The Australian Is Being Dragged For Yet Another Racist Cartoon
It must be a Tuesday.
The Australian has a long and storied history of just appallingly racist cartoons. There’s something about cartoons being racist that just hits differently — they feel like they should be a more cheery medium, and they are being misused somehow.
Anyway, since The Australian’s resident cartoonist Bill Leak went died in 2017, the paper has absolutely held up his legacy and continued with terrible, offensive cartoons.
The latest, by John Spooner, comes in the wake of the unlawful murder of George Floyd by police in the US, and the spate of protests that have swept the country since then.
I know it's compulsory for recent cartoonists from @australian to take a swandive off the Bill Leak memorial racist balcony, but it seems they've started injecting bleach into their brains now. pic.twitter.com/WkAEfi86WB
— Pauline Pantsdown (@PPantsdown) June 2, 2020
It features a black man leaning his knee into the Statue Of Liberty’s neck, which is saying “I can’t breathe” — the same words that George Floyd said before he died.
Violent protest was not exclusively or even predominantly by black peoples yet the @australian elects to use a black person to represent violent protest. We all know why.
— Nyadol Nyuon ? (@NyadolNyuon) June 2, 2020
Apart from everything else, it’s also just pushing a very confusing message. “I am fighting for the right to do what I hate”, shows an extremely poor understanding of what the issues at play are. But enough coherence manages to shine through to understand that the cartoon is placing the blame for the protests currently erupting across the US squarely on the many people of colour who are simply marching for the right to not be murdered in the street for no real reason.
Why are cartoons from The Australian always so incoherent? Does Spooner think black protesters ‘hate’ not being murdered by cops? https://t.co/5jDwZKgs2M
— Maddie Palmer (@maddiepalmer) June 2, 2020
But explicitly colouring the protestor as black really drives home the message. People are disappointed but not surprised that this came from The Australian.
I still don't think the world has a good idea of how severe Australia's media racism is. https://t.co/f083OWrnws
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) June 2, 2020
Australia’s racist cartoonists are the visible tip of a big xenophobic iceberg. They’re simple-minded and unsubtle. They are passionately defended as ‘free speech’ by the industry. Here’s a few examples of their previous work, to give you an idea.
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) June 2, 2020
I have tried hard through recent days to stay with both the nuance and the trouble and not to descend automatically into mindlessly partisan verbal violence at every point, but Jesus Christ, this is utterly appalling. Who thinks like this, and what is the matter with them? https://t.co/Nw2S6Hfvsh
— Kerryn Goldsworthy ???? (@AdelaideBook) June 2, 2020
The @australian threw away what little dignity it had left with that cartoon.
— Dan Camilleri ?️☕ (@DanMazkin) June 2, 2020
The media industry is one of the most powerful institutions upholding white supremacy in Australia. Today’s cartoon in The Australian and editorial in the AFR are just more examples.
Too many journalists stay quiet because they don’t want Friday beers to be awkward.
— Osman Faruqi (@oz_f) June 2, 2020
riding my bike downhill without a helmet to try and get a job drawing cartoons for the australian
— James Colley (@JamColley) June 2, 2020
I don't want to share that disgusting cartoon from the Australian today; I did make a complaint to the Australian Press Council about it. You can do the same here: https://t.co/rpAHAXsf5i
— Jessica Friedmann (@MsFriedmann) June 2, 2020