A picture really is worth a thousand words, just ask…

the New Yorker magazine, which published a cover of its magazine on Sunday portraying Barack Obama as a Muslim dressed in traditional Muslim garb and Michelle Obama as an afro-wearing,  machine gun-toting militant. All the while, Osama bin Laden is watching all of this, hanging out on the wall, and the American flag is burning in the fireplace. The scene is set in the Oval Office.

Now, when I first saw the headline of “Obama camp slams New Yorker cover” this morning on my home page, I thought, “Oh no, what filth do we have to deal with now?”. But after going and reading the article and seeing what the cover looked like, I must admit:

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. (Well, except that I don’t think that’s an accurate image of Michelle Obama.)

I am in no way that guy who plays the devil’s advocate or just for fun, opposes what i actually feel in debates in order to validate what I think is right or true. But allow me to explain why I wasn’t as offended as other people are and rightfully so:

When it comes to art, like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. Who am I to tell someone that their creations are not artistic or somehow irrelevant to how he/she may see the world. But I think that this artist/cartoonist, Barry Blitt to be exact, who also has other provocative work as New Yorker magazine covers, hit the nail right on the head.

According to CNN on Friday, the New Yorker made this statement:

Please note that it is satire — we are poking fun at the scare tactics and misinformation that some have employed to derail Obama’s campaign.

Is that not true? There aren’t some people who believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim who, and some have even gone a step further in actually saying/believing these things, is undercover, playing like he’s a Christian, all the while planning on becoming POTUS in order to turn our nation Muslim (I didn’t know you could turn things Muslim…I’ve heard of conversion though…) and have a jihad?

I didn’t say that or make it up, our fellow Americans have.

There aren’t some people who believe that Michelle Obama is a bitter and angry black woman, who is not proud of her country but more so of her husband and thus, deserves to be lynched (?) and also so militant that she would get up in a public forum, with press and camera crews galore and refer to those of lighter skin as “whitey”?

I didn’t say that or make it up; our fellow Americans have.

There aren’t some people who believe that both Barack and Michelle are unpatriotic because of the lack of a flag pin on his lapel or not having his right hand over his heart during The Star Spangled Banner or because he has a “funny sounding name that we wish we could just shorten and call you Barry” (Barack HUSSEIN Obama or as someone put it, Iraq Hussein Osama) or because he is an inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for President or because they are committing terrorist fist jabs signaling some form of attack on the country (also shown in the picture) or because he attended a madrasah in Indonesia or because Michelle’s senior thesis at Princeton exhibited some form of reactionary militancy or that their church affiliation suggests they are hate-mongerers and un-American?

I didn’t say that or make it up; our fellow Americans have. Here’s something else I didn’t make up:

A Newsweek poll just released on Friday, but a mere three days ago, “showed that 12 percent of those polled believed Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator on a Quran, and 26 percent believed that he was raised as a Muslim. Neither is true.” And there are actually pictures to equivocate both events and we also have the truth from the horse’s mouth. And yet, we have a general election coming up in a little under four months and this man has been on the national political scene since, at the earliest, 2004, and people still think he is Muslim? Why shouldn’t we put up on magazines what a microcosm of America truly believes and probably more if everyone in the country were polled simultaneously? A recent poll also shows that the country has a more favorable view of Cindy McCain than Michelle Obama. Now of course, that may be due to preference but it doesn’t take rocket science to see that there is an underlying level of distrust or suspicion surrounding Michelle over Cindy. I just wonder what’s the difference between the two? There’s one thing in particular…

Michelle is from Chicago and Cindy is from Arizona…?

