Bob Moran posted this to Twitter yesterday and has doubled down since. Clearly doesn’t understand the problem.
![Image](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEY-AWUWUAAzjPh.jpg)
Appalling cartoon.
Given this, the thread heading is a f.cking disgrace and should be changed. Also flagged to the Mods
Glad to see you've got your priorities right about what's a disgrace. FFS.
Getting the right target for your ire seems to be a problem.Tristan wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 12:34 pmGlad to see you've got your priorities right about what's a disgrace. FFS.
Fine, former Guardian cartoonist. I mean, the Guardian were still printing Steve Bell till late last year so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes.
They will, they are prompt to act on this sort of thing.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:58 amYes, clearly anti-Semitic. I wonder whether Twitter's moderators will do anything?
When it's not about Israel, we don't have usually much difficulty in telling the difference between "that person did something wrong" and "that [racial slur] did something wrong". The former is a reasonable criticism and the latter is an unacceptable racist slur. It doesn't matter how bad the wrong thing is, or how bad you think it is. Plainly there can be borderline cases - is this a racist slur? And there can also be inadvertencies, because some racist slurs are complex and not everyone knows enough to realise that you mustn't say that. Or some feature in a drawing is inadvertent. I did think that one of the Steve Bell cartoons that got cancelled might be an inadvertency. But he had form, unfortunately, and so he wasn't going to get the benefit of the doubt. But it seems very unlikely that the cartoonist here is unaware that a clear and unambiguous baby-eating reference is a racist slur in this context.
He's getting a lot of praise for this specific cartoon all over social media among the alt-right, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers etc for being the "real deal" and having the courage to speak the "truth".Al Capone Junior wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 11:03 pmI can't see anything useful coming out of this cartoon. It'll only get everyone pissed off even worse, for a wide variety of reasons.
If you want to express what a jerk netan-f.cking-yahoo is, and many ppl do think he's a jerk, once again, this is let's just say a 'less than optimal ' way to do so.
Now if you just want to pour nitro-f.cking-glycerin by the tanker ship full on an already raging 4-alarm dumpster fire of a situation... Mission accomplished.
Quite.
This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?TopBadger wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:20 amYeah - its antisemitic.
Thing is - you wouldn't necessarily know that unless you know about Blood Libel (which was something I'd never heard of until EACL posted on the topic in the old place, and have only ever seen mentioned by him and pretty much no one else).
To folks viewing this cartoon without that knowledge, it's likely just a grotesque visual critique of a politician taking military action against Palestinians resulting in dead kids (which is happening) and they simply won't see the antisemitism. Which leads to the point already made...
In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.TopBadger wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:20 am
So, whilst it's unfortunate, it seems to me that sometimes calls of antisemitism are not obvious and in such cases the person calling antisemitism should also take the time to explain why it's antisemitic... because its often not apparent to a lot of people looking in on the discussion.
That's kind of my point Bob... You don't know what you don't know, and it may be the case that quite a lot of people don't know about the eating babies slur. Certainly I didn't until I read about it on BadScience (sometime in my early 30's?).bob sterman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:43 am
This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?
...
In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.
More or less agreeing with Topbadger - it was only the presence of the "Kosher" caption that made me think about specifically anti-semitic elements. At first glance I'd focussed on the presence of Biden (I guess) and Sunak as helpers. And like Topbadger, as a person in mid-60's with standard British education and an interest in history I wasnt aware of the blood libel until the last few years. Having said that, seems likely that the cartoonist did know what he was doing. And yeah, associating this with the Guardian seems very thin.TopBadger wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 12:30 pmThat's kind of my point Bob... You don't know what you don't know, and it may be the case that quite a lot of people don't know about the eating babies slur. Certainly I didn't until I read about it on BadScience (sometime in my early 30's?).bob sterman wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2024 11:43 am
This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?
...
In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.
It seems reasonable to me that UK nationals under 70 aren't going to know details about German propaganda from over 60 years ago but maybe I'm the aberration here. I don't know. Sure, I learned about the holocaust at school, I know Nazi's utterly mis-portrayed Jews... but the specifics of baby eating didn't come up in those lessons. And that's a pretty important detail in terms of changing the cartoon from a grotesque criticism into being antisemitic.
So, if a concern is that a lot of people who see this cartoon can't see the antisemitism within it, then maybe that's why.
I have to agree with Topbadger here, I was aware of Blood Libel but not from anything I was taught at school or from documentaries about the Holocaust or the rise of the the nazi party. The demonization of the Jewish people is always mentioned, but seems to be limited to the less extreme forms. I only found out about it in relation to more recent examples of it being used by anti-semitic groups.