Some years ago a fellow company director asked if my financial analysis was “Jewish accounting”. While offended by the embedded insult in his casual racist stereotyping, I said nothing for fear of disturbing the social niceties. He clearly meant his remark as a joke. However, in a civil society like ours racism or sexism is deemed unacceptable and hard won legislation protects citizens.
So where does that leave the satirists, the cartoonists and the comics whose profession is based on transgression and ridicule? The best make us reflect on our prejudices and blind spots. Bill Leak’s recent cartoon was intentionally provocative. The illustration that accompanied Leak’s caption seemed to approximate the illustrations of Eric Jolliffe, the creator of Witchetty’s Tribe, which graced (sic) the pages of Pix magazine last century? The text was equally disturbing. So why was Leak surprised when citizens responded equally robustly? Doesn’t a civil society defend both the cartoonist’s right to his point however upsetting for “derelict” Indigenous fathers and our right to find the slur of his generalisation offensive?
Read the full article by Louise Adler at The Age.