by Kathleen Parker
October 5, 2005
Tribune Media Services
In Gainesville, Fla., cartoonist Andy Marlette drew an image that has angered black groups. Yes, a new generation has produced another Marlette. This one is the nephew of Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette, whose talent as an equal-opportunity offender apparently seeped into the family gene pool.
Marlette the Younger's cartoon in the Independent Florida Alligator was a commentary on rapper Kanye West's remarks that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Marlette drew a cartoon of West holding an oversized playing card labeled "The Race Card," with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying, "Nigga Please!"
The N-word makes me cringe ... especially every time I hear Kanye West say it. His spicy songs are liberally seasoned with the word "nigga," often couched in violence and obscenity. But when I imagine the immaculate and proper Condi Rice saying it, especially to a "brotha"' who has made a fortune playing the bad boy, it makes me laugh.
Which is to say Marlette's cartoon hit the mark. It was sophisticated, irreverent and funny. His use of West's own language to parody the rapper's political statement was, in fact, the art of the cartoon.
Certain campus groups and administrators were outraged. This, despite the fact that the same student government that pulled ads from the Alligator is paying West to drop the N-Bomb in concert at the university in a few days. UF's reputation as a party school unburdened by intellectual heavy-lifting remains intact.
It's hardly surprising that students don't understand that the First Amendment which protects Marlette's and Brandes' right to voice unpopular opinions also protects West's "music," as well as their right to protest. A recent nationwide study by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education found that one of four college students couldn't name any of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
It's disturbing, however, when faculty and administrators' understanding is little better. Some journalism professors have embraced the debate as a teaching opportunity, but others, including UF President Bernie Machen, have behaved like Church Ladies, pursing lips and wagging fingers instead of defending liberty.
The painful irony is that those minorities whose sensibilities have been offended are historically the first to suffer when free speech goes.
Which is why African Americans and now Arab-Americans troubled by the specter of discrimination should be the loudest voices in supporting the freedoms that permit even speech they find offensive.
It's a messy job, but everybody's got to do it.