney but we're not Irish and neither is Joe Biden.

Northern Irish Catholic living in London here. Grew up in West Belfast in the 80s.

There are plenty on this thread defending it. Mind you - what do you expect from a web site whose users regularly describe their toddlers as “having a paddy” (perpetuating the lazy stereotype that Irish people can’t control their emotions). I’ve had to report that one about 10 times.

The English have always thought the Irish beneath them though, and still do. This a couple of years ago from the Radio 4’s flagship was particularly stunning:

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/brexit/bbcs-humphrys-asks-dublin-minister-why-ireland-doesnt-dump-eu-and-throw-lot-in-with-uk/37751860.html

However, Biden’s visit (particularly to Northern Ireland) was embarrassing. “I don’t understand why you would ever leave”. Because they were fucking starving and dying in droves, Joe - that’s why. The All Blacks clanger though? Didn’t even know about that one: fuck ME.

Maybe the animatronics that so obviously power the leader of the free world malfunctioned.