An angry black man texted the EYE on Friday to say, “Did you read the Post’s endorsement of Steve Stenger and see their cartoon of Charlie Dooley?”
The EYE had not seen or read these things and felt no need to. For at least a year it’s been obvious that the Post would endorse Stenger for county executive, and the EYE expected the endorsement to come with a cartoon that made Dooley look like a crook or a buffoon.
But the EYE read the Post editorial and looked at the cartoon. Of course, the Post endorsed Stenger, despite having nothing to argue on Stenger’s own behalf. The paper simply rejected Dooley, as anyone following the election knew it would. Dooley was not caricatured as a crook nor a buffoon. He was drawn sitting at a desk. On his desk was a sign with the slogan, “The buck stops here,” but “here” was X’d out, so it reads “The buck stops.”
The Post was using a familiar saying about accountability to suggest that Dooley has not been accountable for the missteps in county government (real and imagined) the Post has been covering in depth for years. This all seemed as expected, if perhaps a little mild, given how thirsty the Post has seemed for Dooley’s blood. That is, until you catch a visual pun in the cartoon.
“The buck stops here” is a clichéd metaphor of accountability. However, when you X out “here,” the sign in the cartoon reads “The buck stops.” Since the Post editorial – written by a group of white people – argues that now is the time to end the reign of Charlie Dooley, the first black man to ever lead St. Louis County government, a visual pun is created between Dooley and “buck.” Charlie Dooley’s reign ends; the buck stops. “Buck” is an old racist Southern term for a black man, dating from when black people were owned as livestock by white people in the American South. A “buck” is a male deer – or a black man, in the minds of racist white people, often paired with a notorious racial epithet that begins with “N.”
The EYE is reasonably certain that Tony Messenger, who directs the Post editorial page, and the other white people who contribute to it did not intend to create a vile racist pun with their editorial cartoon. They may not be aware of the racist history of the word “buck” or perhaps did not catch the visual pun.
Thinking it might be interesting to have this conversation in public, the EYE used Twitter to point out to Messenger that their cartoon harbored a racist pun that nobody in their shop caught. He then asked Messenger if a black person had looked at this cartoon before Messenger approved it. There are no black people on the Post editorial board or in any senior position at the paper.
Messenger did not answer the question about whether a black person had seen the cartoon before he approved it. Instead, he responded, “’The buck stops here’ is the most famous phrase in Missouri political history. It has nothing whatsoever to do with race.”
But that only proves that a white person (Messenger) did not catch the racist pun. The EYE was trying to find out if the Post has any black people to help them be sensitive to things that black people might find offensive in what they publish. Black people are a plurality of city residents, and the city’s daily paper should attempt to be more aware of their perspective and try to understand it. Right?
The EYE hoped for some contrition in Messenger attempting to understand criticism of his work from a different perspective, but that is not what Messenger had to offer. He proceeded to post links where President Barack Obama used the “buck stops here” metaphor twice and once where the Political EYE used the phrase.
But that isn’t the point. No one disputes that “the buck stops here” is a clichéd metaphor for accountability. At issue is that an all-white editorial board, which has been hounding a black elected official for years, published an editorial saying voters should end this black man’s tenure and did it with a cartoon that creates a visual pun between that black man and “buck.” Obama has never done anything like that when using this saying, nor has the EYE.
Further, it’s ridiculous for Messenger to equate the subject position of his all-white editorial board with that of the nation’s black president or that of one of the nation’s leading black newspapers. Like it or not, it means something different when the Post-Dispatch says “buck” in connection to a black man than when a black president or black-owned newspaper says it. If Messenger does not think that is true, than he and Virvus Jones should go out on the town some night and experiment with both saying, “What’s up, buck?” to the same black men. We will see where that gets Tony.
It occurred to the EYE that Messenger had never answered that initial basic question: Did a black person review the cartoon before Messenger approved it? Messenger was asked again via Twitter.
“I have no interest in answering your questions on this matter,” Messenger responded on Twitter. “My previous responses stand.”
The EYE takes that to be a “no,” the Post does not have a close editorial advisor who is black and will tell them what they need to hear, especially when they don’t agree. So Messenger was advised on Twitter that they need such a person and told that Ray Hartmann, when he owned the RFT, always had black advisors he called – and listened to – when he was dealing with black politics.
Now that he had been brought into it publicly, Hartmann then called The American to marvel at Messenger’s performance on Twitter.
“I didn’t need to ask a black person to know that cartoon was insensitive,” Hartmann said. “But what I can’t believe is Messenger doesn’t think he owes you an answer. I mean, they either have a go-to person they vet racially sensitive material with, or they don’t. Why can’t he answer the question? Why doesn’t the editor of the editorial page of the daily paper think he owes an answer to the managing editor of the city’s black paper? It’s his response, more than the cartoon, that bothers me.”
Soon after that call, another angry black man wrote to the EYE and included a copy of an email he had sent to Messenger complaining about the cartoon and telling him it was racially offensive.
“I just heard about this from another black man,” Messenger was told on Twitter. “Ask black men about ‘buck’ punning on a black man.”
“THERE WAS NO PUN,” Messenger responded in all capital letters. “Intended or otherwise.”
“When people unlike yourself hear something you don’t hear,” Messenger was told in return, “you should listen more closely, not GET LOUDER.”
If nothing else, this exchange sheds some light on the wall of white silence that separates the Post-Dispatch from the diverse region it so insensitively serves.
