The Danger of Satire

He is not a Muslim and she does not own a machine gun. Just last week, Barack Obama said he would pursue the death penalty if Osama bin Laden was captured during his presidency for the September 11, 2001 tradgedies that continues to shake and shape our nation. Now, a cartoonist for the New Yorker magazine thinks Obama would have a portrait of bin Laden hanging above the fireplace in the Oval Office.

Barack Obama has called the cartoon tasteless, but I disagree with him. I feel the cartoon is insulting more than anything. Moreover, I feel the cartoon is more insulting to hundreds of years of American history and occassional progression toward equality than it is to Barack Obama alone. People are furious about the way Barack Obama is being potrayed, and they have a right to be. I, on the other hand became furious when I realized this cartoon was drawn on the same paper that drafted the Constitution of the United States of America. The artist took away Sen. Obama's freedom of religion rights when he placed a turbin on his head simply because his middle name is Hussein. America should be well aware that Sen. Obama is a Christian after the enflamed videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright hit YouTube.

The artist attempted to steal Mrs. Obama's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, when they associated her personal fulfillment with a machine gun and army fatigue pants instead of her Harvard University law degree.

The person who drew these pictures did have a conscious that allowed them to stop drawing this picture before the Obama children were sketched. I know their imagination wandered and I would not be surprised if drafts of the cover included the two young girls, but the magazine knew where to draw the line, or stop drawing the line when it came to Malia and Sasha Obama.

Satire has rarely, if ever portrayed Black people in a positive light. Blacks have often been portrayed as lazy watermelon eaters that speak broken english. In 2008, as we stand on the verge of having a Black man as president, Black people are being portrayed as being anti-American when we are anything but that. Most Black people are not anti-American, and whether I was Black or not, I would be able to see that Blacks are anti-slavery, anti-inequality, fighters for integration, and the descendants of kings who became slaves that stand together as we strive to become kings and queens again.

Satire is too serious too laugh at. If John McCain was shown giving orders from a convalescent home instead of the Oval Office it would be equally offensive to what America should stand for. I am disappointed that a publication like the New Yorker would ignore America and only think of art when the two have had deep roots since Betsy Ross designed our first flag.

I empathize with Sen. Obama and his family as he faces arrows from the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the New Yorker in the same week. I wonder who he is today versus who he was last week and who he was a year ago. I wonder if he questions whether or not this journey was worth it, or if it will get worse over the next four years if he is elected president.

I do not know Sen. Obama personally, but I fought to inform people about his candidacy because I believed in his message. I also believed that the man the artist from the New Yorker drew knew how to embrace cultures by wearing a turbin while remaining true to the American values that shaped his character.

History is not written, it is drawn and told. We write about what was drawn or said about an event that took place. Now, the New Yorker, has contributed to the regression of American history by masking its contempt for Barack Obama with satire that is too serious to laugh at.