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Hipster Racism
(Editor's Note: This post originally appeared on Racialicious, and was updated on AJ's blog The Cruel Secretary.)
By now, you've seen the latest New Yorker cover, with the Obamas garbed in the gear of the latest fear-mongering Americans' wet dream.
Of course, people at Michelle Obama Watch, Daily Kos, Politico, and other blogs have expressed rightful and righteous outrage over the cover.
The Washington Post's and CNN's Reliable Sources' Howard Kurtz said: "I talked to the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who tells me this is a satire, that they are making fun of all the rumors," Kurtz added. (Source)
Bill Burton, The Obama campaign spokesperson, responded: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree." (Source)
My current live-in partner, who works at the New Yorker, just couldn't believe that so many people responded so angrily at the cover at the Daily Kos and other sites. He "wanted to see [my] reaction." When I emphatically told him that I didn't find it funny, he said, "You're so angry."
"Of course I'm angry. What do you expect? This is my reaction is to your employer doing something so racist." "I'm trying to have some fun here."
Humph, you gotta love hipster racism.
I define hipster racism (I'm borrowing the phrase from Carmen Van Kerckhove) as ideas, speech, and action meant to denigrate another's person race or ethnicity under the guise of being urbane, witty (meaning "ironic" nowadays), educated, liberal, and/or trendy. This racist and sexist balderdash that's the New Yorker cover fits squarely into that definition. So, honestly, does the behavior of my partner, who prides himself on coming from a California family of educators who taught him to be colorblind and on working at a magazine renown for being, well, urbane, witty, educated, liberal, and trendy yet likes to view me as the Angry Negress.
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Andrea (AJ) Plaid lives in Brooklyn, NY and blogs at The Cruel Secretary.