Comics: 15,000 readers help guide changes
It would seem that humor in the service of criticizing Our Sainted President doesn't go over well with the fine folks in Cincinnati. "Boondocks" ("Inciting angry black children since 1998") has been pulled from the comics pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Apparently, a strip that some have called the "Black Doonesbury" is a bit too uppity for residents of the Queen City.
[I]n the fall, we asked you to tell us which comics you read and which you don't. We had a record-setting response of slightly more than 15,000 readers to our highly unscientific survey....
And for those outraged that the low-rated Doonesbury survived while Boondocks didn't, we made the decision to drop Boondocks because we did not want to keep publishing a comic that we regularly needed to censor. During the past year, Boondocks was substituted a number of times because it was deemed inappropriate for a family newspaper. And not just this family newspaper. Editors across the country were making the same decisions.
Our policy is that we publish a comic strip or we don't. Once we start pulling specific strips, as well as entire weeks' worth, it is time to drop that strip. Although Boondocks has its fans, many of you were uncomfortable with it, and at times we were, too.
So an African-American viewpoint that is regularly and scaldingly critical of Our Sainted President needs to go? What, exactly, is it that folks are so uncomfortable with, and what is it this is so bad with being uncomfortable? Is it that you find yourself actually having to think, and you're unfamiliar with the dull pain that act produces in your pointy li'l head?
Good political commentary SHOULD provoke a reaction, and it SHOULD anger some people. Yes, "Boondocks" clearly has a decidedly Liberal slant, but if you can get past that, the strip is a clever, well-written, and and exceedingly sharp view of current events. The fact that it is relayed from an African-American perspective is something that, in my opinion, makes it even better.
Y'all in Cincinnati can retreat to your safe, white world, safe in the knowledge that you won't have to worry about being exposed to such a "subversive" viewpoint. After all, criticizing Our Sainted President JUST AIN'T FUNNY!!
