A cover on a newsstand is seen passively. Anyone walking by a newsstand can see it. If someone knows that The New Yorker has “long-standing left-wing credibility”, then sure, the image will be easily read as some sort of commentary not necessarily about the Obamas. But there is no inherent context in encountering the magazine on the rack at Barnes & Nobel – nothing to indicate that it frequently uses humor. Nothing to indicate that it is critical of the whisper campaign slandering Obama. To someone completely unfamiliar with the editorial positions of the NYer, there is no context to indicate that the subject of the image is not what is there on the page.

INotI saidSo? The cover is equally as clearly a satire of the right’s views of Barack Obama, given what I see as the long-standing left-wing credibility of the NYer. The only difference I see between them is that one has to be sought out on TV, and one appears on the newstand for everyone to see.

The cover is NOT clearly satire. There is no context on the cover to indicate that this is satire. None. In satire, it should be clearly who is the object of the criticism and the only people I see on the cover are the Obamas.

The New Yorker simply wanted to be edgy, without actually offending anybody who “matters”. Depicting white people as racists who believe that Obama is a Muslim would have brought a firestorm of criticism. This way, it’s much safer. Black people can be muffled about the Angela Davisization of Michelle Obama, and Barack is just a tad too busy (and locked into unthreatening), to fire back.

It’s a racist cartoon, by racists, for racists. Hipster racist do this all the time. Blaming uncouth lower class whites “for making race an issue” and putting out their own racist feelings. It happened before when many “leftwing” bloggers were talking about how we should overturn the popular vote because Obama is too black for America, when it’s that Obama’s too black for them.

We won’t get very far if we jump to say that Americans are stupid (stupider than us). We need to educate them and to let them see that we believe they are educable.

Are we on the left up to the challenge?

“…but in fact in order to flatter a specific Caucasian demographic’s belief in its own exceptionalism — in other words, white editors flattering a specific white audience’s sense of its moral superiority over other, less-enlightened whites, in total disregard of how publication of racist imagery might actually impact people of color.”

which puts it so well.