Do you need for me to draw you a picture?
I'll be on a panel Thursday at Guilford College with Philadelphia Daily News syndicated editorial cartoonist Signe Wilkinson and Rhino Times Editor John Hammer.
This is the second straight week in which I'm honored to be involved in a visit by a journalist whose work is regularly featured in the News & Record. New York Times syndicated columnist (not cartoonist, as I originally mistyped, though he was much funnier and much more entertaining than I expected) David Brooks lectured at Guilford last week.
Wilkinson won the Pulitzer Prize for her work in 1992 and was the first female cartoonist to be so honored. She has been president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
We'll discuss cartooning in general, as well as revisit (briefly, I hope) the Danish cartoon flap.
Here is a press release. And, below, a sample of Wilkinson's work:
We'll also talk about editorial cartooning in general: the process of conceiving cartoons; the process of choosing cartoons for publication; the dilemmas of what to run and what not to run.
Greensboro native Doug Marlette, another Pulitzer Prize winner, has expressed his misgivings about the state of editorial cartooning today. People don't have the tolerance or patience to listen to other points of view today, Marlette told me in 2004. And that newspapers don't have the courage to feature them.
"People feel that free speech is for them but not for other people," he said.
Cartoons increasingly are held to such suffocating standards of political correctness, he said, that it's hard to make a point and get published.
It'll be interesting to see if Wilkinson agrees.
Our panel discussion begins Thursday at 4 p.m. in the Guilford College Art Gallery.
Y'all come.
Comments (3)
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One of the great additions to the News & Record are the cartoons of Anthony Piraino.
His cartoons are provocative and have a bite, but in a way that I regard as very healthy.
I also greatly appreciate his cartoons' local flavor. (Yummy!)
Prior to adding him to your editorial pages, that was one edge that the Rhinoceros Times had: a good, locally-focused cartoonist.
And with the wealth of material our local politicians and institutions so generously provide, it is a waste and a shame not to have talented cartoonists around to expose and highlight areas of interest and concern.
Fortunately, we have at least two very good local cartoonists, and again, I applaud your decision to add Mr. Piraino's work to your pages.
As for Signe Wilkinson's cartoon about racial perspectives, I have to confess how increasingly ironic I find it that our country honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the extent that we do.
It would make a lot more sense if we honored Malcolm X instead.
In today's society and culture, I cannot imagine that Dr. King would have been as successful as he was in his time. (But I'm sure that anyone back then who might have tried to forecast the success of his message would have been laughed at as well.)
It remains difficult to understand what made it possible for him to succeed back then--not ignoring his abilities as a leader and a speaker, how did he manage to convince so many to embrace such an insane policy as non-violence?
Is it possible in our world today to argue non-violence as a reasonable, rational response to violent, oppressive, dangerous governments and groups?
Our country certainly doesn't endorse non-violence as a response, not on a national level and certainly not within the homes of too many young people.
We celebrate the complete opposite, in our movies, in our music, in our rhetoric, in our culture as a whole.
And then we pay tribute to Dr. King.
We would be much more honest with ourselves to honor Malcolm X.
"By any means necessary" fits easily as a slogan for too many at all levels in our country today.
And the idea of "you're either with us, or you're against us" sounds both recently and historically familiar.
Non-violence is not a natural human reaction, and the fact that Dr. King (and others, in other places, at different times) mangaged to preach, teach, and inspire an endorsement of that philosophy is nothing sort of miraculous and inconceivable against the backdrop of our human instincts.
Posted on November 15, 2006 10:47 PM
Glad you like Anthony's work, Hardy. It's nice to be able to have cartoons on local issues.
As for King vs. Malcolm, I certainly see your point, though you should remember that Malcolm has moderated his views before he was killed.
Posted on November 16, 2006 2:01 PM
Allen,
You're right about Malcolm X.
It's easy to forget how complicated he was, if you're not careful, and in trying to make certain points, I definitely oversimplified his complexity.
He evolved multiple times during his life, arguably more than most.
As committed as he was to his visions and his perceptions, he was also profoundly open-minded to gaining a greater understanding of himself and the world around him.
As you point out, trying to stereotype or pigeon-hole Malcolm X is ultimately a mistake.
With both King and Malcolm X, it remains tragic that their lives were cut short prematurely.
Our country and its people are lucky to have experienced the contributions both had to make to our society.
Sincerely,
Hardy
Posted on November 16, 2006 8:02 PM