Satire of the Stupid

[ Image via Diary of an Anxious Black Woman ]

At the risk of beating a dead literary-institution carcass, I want to clarify something about the massive failage of The New Yorker's now-infamous cover.

Not that I'm particularly aggrieved, incited, or surprised by the standard brain-farting and deep mutual butt-sniffing of white liberals of the variety that produce and display The New Yorker. I mean, I worked for years on Wall Street and in corporate media, so I'm tiresomely familiar with the cultural contours of that worldview and the soul-less snickering and self-congratulatory self-absorption at its anxious core. People of color are objects, not subjects, in that conversation; the presence and exhibition of our melanin, but not our voices, is meant to serve as guilt-balm, affirming liberal tolerance and unctuous self-regard.

Most of the criticism I've seen directed at the image has construed the problem as being that only urbane cosmopolitan sophisticates will get it, with commenters hastening to add, "Oh of course I get it, but what about the ignorant yokels? Remember the philistines!" But that's really not how I see it. Because to me, those who claim to get this image are the unsophisticates who lack the cultural and artistic literacy to understand the proper meaning of the word "satire". It's not the same as "sarcasm". That's why we have two different words. (Hint: that last line was sarcastic, not satirical. And I won't even get into the massive popular abuse of the word "ironic".)

See, in my world, the purpose of satire is iconoclasm; by which I mean, the breaking of icons, the exploding of false power centers and false narratives which hold destructive sway over society. The New Yorker cover, despite its intention and despite being sarcastic, is not satire; rather, it is a visualization and manifestation of racist cliches and stereotypes, and thus a propagation and perpetuation of racism. It does not interrogate the validity of those racist stereotypes, but rather accepts and gleefully embraces their marginalizing and dehumanizing power, then implies that it's ludicrous for conservative yahoos to think that the Obamas are those kinds of blacks; the Obamas are good blacks, not scary militant blacks or Muslims; the Obamas do not sport Afros or turbans, they are not reminiscent of dangerous Sixties radicals, no sir, they are down with the program, they are safe for whites.

Aside from the racial insularity from which it emerges, this art fails on purely discursive grounds. You can't fight demeaning portrayals by actualizing them. If a woman is accused in sexist society of being ugly, the appropriate response is not to draw a picture of her looking extremely ugly according to certain patriarchal standards in order to chuckle about it. That doesn't work. The appropriate response is to undermine the entire set of underlying assumptions and beliefs which give potency to sexist slurs.

Perhaps most fundamentally, the piece does not connect with the social realities of blackness, but only with the fears of the white imagination. In so doing, it reaffirms and reanimates those fears and social divisions at a pre-intellectual level, which is where art primarily impacts the psyche. The lives of people with Afros, the lives of people who wear turbans, the actual legacies of the Black Panthers and 60s social justice activists, are all distorted, discarded, and mocked in the service of asserting the palatability of the Democratic nominee to provincial white sensibilities. And there's nothing even remotely cosmopolitan or sophisticated or iconoclastic or hip about that.

So there it is: witness the miseducated dorkiness of The New Yorker, neither funny nor provocative, just another sloppily-dressed comic too cross-eyed drunk to realize how badly he's bombing on stage, because the audience is laughing not at his jokes, but at him.

Comments

[The Cruel Secretary]

Damn, your post is dap-tastic, friend!

[Kai]

Thanks, TCS, I just added a link to your piece at Racialicious too! :-D

awesome.

That is all.

[EM]

Here via Feministe.

Nicely played. The intellectual superiority argument has me wanting to punch my computer, so I am highly appreciative of your dissection of the matter.

[Sylvia/M]

I've already awarded you your pony for this post but I thought I'd go ahead and check in briefly. This is on point to the extreme.

[nezua]

there seem to be various ways of Pullin' a Kai. and i have nothing else to add. well maybe one thing. ::terrorist fist jab::

[The Cruel Secretary]

@ nezua--as some Black folks like to say, you ain't a lick of right, friend! LMAO

@ Kai--thanks for the link, luvie!

Look, y'all ,I owe a pal a sex post on my blog, so I'm cutting out of here. See ya soon, somewhere!

[Kai]

EM, yeah that whole argument wasn't working for me either, it really misses the point. Thanks for the kind word.

Sylvia, I can haz x-treme pony?

Nez, ::jab:: ::evil smile::

TCS, do yer thing! :)

[blackamazon]

Damn damn damn yoou said unctous self regard

I think ineed a cigarette I had that much fun

[Kai]

BA, hehe glad you had fun. *lights match* Good to see ya round!

[blaktivist]

I only aspire to the level of intellectual dissection (is that A WORD?) that you just displayed here. Simply BRILLIANT. And yet ANOTHER dope mind to add to the blog roll.

Truth be told you spoke words and thoughts that were in me somewhere, but I'm still learning the language to articulate. WOW. Just brilliant. I have to reflect on this and/or share with others...

::jab:: (snickering-MAO!!)

[Kai]

blaktivist, glad you liked it, thanks for the kind words! ::dap tap::

[Van]

What a piece Kai-well written and spot on. This whole mess( as dissected in your article)shows the New Yorker for what it really is.... middlebrow entertainment for self-congratulatory liberals

[Nightprowlkitty]

You say in your excellent post:

"See, in my world, the purpose of satire is iconoclasm; by which I mean, the breaking of icons, the exploding of false power centers and false narratives which hold destructive sway over society."

