The original draft of this email was sent to Washington Post style section writer and Comic Riffs columnist Michael Cavna when editors, as they do routinely, chose not to reprint purportedly offensive content when otherwise reporting about it [“N.Y. Daily News defends its Yang cartoon. To many, the racist trope is clear.” C1, May 28]. In this case, a New York Daily News political cartoon took a playful swipe at former presidential candidate and current New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang. Yang, slipping in the polls, seems to have forgotten that politics ain’t beanbag, and desperately attacked the cartoon as “racist” and somehow “anti-immigrant,” even though the husband-and-wife shopkeepers depicted refering to Yang in the cartoon can be viewed as hard-working immigrants themselves. Nonetheless, it seems playing the race card is just a lot easier for candidates like Yang and the leftist media who support them.
Dear Michael,
Why not reprint the supposedly controversial cartoon so readers can decide for themselves whether it’s “racist”? Why must we rely solely on your inherently subjective descriptions of the cartoon when the First Amendment allows The Post to republish any newsworthy image regardless of copyright? Are you afraid some (or most) readers may not find the cartoon to be racist, and that some may even find it to be a funny poke at woke, carpet-bagging gadfly Andrew Yang?
Darren McKinney, Washington D.C.
Editor’s note: To his credit, Michael Cavna politely got back to me, saying “I’ll promptly forward this to my editors, who made that call. Thanks so much for reading — and writing.” Needless to say, I still haven’t heard a word from Post editors, and they’ll surely continue to force-feeding readers their characterizations of content published elsewhere rather than allow for any free thinking.