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Abstract
President Barack Obama's candidacy and election represented a momentous milestone in U.S. racial history; yet, the declarations of postracialism that followed his election are grossly premature. Comic discourses on race that reflect racial realities and constructions prominently illustrate the lasting significance of race. I consider the dominant public reactions to a controversial New Yorker cover illustration that satirized fearful discourses about Michelle and Barack Obama during the 2008 election. The dominant responses to the illustration revealed pervasive colorblind, antiracialist discourses and scapegoating rituals that erect significant obstacles to racial justice. These reactions illustrate the potential of racial comedy to provoke important conversations and debates about race that force people to make sense of racial culture.
Notes
On character traits and situational contexts as inventional resources for political cartoons, see Medhurst and DeSousa (Citation1981).
On colorblindness see C. Crenshaw (Citation1998), López (Citation2007), and Simpson (Citation2008).
These caricatures continued through the campaign and President Obama's first year in office with Obama Waffles, Obama bucks featuring references to fried chicken and welfare, White House watermelon patch photos, Obama photoshopped to appear as a witch doctor, and much more.
See Squires (Citation2007) for an analysis of different frames and narratives in the dominant media outlets versus the black press in relation to news stories on multiracialism, mixed race identities, and “passing” for white.