Slate cartoon gets racist hate
My swine flu cartoon (H1N1 cartoon), was up on the first page of Slate on April 27, 2009, because they picked me as Cartoon of the Day! It has gotten some attention from Google, new followers on Twitter, and my first hate mail. See, now this is being a REAL editorial cartoonist.
Swine flu originated in Mexico. That’s a fact. Apparently they were hit bad, unfortunately, but swine flu in the US looks to be about the size of a head cold. It seems to kill only there – so far. I guess it’s getting weaker. In any case, I’m not a physician, and am not very interested in disease.
However, I read in the LA Times which I got hardcopy every day (update: not for a few years now) how the only incidences of tuberculosis in LA County were from Latino immigrants. (This was important to me, because a close relative died from TB, and they tested me for it.) The Times is a very liberal,minority-loving paper; it must have just killed them to admit that Mexico was the source of anything bad…like disease. And now it’s happening again.
As an editorial cartoonist, I have to report on the national news, not wild hypotheses like 8 kids in NYC had a sniffle. And Mexico has been in the news lately for other sad things, has it not? Think of me as the sundial for cloudy days.
Thanks to Mashable (on Twitter!) I found this article in CNN on
Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter:
Some observers say Twitter — a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages — has become a hotbed of unnecessary hype and misinformation about the outbreak, which is thought to have claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico.
For example, some Twitter users told their followers to stop eating pork, he said. Health officials have not advised that precaution.
Etc.
That will be nice, won’t it, when the USDC has some actual facts. Besides calling it H1N1 flu, to try to make it look like they’re working on it. :)
Why do white people get called racists?
Okay, let’s go to my mailbag -or hate mail, in this case – OOPS, just got another one.
