Beyond Comics, Toward Discourse

As the executive board of The Fed, we’d like to think that the paper, and Columbia’s campus life in general, have come a long way since 2004. That’s the year in which the staff of the paper at the time published “Blacky Fun Whitey,” a comic strip that inflamed already-delicate feelings about race and ethnicity on campus following an “affirmative action bake sale” by the Columbia College Campus Conservatives earlier that February, leading to demonstrations and calls for change. (You can view that comic strip, as well as the history of its publication and subsequent reactions, at our Web site, www.the-fed.org.) While we’re perhaps a little too close to our dear publication to objectively judge how far we’ve come in nearly four years, it’s a shame that there continues to be a problem of both bias and the greater themes of discussing and teaching about race, class, ethnicity, and culture at Columbia.

Yet when we walked by the site of the ongoing hunger strike this past week, we were alarmed to see, on a display of the apparent motivations of the strikers, a copy of “Blacky Fun Whitey,” with a red “x” through it, labeled “The Federalist Paper,” lacking a date or any sort of context. Laying aside the fact that no one (except on their resumes) calls us “The Federalist Paper,” such a display exemplifies how constructive discussions on ways to address problems ranging from racism on campus to expansion are too often put aside in favor of explosive rhetoric and generalizations.

This is not the first time “Blacky Fun Whitey” appeared without permission this year. Spectator itself ran the image in a “time line of bias incidents at Columbia” that featured the comic strip at the beginning of the time line in 2004, as if it somehow served as the genesis for every bias incident leading up to the present. Even ignoring the inaccuracies of the time line (the “affirmative action bake sale” happened before the comic strip was printed), the implication that bias incidents at Columbia stem from an inflammatory comic published in 2004 is disingenuous to the point of harming the discourse.

We were not yet students when the original comic strip was published, nor were any current contributors to the paper. As such, our policy whenever “that comic” was mentioned was to ignore it, hoping that whatever current controversy which employed the strip as its rallying cry would fade away. But that strategy only served to fuel misinformation, allowing people to appropriate the comic for no greater purpose than to shock their constituents.

Talking with others about the strip has served the community far better. In the fall of last year, after much conversation, the prior executive board allowed The Proxy, Barnard’s magazine concerning the African Diaspora, to republish “Blacky Fun Whitey” in a well detailed and researched article that actually looked at the events surrounding bias on campus in a constructive way. We felt enlightened—rather than crudely jerked around—by The Proxy’s honest look at the graphic. Their article never flinched from the clear offense the comic strip caused, but also provided readers with a clear context for both the circumstances surrounding its publication and the following backlash.

Unfortunately, as bias incidents around campus this year have prompted various responses, some groups have used the comic strip, without permission, to generate a false dichotomy (i.e., “if you’re not with us, you implicitly support this comic”) or create an unnecessarily simplified time line of events, ignoring facts such as the events leading up to the 1996 hunger strike for an ethnic studies department, the series of violent crimes and threats of retribution on campus in 1987, and countless issues in between. Showing a four-year-old inflammatory cartoon with an incomplete contextual background (or worse, no background at all) does not help any cause. Rather, it polarizes and misinforms readers, disingenuously attempting to impress a viewpoint on others through shock rather than honest discussion.

We had previously hoped the comic strip would not be used in such a shallow manner. Over time, this became our own contribution to this lack of discourse. But now, rather than permit others to polarize the debate by refusing to provide context or an interpretation beyond “us or this,” we will no longer stand aside and not discuss why issues that caused such fierce consternation in 2004 continue to plague us in 2007. Any individual or group wishing to speak to us about the history of “Blacky Fun Whitey,” its context, or its implications today, is emphatically welcome to do so. But to misappropriate it and use it to guilt others into supporting a cause, or to provide a redacted view of history to the community, is indefensible and only serves to damage hopes of meaningful progress.

Only by fully addressing past bias incidents can we begin to build concrete visions for a better future. It’s a shame that, by lowering of the level of discourse to mere disingenuous protests or incomplete histories, the past is oversimplified or twisted to fruitless ends. We’re a humor paper, sure, but we’re willing to address difficult issues, and will gladly discuss the past and ways to move forward. We want to raise the level of discourse beyond oversimplification, sensationalism, and misinformation, and hope we’ll all employ reason in bringing about actual plans for making Columbia a better place.

Michael Bredin is a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Science majoring in civil engineering and engineering mechanics. Chas Carey, a Spectator Opinion columnist, is a Columbia College senior majoring in political science. Sophie Litschwartz is a Barnard College junior majoring in economics and mathematics. Kimi Traube is a Columbia College senior majoring in comparative literature and society. The authors comprise the editorial board of the Fed.