Was "The Australian" right to publish this?

Discussion in 'Living Room' started by MarkB, 5th Aug, 2016.

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  1. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    Yes I can. But the fact that the Police Officer is Aboriginal is important too. How would the story change if the Police Officer was depicted as white? Or if the Police Officer was Aboriginal and the father was white? The story would completely change, which indicates that it is important. This has been overlooked. That is important too.
     
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  2. Skilled_Migrant

    Skilled_Migrant Well-Known Member

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    Please enlighten everyone with a definition of a racist cartoon...
     
  3. Angel

    Angel Well-Known Member

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    Thank you Truong for your response. I take it as a positive.

    When I look at the cartoon, I "see" the stereotyping as showing a scruffy bloke with a beer in his hand who doesn't even know his own children. Like we stereotype some of the residents of Logan. I see a deadbeat father first and foremost. It was secondary that I realised he was meant to be an Aborigine.

    On the other hand, I can ALSO see how the less educated will take the path of least resistance and just see a stereotypical Aboriginal deadbeat, and why this is dangerous and wrong.

    I also agree with Perthguy about how the Police officer is a positive character, but no-one is talking about him.

    From a very young age I was able to identify with both sides to many discussions
     
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  4. Angel

    Angel Well-Known Member

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    Sorry LibGS, wrong thread perhaps. I am always reserved about any journalism on TV. As much as I prefer the ABC and SBS to the other channels, I still hold a degree of skepticism about the producer's agenda and whether we are misled, persuaded, in order to exaggerate the truth. It was something that crossed my mind the other night.
     
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  5. bob shovel

    bob shovel Well-Known Member

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    I'm going to get my crayons out tonight now that every race needs its own carton.
    This will be my picture

    A white female junkie pregnant with baby no 5 and female docs officer ready to catch the baby to take it away with the others
     
  6. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Do you feel that cartoon would be racist (in that it's supposed to illustrate all white people are like that) or just an observation of a sad reality for some members of white society?

    Some may find it distasteful, but in my view it wouldn't be racist despite it depicting a particular race.
     
  7. LibGS

    LibGS Well-Known Member

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    Where are the whales?
     
  8. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    @Angel I am culturally biased because I went to university and studied with police officers. So now when I see a police officer, I assume they are educated. In reality, we don't know what qualifications the Police Officer has, whether the child has committed an offense or whether the father regularly drinks. Our cultural biases guide the assumptions we make about the characters depicted in this cartoon. Our interpretation of the cartoon tells us a lot about ourselves.
     
  9. HUGH72

    HUGH72 Well-Known Member

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    I Never said it wasn't racist, my first comment explained my thoughts on this.
    Crude, vular and possibly racist but the title of the thread asked if The Australian was right to publish it.
    Are you suggesting they need to be censored?

    The cartoon is open to interpretation, I'm not defending it, only questioning the hysteria around it.
    Maybe my radar isn't as finely tuned to racism as yours. I would rather put energy into real social problems not satirical cartoons.
     
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  10. Skilled_Migrant

    Skilled_Migrant Well-Known Member

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    • Not at all, this ideology needs to be publicly named and shamed, and deservingly this is what has happened.
    • It is a good way to flush out the closet racists as well, who come out in support of racism citing freedom of speech.
    • Suncorp has taken a praise worthy step and made it amply clear, that in addition to social, political and global unacceptably, there are financial costs for racism. All this would not have happened if the cartoon was censored.
    • Why should anyone stop the racists from digging their own grave, by censoring them. IMHO more such uncensored episodes occur, the better it will be to highlight the issue.

    About time. It has been centuries now and it is just the way things are done around here.

    Trivializing racism, calling criticism hysteria is not helping solve (or even acknowledge) any social problems.
     
  11. Angel

    Angel Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for this, Perthguy. I should know this information from when I went to uni but I had completely forgotten. It makes a huge difference to our interpretations of media we are presented with. No wonder some people find things where others don't.
     
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  12. LibGS

    LibGS Well-Known Member

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    Bingo. Once we start to ignore the little things then they become normal, part of the fabric of society. Over time, society has changed and we haven't noticed. Casual racism, homophobia, misogyny it will all creep in and become entrenched if we let it. We have a duty to call out the bigots and wake up the people who are the otherwise good people but don't see the real damage being done.
     
