The End of Racism

I was delighted last month to learn that racism in America has been thoroughly vanquished, as evidenced by the NAACP’s having nothing better to do than complain about a greeting card that shows cartoon characters encountering black holes as they hurtle through space. (“It’s very demeaning to African American women”. See if you can guess why, then watch the video below to check your answer.)

I realize that some will criticize the NAACP for over-reacting here, or for mis-reacting. But cut them a break. You don’t see them doing anything truly loonytunes, like, say, commanding the amorphous Tea Party movement to “expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.” Right?

A hat tip to our frequent commenter Ken B. for pointing me to the video.

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9 Responses to “The End of Racism”


  1. 1 1 dave

    this is just a local branch. i dont think they speak for the whole organization.

    http://www.naacp.org/blog

    im really surprised hallmark caved on this. i wouldve sent them get well soon cards.

  2. 2 2 Tony Cohen

    You don’t see them doing anything truly loonytunes, like, say, commanding the amorphous Tea Party movement to “expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.” Right?

    Should the Tea Party ‘expel’ them. Certainly not, since I believe racists still have the right to form and join various and sundry political organisations in this country.

    Does the NAACP have the right to complain about the media’s willingness to not agressively cover racist leaders in the party, say ones holding pictures as Obama as ‘Nigger’ or having a bone through his nose…probably.

  3. 3 3 Harold

    How odd. The audio quality is not too good from the card, and “black holes” sounds a bit like “black whores”. This is so clearly a mis-hearing, given the theme of the rest of the card. However, the spokesman said the card refered to african american women as whores. Do the NAACP think it actually says “whores”, or just that it could be misinterpreted as such? If the card really did say “whores” then they would have a point.

    Unfortunately it is cases like these that give the efforts to stamp out racism a bad name. It is important to remember that racism is still very much alive, and we should make every effort to reduce it.

    An organisation cannot expell bigots and racists, because you don’t necessarily know who they are. It can in principle expel people who display behaviours which are racist or bigoted. Thus thinking “I hate blacks” is OK, but shouting it out or carrying a placard could get you kicked out. The Tea Party may be too amorphous to actually have a membership as such, so they perhaps cannot “kick them out”. The link posted by Dave says they were “calling on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.” This seems a very desirable thing to me. The leaders should distance themselves from such sentiments, and make clear that they do not find them accepatable, or wish to be associated with those who express them.

  4. 4 4 Super-Fly

    At the beginning of the card, where it says “Hey, World!” it kinda sounds like “Gay world!”. That’s offensive to homosexuals.

  5. 5 5 ErikR

    I am tempted to start an organization to denigrate companies that respond to such ridiculous claims.

    Hallmark and the drugstores rolled right over on this. How sad.

  6. 6 6 Wonks Anonymous

    Was this post title inspired by your recent debate partner?

  7. 7 7 John Faben

    Can anyone find a full transcript of what is said on the card? I find it hard to believe that anyone could possibly get confused about the phrase “black holes” appearing in the midst of lots of other space-related vocabulary.

    Seems to me Leon Jenkins just wanted to be on the TV (and, as Steve said, couldn’t find anything genuine to complain about).

  8. 8 8 Fenn

    Dave— Hallmark didn’t really cave too much. They just pulled the cards from Culver City. My wife and I ran across the card at the Westside Pavillion (which is within a mile of CC) a few days after this story hit our local news a month or so ago. And the story only made the news for its “what a wacky world” angle. It was not taken seriously.

  9. 9 9 Seth

    Very nice way of looking at it.

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