In my mind, the issue with this magazine cover is no different than conversations about race or religion or slavery: they are such uncomfortable topics to talk about or see the tangible effects of that we would rather sweep them under the rug for fear of our own conviction, our own soul pricking. And I guess that reasoning alludes to why I don’t see the use and distribution of the image as being offensive because the real offense is not in the fact that the picture was created but rather that people actually harbor the very same sentiments in their hearts that have now been visualized through art. That is the dastardly and scary part of all of this. People are willfully ignorant to the truth, as shown by the consistency of polls and people being polled stating that Obama is Muslim, and now people want to cry wolf because it’s been broadcast in a media forum. It’s that truth stuff that people can’t handle yet they require it from everyone else. Similarly, I think his campaign does a disservice to dispelling the general filth spewed by chalking it up to the magazine satirizing an “image pushed by right-wing critics”. Because sadly but honestly, a lot of the flack the Obamas are getting is from the left, a la Harriet Christian or Democrats in West Virgina and/or Kentucky or unsettled HRC supporters or people who have no mind to vote for Obama for reasons that hold as much water as a pasta strainer. If anything the musings and sentiments of the left are becoming fodder for the right. After all, as the the head goes, so does the tail. Likewise, and again not trying to go to extremes because everyone else is, but I would also say to Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard Parks Sr., an Obama supporter and superdelegate expressing that people should boycott the New Yorker (and for that matter, the other coalitions of organizations calling for the same thing), that if we are now in the business of boycotting media that has suggestive or offensive imagery, throw away your TV, go protest outside many of these cable television networks (MTV, BET, Vh1), stop buying certain kinds of music by certain artists and even newspapers because they continue to spew imagery that is equally as offensive yet patently untrue. At the very least, Blitt is alluding to a feeling that while not comfortable to see and highly flawed, is somehow surely comfortable for people to talk about in open forums and resonates with said people as some semblance of twisted truth. 

Furthermore, there have been plenty of examples of people having and creating controversial art. Just look at a similar principle of controversial magazine covers employed by George Lois and his work with Esquire magazine in the 60’s and 70’s; he did the exact same thing Blitt is doing today. Was it controversial then? Of course. But now they have a full-on exhibit of his work at the MoMA. Why? Because the covers adequately captured the pulse of what people were feeling, whether explicitly or implicitly, at that time. And furthermore, look at this and this. Both of these things are yes, controversial artistic interpretations of current events. But how truly far off are they? Is it that we, as Americans, honestly believe that no one thinks this way about public figures in society so that’s why they should not be seen or is it that we know that people actually do feel that way and would prefer that it not be broadcast for lack of discomfort? I lean toward the latter and furthermore believe that a lot of that discomfort is also from knowing that in the inner recesses of our own individual souls, we believe and adhere to the very same flawed and twisted logic being aired for the world to see. Yet somehow, we become adamant in our outcries regarding these pieces in order to placate our own intellectual and marginalizing shortcomings.

Howard Thurman said (paraphrase) that it is not always the enemy from without that seeks to defile us but rather the enemy from within…

And granted, I can even understand and agree with the stance that projecting such an image only allows for more people to believe these untruths are true and that is a reason to be angry. Wholeheartedly yes! But I still assert that the thought itself is where the rub lies because for all intents and purposes, this cover could not have been published and people still would have held these perceptions/images/sentiments in their own minds.

When it’s all said and done, Blitt can’t take back the cover and in my mind, shouldn’t. The cover is perhaps a more truthful insight into a large swath of America that even we as Americans may not be wholly ready to acknowledge. I guess I’m just asking people to look critically at the work and ask themselves, and you as the reader: are the ends Blitt is trying to convey, based on what we know to be felt through polls and the media and by word of mouth, that far-fetched? And unfortunately, I don’t think so…

Oh yes and one more thing: for those who are rightfully and deeply offended by the cover, not to add fuel to the fire, if you want to be mad at a magazine cover, I think this one or this one (scroll down to Southern Strategy) may be just as appropriate…

I’ve more than fulfilled my 1000-word quota for this picture; I can only hope you see the view from where I’m sitting…

UPDATE: Going along with things we can be upset about, I wanted to show this and this and this as examples that, though I don’t know his political affiliation and he doesn’t divulge it, it’s not just people of lighter skin who have said/thought/broadcast highly explosive and caustic things about Obama. This is a man of the cloth, leader of a congregation, and he spews this kind of filth, from a pulpit no less, under the auspices of having a “word from the Lord” and has parishioners who applaud what he’s saying. Nothing more than the apostasy once foretold…

UPDATE: This editorial somewhat corroborates what I was saying and goes a step further. And basically, I agree with the point being made: because people don’t read the New Yorker (I don’t regularly but have), such a cover is jarring. But also look at some of Blitt’s other covers which I think could be seen as equally controversial, especially the one in reference to Hurrican Katrina, Deluged, from 2005. If there was general knowledge of the kinds of work he has done before, would people be as offended?

UPDATE: Obama responded; I think some people may be surprised by his comments. Also, check out my friend’s perspective linked in the comments section; we’ve been talking about the cover since it was revealed to the world, among other things… 

~ by thingzfal1apart on July 14, 2008.