Cartoons and Race in America

Cartoons were racist, Americans were racist.

Cartoons today still deal with racism, and so do many Americans.

“All This and Rabbit Stew,” a Bugs Bunny cartoon, was racist. The black man was created as a stereotype of the African American community. He was depicted in black face minstrel as uneducated and illiterate. He wore field hand clothing and spoke with a southern dialect. Eventually, after five or so minutes of chasing Bugs around trying to shoot him, he is finally distracted by a set of dice. Why stop at the stereotype of a black man being a gambler.They should have gave him a forty and an Escalade to drive himself away in. Instead he was left naked except for a leaf covering his genital area saying, “Well call me Adam.” The last comment confused me, what were the creators commenting on there?  

John Leland quotes Check Jones in his book Hip: The History as saying, “You must love what you caricature.” Do you think this means to say that the white men that created Bugs Bunny loved the African American community? Bullshit! These are “crude stereotypes” and “racist depictions,” made for the white racist community. I can’t imagine anyone in the black community feeling as if this cartoon was a lovable caricature of their race.

Leland says, “Hip is not above this patronizing racism” (193), well hip should be, unless it is teaching something against hate, it should be rising up against it. That would be the true mark of a hipster. Bugs Bunny is shown as a white citified animal, controlling, tricking, and treating a black man as if he is stupid….not funny, not hip and just racist.

RACISM IS NOT HIP, NOR IS HIP ABOUT RACISM!

Hip is a fun word to call someone you know or admire; someone who seems to be ahead of everyone else when it comes to their identity and knowledge (Sorry John Leland you have not changed my mind at all). It’s nothing more than that.

Hip won’t cure cancer, it won’t create world peace.

Anyone can be hip, no matter what their race, gender, or religion. You individually get to decide what is hip. These old cartoons were banned for a reason; racist ideals should not be spread in any form within our entertainment industry. Sure racist people have the first amendment right to say what they want and even produce what they want, but we the people do not have to watch or support it.