NOW versus New Yorker

After I bought a feminist T-shirt for a gal pal to wear during our 2004 march on Washington, the National Organization for Women (NOW) has been sending me regular emails.

And in four years, they've actually never taken a position that I haven't fully agreed with.

Until now.

This morning I received a call to action from my fearless American sisters full of outrage over...the current New Yorker cover.

This is the much-maligned cartoon that depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as the embodiment of right wing fears (Barack wears a turban while standing next to Michelle, his Black Panther honey, in front of a cozy American flag-burning fire).

Here is blurb from the NOW email I received:

New Yorker Cover -- Satire or Slur?
Send Editor Remnick A Message!
You don't even need to open the latest edition of the New Yorker to see racism in the media and the presidential race. All you need to do is look at the cover!

The July 21 issue of the New Yorker magazine features a caricature of Senator Barack and Michelle Obama in the Oval Office...
New Yorker editor David Remnick says it is satire, so that makes it okay?

Action Needed:
Sorry, we're not buying it. This cover will appear on newsstands across the country, possibly the world, and will likely do more to fuel racist stereotypes than to skewer them.

Perhaps NOW would have bought Remnick's explanation if he had noted the cover was actually an example of bad satire. Because it is.

Satire is supposed to be witty ridicule and the problem with the cover is that it confuses the target of its scorn. While the target may be Republic fear-mongering gossip about the nature of the Obamas' past political affiliations, the illustrations sets up the couple as the targets.

I mean, we all know the New Yorker's political leanings (left) and we all know that, more often than not, their cartoons hardly reach the comic heights of, say, Garfield.

But even if every actionator at NOW was completely daft to the history of the New Yorker, my other immediate reaction to their email was, WTF?

Are there not enough seriously pressing women's issues tied up in the upcoming American election? How about pro-choice supporters being denied access to a McCain town hall, even though they had tickets? Or his self-proclaimed unawareness that insurance companies in the US cover Viagra but not the birth control pill?

I appreciate that women's issues include marginalized women's issues, but I really don't believe that the New Yorker has set out, or succeeded, in setting back black women. In fact the only thing it has done is highlighted the precious attitude media is taking towards America's first black presidential candidate.

Will it be safe for anyone in the media to take on the Obamas as comedic targets? It seems that the challenge remains to be taken up.