racism

Two Warner cartoons with racial issues

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Just a quick post on two Warner Brothers cartoons from the forties and their reception today. They’re from the 1940s, and both present black people in ways that would be unacceptable today. One is much worse than the other, but it’s the less nasty one that takes all the heat.

“Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs” is a spoof of Snow White with all-black characters. This isn’t a problem in itself, or we’d have to protest against The Wiz. The difficulty is that WB cartoons always drew characters as caricatures, and the ones in this cartoon draw on minstrel-show blackface. It wasn’t done to be offensive; it’s just what the Termite Terrace cartoonists did whenever they drew people. “So White” is quite sexy, and the jazz music makes for a lively short. The dwarfs are “in the Army now.” In a twist ending, it’s a dwarf rather than the prince who awakens So White with his kiss, insisting that how he did it is a “military secret.”
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Racially discriminatory typography

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A disturbing number of major websites have adopted a double standard in typography. Skin-color terms are capitalized or not, based on what color is in question. I’ve seen sentences where the typographical standard is changed in mid-sentence, even in mid-phrase, capitalizing “Black” and putting “white” in lower case. I haven’t seen a consistent pattern in other color terms, such as “brown” (or is it “Brown”?).

Authors aren’t to blame for this, except when they’re running their own websites. The site sets the typographic standard (or lack of one), and the authors have to live with it or find other outlets.
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Harvard Library appoints content arbiter? 2

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The Harvard Library has appointed an Associate University Librarian for Antiracism. The press release announcing the position says that “we are a center for knowledge supporting our faculty and students in pursuing antiracism through their research, teaching, and learning. It also extends to our partnerships and collaborative networks, where we aim to support equitable access to a diversity of content, easy engagement with trustworthy information, and thoughtful preservation for the future.”
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