Jul 15 2008
“The Heathen Obama”? The limits to satire in American politics
Which I wish to remark
And my language is plain
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
Which the same I would rise to explain.
Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny
In regard to the same
What that name might imply,
But his smile it was pensive and child-like,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
It was August the third;
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.
- The first three stanzas of Bret F. Harte’s “Plain Language from Truthful James”, (Overland Monthly, September 1870, 287-288)
The controversial front page of the July 21 issue of the New Yorker depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as terrorists or subversives is by no means the first such instance of satire being interpreted wrongly, and with long-ranging consequences, in American history. While the New Yorker is claiming that the cover was a satirical jab at the smears propagated by conservative pundits and on the internet, responses from the public range from belief in the smears to rage at the smearers. But ultimately, satirizing the smears merely gives attention to the outrageous claims and helps cement the claimed connection between the Obamas, Islam and terrorism.
A history lesson may be in order. Controversy surrounding satirical publications and misconstruals thereof is by no means a new phenomenon. One example of this is that in 1870, the aspiring poet and writer Bret F. Harte, who was an occasional collaborator with and regular rival of Mark Twain, published “Plain Language from Truthful James” in the Overland Monthly, a pioneer Californian periodical which he edited. This (quite terrible) poem, which became universally known as ”The Heathen Chinee”, narrates a game of cards between Ah Sin and Bill Nye from the point of view of another participant. Nye sets out to cheat the hapless Chinese at cards, but Ah Sin double-crosses him by not only being better than Nye at his own chosen vocation, but also a better cheat by virtue of his inscrutable nature. Beaten in his own game, Bill Nye, who represents the Irish-dominated, anti-Chinese working class associations of California (”Anti-Coolie Clubs”), resorts to the other game he excels at: violence on a flimsy pretense, that the labor of Chinese immigrants means the ruination of white Americans.
Achieving incredible notoriety in the blink of an eye, Harte’s poem was reprinted and widely discussed across the nation and in the United Kingdom for decades afterwards; innummerable references to the poem may be found in the media of the day. A few contemporaries and later scholars argued that Harte intended the poem to be a jab at Irish anti-Chinese laborers in California. The editor of Scribner’s Monthly, for instance, was certain that the poem was “the finest satire of the Californian enemies of the Chinaman that was ever uttered.”. But the poem’s ambiguity allowed middle-class opponents of Chinese immigration to misread it as an anti-Chinese tirade.1Most readings of the poem for several decades took it at face value as an anti-Chinese screed. In this way, ”The Heathen Chinee” as a trope became indelibly linked with American popular perceptions of Chinese immigrants for more than half a century, and was not infrequently referred to in Congressional debates over the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and successive amendments, which as the first race-based exclusion policy in the history of the United States formed the basis for American immigration policy for the next 80 years.
It is in this context that the New Yorker’s satirical depiction of the Obamas as terrorists and Muslims is troubling. The New York freely admits that the depiction is satirical, but as in the case of ”The Heathen Chinee”, pieces intended to be satirical jabs at other people’s prejudices through exaggeration are misconstrued as serious expressions of those prejudices, or at the very least give them currency by repeating them. It’s a safe bet that the smear campaign is having some effect – consider that the Obama campaign dedicates a website to refuting the rumors that Barack Obama is a Muslim infiltrator, was not born in the United States, is not a patriot, that Michelle Obama is a racist, etc. - and by giving these claims such prominence, the New Yorker is definitely not helping defuse the situation. This was likely not the New Yorker’s intention, but precedent is against them.
To appreciate the dangers of satire in a politically volatile situation, I invite you to re-read the extracts of the 1870 poem, above, substituting ”Obama” for ”Chinee” and ”Ah Sin”. Which would you spot at first glance, the satire or the similarities to the heavy-handed smear campaign against the Democratic candidate?
As an aside, it is interesting to note other similarities between the smear campaign against Barack Obama and the context in which ”The Heathen Chinee” was written. Anti-Chinese agitators between the 1860s and well into the 1900s maintained that the Chinese were Chinese body and soul. They were, in effect, irredeemably Chinese. Suffused with Chineseness, they were incapable of progress. They could not be raised up to be part of the American nation, but would infiltrate and undermine the nation from within. (Interestingly, this argument was borrowed by anti-Japanese agitators in the late 1890s, presaging the exclusion of Japanese immigrants in 1907). A similar claim is being pushed when Obama detractors claim that he is secretly a Muslim. They equate their claim that he was raised as a Muslim with their claim that he is, and forever will be, despite spirited public disawovals and two decades’ membership of a Christian church, a Muslim; and furthermore that this is incompatible with Americanness. ”The Heathen Obama”, indeed, has history against him.
