Racist Baby Book

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Originally uploaded by Meiver

The things you can find reading baby books can be surprising..
I found an anti-Arab cartoon.
A "funny" baby book - depicted an Arab infant with a ghutra, beard, guns and a granade.
The punchline was about how to make sure you don't take the wrong baby from the hospital, suggesting jokingly that regardless of how inexperienced, a parent could not make a mistake and take "Yasser Arafat's baby" - so there is nothing really to worry about..

The punchline rests on the (mistaken) assumption that we all as readers, will naturally agree that Arabs are naturally violent - and sufficiently "other" (different than ourselves).

The cartoon is also removing the child qualities of helplessness, cuteness and innocence that we normally attribute to babies, and that would make an adult feel like they have to care for and protect this child - creating totally the opposite effect: taking the childhood away from the subject (in comparison to it's peers) and making it the subject of our (assumed) immediate, expected and obvious rejection.


RU