  13. truong

    truong Well-Known Member

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    Oh yes my post was definitely positive in your regard. I appreciate thoughtfulness when I see it even when you arrived at a different conclusion than mine.
    You can see similarities between racist WW2 propaganda and Bill Leak’s cartoons. The reason you reject the former and accept the latter is due, I think, to this fundamental difference: while racism in WW2 propaganda is clearly ideological and caused by a conscious belief that one race is superior to another, there’s nothing like that in Leak’s case. And there lies the danger.

    This article explains very well the difference between ideological racism and what’s called conditioned, subconscious, covert racism. I’d recommend you to read it till the end as it contains lots of insightful observations. Using the latest discoveries in neuroscience it says this unconscious type of racism is naturally imbedded in most of us due to human evolution and our personal experiences. In fact what has served us well in our evolution is now a barrier to our further evolution.

    Far from me the idea of calling Leak a racist because we all have this latent in us to various degrees. The only thing I can ask is that we look closely and honestly at our inner workings and be more careful when expressing ourselves, especially those who like Bill Leak have some impact on public opinion. It’s not just a matter of not harming others but also of becoming better, happier people.

    For those who want to explore this issue further here’s a good book to read: The Hidden Brain
    https://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Brain...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263944928&sr=8-1
     
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  14. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    I think both sides need to be very careful when defending or condemning the cartoon, particularly when labelling it "racist".

    The cartoon depicts an educated, employed Aboriginal working to help people in the community.

    ...the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, released a statement saying he was appalled by the cartoon’s racist stereotypes.

    Does this mean that depicting an educated, employed Aboriginal working to help people in the community is a racist stereotype? Is it racist to depict an Aboriginal male as educated and employed?

    The other assertion I think is incorrect is this:-

    "He has crossed a line by stereotyping all Aboriginal dads as losers."

    I think that is reading something into the cartoon that isn't there. Does the cartoon sterotype all Police Officers as Aboriginal? or all Aboriginal men as employed? or all children as Aboriginal? or all Aboriginal children as in trouble with the law? Then why does it depict all Aboriginal dads as losers? I think that is something that we are bringing to the conservation because of our own cultural biases.

    Reactions have been mixed but not all negative and I think that is important to point out too:

    I received an email from Anthony Dillon — whose father Colin was Australia’s first Aboriginal policeman and whose evidence was pivotal to the Fitzgerald inquiry into police corruption in Queensland — congratulating me on the cartoon.

    “In it, Dillon included a message he’d written to his father, in which he said: ‘Have a look at Bill’s latest cartoon. Half of me was crying and the other half was laughing. He has an incredible talent that enables him to blend humour and tragedy without losing the seriousness of the situation.’”

    All quotes from this article: Bill Leak defends 'racist' cartoon amid widespread criticism
     
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  15. geoffw

    geoffw Moderator Staff Member

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    For me, the cartoon has a big negative impact because it reinforces stereotypes. While many here know that the majority are not like this, there is a sizeable majority who already believe in the stereotype and who see this as backing up their world view. Every negative view of a group or which they are already suspicious serves to make their view stronger.

    Be that aboriginals, migrants, Muslims, or whatever.
     
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  16. Skilled_Migrant

    Skilled_Migrant Well-Known Member

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    Apologists are scrapping the bottom now.... The argument hinges on the reasoning that... In the face racism by a cartoonist with a racist history should be ignored, but the focus should be on the sub text (aboriginal policeman). What does the Aboriginal policeman symbolize:
    • Institutional racism: The policeman is as much a victim of institutional racism as the protagonist dad. It is a representation of the entrenched racism, that even to step onto any kind of societal ladder or acceptance, you have to imbibe and enforce racism against your own race with violence (hence the weapon).
    • Historic continuum: Natives (Aboriginal policeman in the current context) being coerced to using violence against their own race is symptomatic with all racial colonizations as history will attest. All that the policeman shows, is that the institution's unwanted work has been passed onto an individual who is considered racially inferior and is being used as a barrier to insulate the perceived better race. The stereotyping just continues on multiple level.
    • Stereotyping: Even if an academic leeway accommodates non stereotyping of one character, it does not take away from the stereotyping of an entire race or the overwhelming racial context of the cartoon.
    • Legal maneuvering: He is being used as a fig leaf by the cartoonist in real life and the institution (police force) in cartoon to deflect racist characterizations. Read about the role of black policemen and the lack of power they hold, in black-lifes-matter.
    • Societal indifference/ acceptance: Why doesn't Murdoch try this cartoon in UK or USA ? They also have social inequality and black policemen--we will find out how funny it is. Maybe their society is not as inured as ours to callous racism.
     
