Newspaper Sparks Furore For ‘Racist’ Cartoon Of Joe Biden & Kamala Harris
Image via Pix_Arena / Shutterstock.com
Australian conservative newspaper The Australian is in hot water for its controversial illustration portraying US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris.
The cartoon, sketched by Johannes Leak, depicted a beaming Joe Biden to say, “It’s time to heal a nation divided by racism,” and pointing at Harris to declare, “So I’ll hand you over to this little brown girl while I go for a lie-down.”
The drawing immediately faced ire from the internet and some officials. “It’s offensive and racist,” Australian Labor politician Andrew Giles tweeted.
Australian former prime minister Kevin Rudd also wrote a complaint to the Australian Press Council (APC), stating that the cartoon was “fueling racist and sexist prejudice in our society.”
“There is no conceivable public interest in encouraging ridicule on racial or gender grounds,” Rudd said.
The Australian’s editor-in-chief, Christopher Dore, however, defended the cartoon, saying Leak was really mocking Biden’s own words.
In a note published on the paper’s Media section, Dore said, “The intention of the commentary in the cartoon was to ridicule racism, not perpetuate it.”
“In the context of Biden’s words, this is evident. Clearly some, including those without that context, have wrongly attributed Biden’s words to Johannes, and in doing so have attributed abhorrent and inaccurate motives to him.”
The Australian’s chief political columinist Chris Kenny also stood by the drawing. He argued that the work was meant to “expose the brazen hypocrisy and shamelessly cynical identity politics being played by Joe Biden.”
This morning, little girls woke up across this nation — especially Black and Brown girls who so often may feel overlooked and undervalued in our society — potentially seeing themselves in a new way: As the stuff of Presidents and Vice Presidents.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 12, 2020
Here's your little reminder of how ludicrously racist Australian commercial media are. This is in the country's only national daily newspaper: pic.twitter.com/7oN7bjRWLO
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) August 13, 2020
No, Biden didn't 'say it'. It's not 'a quote'. If you're going to lie, at least put some grunt into it. https://t.co/IdQM6XZCZA pic.twitter.com/X7hsTAhHQq
— Ketan Joshi (@KetanJ0) August 13, 2020
If The Australian has any respect for decency and standards it must apologise immediately, and never again publish cartoons like this.
— Mark Dreyfus (@markdreyfusQCMP) August 14, 2020
This morning in the Australian newspaper there’s a cartoon depicting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
— Andrew Giles MP (@andrewjgiles) August 13, 2020
It’s offensive and racist.
There should be no place for this in Australia, it diminishes us all.
It’s time for zero tolerance of racism, and a national anti-racism strategy.
Johannes Leak is a boring racist who draws like he’s a $10 caricaturist who would give you giant teeth and a skateboard
— Eleanor Gordon-Smith (@TheRealEGS) August 13, 2020
I feel really sorry for those good journalists at the @australian when their stories appear in the same paper as this. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/alBLI5ugLT
— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) August 13, 2020
[via B&T, opening image via Pix_Arena / Shutterstock.com]
