I hate this comparison between these two women.

[quencher]

When will this stop?

The biggest crime Michelle Obama has done is being the First Lady. The flack she gets for her looks is immense while her educational achievements and other things that she does are ignored. Feminist who fight for change should fight against the image being portrayed. Am not even going to bring racism into this because with black women they are both intertwined.

In hindsight, what they are saying is for the First Lady to be great, she has to be sexual (media standard of what it means to be one ), being well educated is pointless and please don't be black woman because that won't make you classy. For goodness sake the woman carries her self with grace. She is astute. What more do people want?

I would understand if they wrote about her failures of things she didn't get right. For example never doing what she has promised the public.

That cartoon is rascist in the first instance and misogynist in the second. Fwiw I think Michelle Obama is a stunning and intelligent woman and I know nothing about Donald Trump's wife except that she has awful taste in men.

First rule of comedy, Spike....

Shit has to be funny, yes? This has all the hallmarks of a 10 year old's work. Political cartoons can be ruthless, funny, cutting, shocking, controversial and sometimes even cruel. But there has to be an underlying truth, and the best ones manage all of this with a degree of intelligence. This ticks none of these boxes. It is shallow, childish and moronic. The fact that the cartoonist has to name the characters he is attempting to portray in big fuck-off letters tells you all you need to know about him and his intended audience.

It's racist, not because it negatively portrays a black person, but because it draws on long-established racist tropes to do so. Showing a black woman as mannish and angry deliberately plays to racist stereotypes. Attacking her attractiveness is sexist because it's the kind of criticism that is largely reserved for women. If she were shown as money grabbing and crafty that would be unpleasant but not racist, whereas a similar portrayal of a Jewish person would be anti-Semitic. That's the point of stereotypes - they are group-specific. Making false equivalences with groups who wouldn't be offended by that, or insisting that all negative representations should be seen as just neutral critique misses the point.

And yes, freedom of speech is irrelevant to this debate. I don't want the cartoonist arrested. I just think his cartoon is a piece of shit.

I'm not 100% sure, because I don't know Olivia's ethnicity, but I'm pretty sure we just saw a white person tell a woman of colour not to make a fuss about racism

I'd LOVE to be wrong because that is messed up.

Anyone with even the remotest sense of what free speech and honest, respectful debate is, will, I'm sure, find your post as comical as I do Fresh

Ah. I was right, then.

Not sure why I'm comical, though. As it goes, I am a laugh riot, but that post wasn't one of my hilair ones.

It's also racist because it reuses old tropes about black women, that have little relevance to FLOTUS but that will understood by the type of person that sees racism as comedy. You will always get people who think that free speech means being able to say whatever you want regardless of other people, it's sad they still exist, but every generation has its throwbacks.

I tend to be pretty extreme on free speech. I'd rather offend and be offended than to let bad ideas fester. Olivia is giving her point of view and the majority are rebutting it rather well.

I don't disagree about free speech, 80K, I'm in broadly the same camp. I would rather that unpleasant views (that stop short of actual hate speech, by which I mean "Kill all the x" or "eliminate everyone who is y"), be aired so we can all get a good look at them and point and laugh if they're stupid. I don't hold with banning or no-platforming or twitter shaming-storms in general.

But I do think that the people who get to define if a thing is "ist" or not (racist, sexist etc) should be the people it's predominantly designed to be hateful towards. Shouldn't it?

Up to a point, FreshwaterSelkie. I agree that you'd be bone-headed to tell someone else how they feel or how they should feel. But in social exchanges, no one gets to unilaterally dictate all the terms of engagement. That said, I think quencher has been pretty reasonable throughout this thread. Meanwhile, Olivia seems to be living in a bubble without realising it. She may be to proud to admit that she has got it wrong, but over time, some of this may sink in and she may think before she opens her mouth in real life.

YY buffy

Agree Buffy. It cuts both ways.

Nell Irvin Painter's book 'The History of White People' is very good at explaining how the concept of race was constructed around both the economics of slavery and ideals of feminine beauty. There are some videos of her speaking about it on YouTube. She's a very good speaker.

The cartoon follows those old racist tropes, as Vestal said.

I also agree with Lass that there is some horrific racism on the Internet. It can be a very depressing place.

Selkie, you're sounding a bit Tumblr. Olivia having a dissenting view is part of what creates discussion.

A bit Tumblr? I'm not sure what that means, but it doesn't sound good!

From a couple of previous interactions with Olivia, I don't think she debates in good faith. I do find it quite tiresome and I don't find it easy to engage with her constructively. Dissenting views are great, but whataboutery and "oh, aren't you silly to get worked up over this" less so.

Thank you Almond. That's all there is to it really. There are plenty of people who'd like all threads to be a kind to be an echo-chamber where we all reinforce each others personal biases. Where only people with the 'correct' views are allowed a platform and anyone else branded a “goader”. I've always assumed we're all relatively intelligent adults, with differing views - on this forum. Why some aren't able to do the same is beyond me?

Yes, Buffy, and Selkie and I sympathise with that because I tend to get enraged if I feel someone is not responding in good faith. And then regret it. So am far worse than you.

But I don't like this kind of stuff because it feels like not speaking to the person directly and attempting to create a mass call out:

'I'm not 100% sure, because I don't know Olivia's ethnicity, but I'm pretty sure we just saw a white person tell a woman of colour not to make a fuss about racism.'

Anyway, I won't go on about it further because I am derailing.

"I'm not 100% sure, because I don't know Olivia's ethnicity, but I'm pretty sure we just saw a white person tell a woman of colour not to make a fuss about racism'

This!

I'm not sure you are derailing almond.

There is a call out culture on other parts of the Internet, and sometimes it's disconcerting, but I'd also suggest that educating people who appear to be being wilfully ignorant about their racist views is important. Even when you know from past experience that they don't engage in good faith.

X posted with you Olivia. I hope we can discuss these issues.

I am a bit lost now because I'm not sure where I've gone wrong. I am white, so I honestly feel that when someone of colour points out when something is racist, the most respectful, indeed the only respectful thing to do is to listen, reflect, and respond thoughtfully. I don't think Olivia was doing that, not at all, and I pointed it out. I wasn't attempting to "call out" anything, I really, really hate that word.

I compared it in my head to how it chaps me when a man tells me that something I've said is sexist, isn't sexist. How would he know? It's not about him.