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  17. Angel

    Angel Well-Known Member

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    "So, you’re relaxing on a park bench late on a Sunday afternoon when you notice that it’s going to be dark soon and that most of the other visitors have already left. Just when you decide to leave you see a tall shabby-looking stranger from ‘the other ‘ race group coming your way. His hoodie is pulled low over his forehead and his hands are in his pockets. Your heart rate picks up, you start to breathe faster and you automatically tighten the grip on your bag while nervously keeping an eye on the approaching figure. He passes by without incident and you give a sigh of relief, although for a while your ears are still pricked to pick up any changes in the rhythm of his footsteps.

    What just happened? Your brain noticed the fact that this was a stranger, that in appearance he was different from the people you usually hang out with and that there was no-one else around. Your amygdala triggered an automated ‘threat’-response, which a few moments later turned out to have been totally unjustified. However, for your brainkeeping you alive [sic] is far more important than being politically correct. It would rather trigger an unwarranted threat response to a harmless stranger than to be caught asleep by a real enemy."



    In the above quote from the article Your Racist Brain, I can see where the author is coming from and I mostly agree with the article. Where I would critique the article is that the author has used an example which is very easy to argue. Surely a person alone in a park, approaching nightfall, would be anxious about any stranger approaching them. Please do the test again showing the results of increased brain activity when the subject is approached by a stranger wearing a hoodie pulled down over their face.

    But as I said, I can see what they are reporting.
     
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  18. THX

    THX Well-Known Member

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    Since when was being a deadbeat dad a product of race? Declaring one example of an aboriginal deadbeat dad in a cartoon represents all aboriginals is quite the long bow to draw and makes you wonder why they form the connection so quickly? Certainly seems they are the true racists, making such leaps so quickly and subconsciously.
     
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  19. Perthguy

    Perthguy Well-Known Member

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    This is how white Australia is most comfortable with the discussion of racism, as a debate between white people about which camp are the ‘real racists’. We see it in every public debate in which racism plays a factor, from Indigenous Affairs, to refugees, to Islam. Truth be told there are usually strong elements of racism on both sides of the debate (some stronger than others of course), and often neither group has a firm understanding of what does and what does not constitute racism. Both groups look to any non-white person they can find to back up their argument, and work to reassure themselves and their supporters of how caring they are, and that the other camp are the cause of all evil in the world.

    Much of this is played out in the public eye, and is treated at the emotional and intellectual of a high school debate, up to and including the all too regular inclusion of using dictionary definitions as the cornerstone of one’s argument. (A recent article I wrote on this site shows that dictionaries do not have the greatest understanding of what does and what does not constitute racism).
    ...
    As public conversations on specific acts of racism are reduced to morality ******* contests between ‘left’ and ‘right’ it is understandable to see people rally the troops and prepare for battle rather than have honest and open discussions and reflections, show humility and humanity, offer real apologises instead of fauxpologies, or demonstrate any empathy for the perspective of those who experience racism and are adversely impacted by it.

    In this space, no one really exists other than white people within the left and the right, and everyone else just become shields or ammunition. We are the cannon fodder of Australian politics – useful only for feel good photo ops or political scapegoats, our issues are measured on their ability to help score points against the other side and/or score brownie points by stirring emotions of pity or hatred as the situation dictates, sometimes both at the same time.

    White Australia is far more concerned about being called racist than it is about actually being racist. Far more interested in being able to claim the moral high ground of being able to call other people racist than about reducing the racism that exists on institutional and personal levels.


    Here we go again: Bill Leak isn’t racist, according to Bill Leak. | IndigenousX
     
  20. Simon Hampel

    Simon Hampel Founder Staff Member

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    LOL ... I was about to reply to previous posts with something along the lines of it's become a competition between people yelling "no, you are" at each other. This article says it far more eloquently than I could.
     
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