1 Gary Schamhorst, “’Ways that Are Dark’: Appropriations of Bret Harte’s ‘Plain Language from Truthful James”, Nineteenth-Century Literature, 51, no. 3, December 1996, 377-399. Anon., “Topics of the Time: The Chinese in California”, Scribner’s Monthly, January 1877, 414-417
The only reason that this Mr. & Mrs. Obama satire DOES have impact — and may very likely spread — is because like all good satire, or good humor for that matter, there’s more than a germ of truth in it. Otherwise, the satire would utterly roll off the Obamoids’ backs, having no impact.
Another illustration of how images that try to manipulate via icon-work are extremely powerful and disseminate very quickly. Here I think the problem is that it is not clear what strategy The New Yorker is using - collaborative or adversarial vis-a-vis Obama. See also the first comment in the bouquet of responses I have gathered below:
1. “The New Yorker’s 630,000 or so readers know what the magazine is about. It has highbrow arts reviews, intelligent metropolitan opinions, and quirky, knowing cartoons. Woody Allen writes for it. Any regular reader would immediately ‘get’ that cover as it was intended. A not too subtle lampoon of the exaggerated right wing smears Obama has been subjected to so far. I mean, the Stars and Stripes burning in the fireplace. Come on.
So the message should be clear.
But I’m afraid it isn’t, because taken out of context, it can mean whatever you want it to. And here we come to the internet. Seen on its own, scattered randomly over the internet, with no knowledge of what the New Yorker’s mindset is, this cartoon can be interpreted however you wish. As a stand-alone image on the web, it really could be some Right-wing website or magazine’s propaganda. But it doesn’t really matter - it’s a cartoon of Obama worshipping anti-American terrorism. Take it how you want to.
The uncomfortable truth is that, outside of its context, this cartoon doesn’t work. It is too lead-heavy with irony, which can just about work as an illustration for a Democrat-supporting magazine, but anywhere else in the frenzied 24/7 immediacy of the web, with no reference points, it simply doesn’t.”
– Christian Adams, British cartoonist
2. “As the cartoon sparked a political and journalistic debate, McCain’ campaign quickly condemned it. McCain himself commented at a press conference, ‘I think it’s totally inappropriate, and frankly I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive.’” – McCain response…
3. “Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday that the New Yorker magazine’s satirical cover depicting him and his wife as flag-burning, fist-bumping radicals doesn’t bother him but that it was an insult to Muslim Americans.
‘You know, there are wonderful Muslim Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things,’ the presidential candidate told CNN’s Larry King. ‘And for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate. And it’s not what America’s all about.’
Obama blamed himself for not being forceful enough in challenging some of the rumors about him, including that he is Muslim. Obama is Christian.”
– Obama’s response via Larry King
First,
Welcome to America Adrift Rune and thanks for this interesting first article. It’s wonderful to add some historical perspective to our conversations. Though I doubt anyone could really define our blog, a fair part of what we do is discuss “current affairs” through our various academic and social lenses.
Malloy,
I think the only “germ of truth” is that this meme has been pushed through enough media outlets (including the so called liberal opinion leaders) and partisan sites both from the right wing and within the Democratic party. It becomes truth eventually like any big lie; through repetition. The “terrorist fist-bump” is a prime example. Fox News and co. ran many stories about the fist-bump, drawing attention to the Obamas’ otherness both in the extreme (as terrorists) and in the “classical” sense (as African Americans). Some of the “main stream press” even ran with it, although less blatantly so. “The Heathen Obama”, doth has history against him in this sense as well.
I tend to agree with Bent here. The “highbrow” readers of the New Yorker may get the joke. But why do we assume that readers of the New Yorker are all “Latte Liberal Obama Supporters” anyways? That seems to be the crux of the New Yorker’s defense. But I think that this piece fails to meet the criteria of satire which was the editors stated goal. Read the comments of this piece over at the Bag for a good discussion on this.
What’s more, Michael has a wonderful deconstruction of the image, looking beyond the obvious surface iconography. There are other narratives at work in this image as Michael points out, which papers like the “liberal” NY Times have been injecting into main stream public discourses. So at a subliminal level this image reinforces these other memes. The more subtle Machiavellian context is, IMHO, communicating to the so called “independents” and “moderates” who are not affiliated with either political party.
Michael Powell at the Times has been building this Meme for a while. See my rant about his hit job on Michelle Obama here. And Michael Shaw deconstructs one of Powell’s “Obama as Machiavelli” pieces here.
For another example of the Times participating in spreading the Muslim rumor see, “Locating” those Head Scarves.
Though most of the talk is about how the outlandish memes of this image will be read and appropriated, it is perhaps the more subtle subtexts which are potentially more damaging to Obama’s candidacy.
Oops, forgot a link. The Machiavellian Mystery Man: Michael Powell’s Spin On Barack Obama
[...] found rikyrah’s article particularly interesting in lieu of Rune’s post, “The Heathen Obama”? The limits to satire in American politics. Bent has some great comments bellow and I link to a few pieces also in the comments which I think [...]
A cartoonish comment…