I'm not going to comb blog discussions to discover whether someone said Niall Ferguson was racist. But I am having a hard time understanding where the negative reaction to the Felix the Cat column is coming from. It really seems like a shoddily manufactured controversy.
Like, why is it so bad that Coates can cite it without explanation as a bad example of bigthink gone wrong? (http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/the_perils_of_moving_on_up.php)
I thought it was just a stupid hook, like in a Thom Friedman article.
I don't _quite_ get it either: I assume it's partly just anti-Fergie sentiment. But the tone of this -- "Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US" -- is hard for me to detErmine. There is, you know, something odd about, "A cartoon cat is black. Obama is black. Therefore I can treat them as analogous without further justification." So it doesn't surprise me that racist sentiment was ferreted out. (FYI, contra Coates, the HuffPo totally called Niall a racist.)
PS 1. "totally" should be "stoatally" 2. The only reason I linked to the Coates piece was that it was on my screen when I was looking for a figure caption and it had the word "digging."
I'm not going to comb blog discussions to discover whether someone said Niall Ferguson was racist. But I am having a hard time understanding where the negative reaction to the Felix the Cat column is coming from. It really seems like a shoddily manufactured controversy.
ReplyDeleteLike, why is it so bad that Coates can cite it without explanation as a bad example of bigthink gone wrong? (http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/the_perils_of_moving_on_up.php)
ReplyDeleteI thought it was just a stupid hook, like in a Thom Friedman article.
I don't _quite_ get it either: I assume it's partly just anti-Fergie sentiment. But the tone of this -- "Felix was not only black. He was also very, very lucky. And that pretty much sums up the 44th president of the US" -- is hard for me to detErmine. There is, you know, something odd about, "A cartoon cat is black. Obama is black. Therefore I can treat them as analogous without further justification." So it doesn't surprise me that racist sentiment was ferreted out. (FYI, contra Coates, the HuffPo totally called Niall a racist.)
ReplyDeletePS 1. "totally" should be "stoatally"
ReplyDelete2. The only reason I linked to the Coates piece was that it was on my screen when I was looking for a figure caption and it had the word "digging."