Over at Docudharma,this essay looks at satire from a historical literary perspective:

http://www.docudharma.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7862

The author notes that Jonathan Swift, when he wrote the rather creepy "A Modest Proposal," was satirising the English conception of the Irish at that time, as people who had too many children, were lazy, etc.

So I wonder how that would apply to your notion, if I read it correctly, that satire is the "exploding of false power centers."

The essay, of course, is written from an entirely literary POV, and I commented on it in that sense, as there is more to the New Yorker cartoon than literary context, that there is a cultural context as well.

I post the link because I think your post is a good rebuttal to it (and I'm not saying I disliked the DD essay, just that I didn't think it was complete).

Anyway, hope this makes a bit of sense. I'm still in shock from that cover and have yet to come up with a real response. I am in despair over our culture (or lack thereof) nowadays.

[gatamala]

I almost didn't make it past butt-sniffing.

I won't engage people on this topic. I will merely send them this link.

[Carmen D.]

You nailed it. Looking at it through your post, the 'cover problem' is so clear.

"just another sloppily-dressed comic too cross-eyed drunk to realize how badly he's bombing on stage"

Yes and the same one who then gets belligerent yelling "I killed it!"

[Changeseeker]

This is exactly what I would have said if I was as erudite as you. I am SO glad I caught this. I've been sick to my stomach over this stupid cover ever since I saw it and just had no idea how to describe my disgust without having my heart break once and for all. You did it for me, Kai. Thanks.

BTW, I'm going to post a series of links in the morning. This will be one of them for sure. In fact, this is what made me want to post a series of links. ;^)

[Kai]

Van, gatamala, Carmen, Changeseeker, thanks all for your kind words! And yes, "middlebrow" kinda sums it up. ;-)

Nightprowlkitty, yeah you got it, that classic Swift piece is most definitely what I'd call iconoclastic; it busts on the English ruling class and makes them absurd, and it clearly rejects the notion that the Irish actually eat babies, whereas the New Yorker cover does not reject the notion of scary black radicalism but rather seeks to distance the Obamas from that notion. Anyway, the Docudharma post on satire is nicely done; but you know, literature was my undergrad major and I subsequently fell totally out of love with most academic approaches to literature, it's just too disembodied for me, and it's hard to get away from the white lens. That whole "I will not discuss whether the New Yorker cover is offensive or not" with the stiff upper lip (or worse yet, telling POC what is or is not "the real issue", you know how often we hear that?) might as well be a big sign saying "Whitosphere! POC need not bother here". Leave aside the fact that 2,600 years of Chinese literature generally make no appearance in such overviews; I think we can agree that only someone deeply immersed in studying racism and anti-racism (a vast, complex, multi-disciplinary field) can properly assess racialized art; modern white supremacism is a unique creature; yet the white lens makes people think they have a *universal* view and are thus positioned to sound off, even when they lack the background needed to really penetrate the artistic and social dynamics at play. I mean, who are we to "agree" or "disagree" with Blackamazon's lived reality as a black woman with an afro? Um, sorry, no. I'm not trying to be mean here, just being completely straight with you about my reactions, because I know you can take it, and that's a compliment! I guess it's probably best for us to leave it at what you said; that piece is incomplete. Thanks as always for your comment! ;-)

Peace

[torrid_wind™]

Now, this is what I call READING "provincial white sensibilities" FOR POINTS! Go Kai! Go Kai! Go Kai!

[Nightprowlkitty]

Mean? You are more than kind to have responded so thoroughly to what I posted here.

And your answer made me glad I asked. Been having real problems at the site discussing race, marginalization, etc.

I linked Blackamazon's great response to the magazine cover and the author of the piece couldn't deny she had a valid view which is not, unfortunately, the same as incorporating that view.

I also asked about black satirists and the author provided a couple.

Yes, Chinese literature ... and Indian and Tibetan and ...

I found the academic view very limiting as well, especially trying to provide perspective in real time, don't know if it can be done.

Thank you so much for your detailed response, kai.

What really resonated with me was this:

"That whole "I will not discuss whether the New Yorker cover is offensive or not" with the stiff upper lip (or worse yet, telling POC what is or is not "the real issue", you know how often we hear that?) might as well be a big sign saying "Whitosphere! POC need not bother here"."

This is exactly right and although both me and NLinStPaul (from SmartyPants) have tried to express this, we have failed over and over again.

Failure can be a great teacher, though. Each failure brings us closer to a deeper understanding.

Thanks again.

[Nightprowlkitty]

P.S.:

And this:

"that classic Swift piece is most definitely what I'd call iconoclastic; it busts on the English ruling class and makes them absurd, and it clearly rejects the notion that the Irish actually eat babies, whereas the New Yorker cover does not reject the notion of scary black radicalism but rather seeks to distance the Obamas from that notion."

... explains exactly why I had trouble with the Swift analogy. I used to be a debater way back in the olden days, in school -- what you said here is called "clash," i.e., deals head on with another argument, doesn't slide away to the left or right.

Well said.

[flukycoda]

>You can't fight demeaning portrayals by actualizing them.

and that, right there, is why i read your blog. you have this way of taking huge, complicated, shitty things and reducing it to one perfectly succinct sentence that says it all.

[Tom]

Hey, Kai, I just got back from an Adirondackial gathering with just the kind of white NYC sophisticates you're describing, and you captured our New Yorker cover discussion exactly. This piece is hitting my system like a much-needed antidote, and reminding me that I need to tune into the blogneighborhood more than I have been lately.