Some years ago, while living in the Twin Falls, ID area, and shortly after serving as the Twin Falls Times-News editorial cartoonist and editorial board member, I drew the following cartoon...
Some in my own family have referred to this cartoon as "offensive," and insist that it "proves" that I'm some kind of closeted "racist," as if I had just pulled this concept out of my butt in order to make young black men look bad. So much so, that this cartoon was cited by my own son as the reason behind destroying his relationship with me permanently. Let that sink in for a moment...
Instead of giving me the basic human dignity and respect of asking me the background behind this cartoon, or what I was thinking when I drew it, conclusions were hastily drawn in a violent knee-jerk rush to judgment, with the already-determined outcome being the harshest possible... scorched earth.
So. Since I was never given the opportunity to defend myself before being summarily (and apparently permanently) rejected as a parent, let me do so now to set the record straight.
The cartoon was published on Aug 28, 2013... a hair over 7 years ago. We had moved from Fredericksburg, VA to the Twin Falls, ID area shortly before I began working with the Times-News. I left the Times-News in June of 2013, but hadn't stopped drawing. I posted this cartoon several months after I left the paper as a result of a huge news story from Florida.
At the time of this cartoon, protests against the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case had grown into full-blown riots. Zimmerman had been acquitted on July 13, 2013, and during the ensuing weeks, peaceful protests had quickly morphed into violent riots, looting, and burning all over the country.
In defending their violent action against racism (which hadn't yet, and still hasn't been proven), the rioters often quoted a statement by Martin Luther King, Jr. (that was taken grotesquely out of context), which seemed to condone violence as an acceptable means to bring about social change... intentionally ignoring the entirety of the rest of his writings and speeches.
I know this, because I remember at the time doing a "deep dive" into the subject and reading a significant amount of King's work. His consistent message was very simple... violence is never the answer.
The statement taken out of context read to the effect that while MLK, Jr. could understand the frustration that might lead someone to think that violence was the answer, it never achieved lasting change, and usually only made things worse. "Rioting is the language of the unheard," King wrote near the end of his life. And then quickly explained that he didn't condone it, that it was ineffectual and wrong, and he fought aggressively against it... but that riots were sometimes the result of change not effected.
This is the ONLY statement among King's voluminous writings and speeches that seems even the tiniest bit sympathetic of violence... which is why it is so absurdly out of context when used to rationalize rioting. The entirety of the rest of his work has to be intentionally ignored to be used.
The idea for the cartoon actually, ironically, came from a close friend of mine, a black man named "Dutch" Martin, who had expressed alarm and outrage at the actions of the rioters that were invoking the name of MLK, Jr. in justification for their violence. We had become acquainted with Dutch several years prior to my time in Twin Falls when he was our landlord when we first settled in Fredericksburg, VA, and through social media, we had managed to remained close.
Dutch never had a father growing up in a very bad neighborhood, and was raised by a hard-working single mom. She raised him to be an independent thinking,
conservative, and insightful man. He still is. We used to have great discussions on a wide variety of topics.
Dutch was particularly offended that MLK, Jr. was being cited as though he would have condoned the violence that was taking place. Dutch, too, had studied MLK's writings at length, and understood them well. He knew that nothing could be farther from the truth. So in a conversation online one day, he mentioned his concerns about this disconnect and the fact that he was personally conflicted about the whole Martin mess... but was especially upset that MLK was being used as a rationalization.
One of the unsettling things about the whole mess, he told me, was that it was so contrary to what the Civil Rights Movement was all about. And the fact that accusations of racism in the Martin case were hardly cut-and-dried... and were never actually proven. In fact, they were all but thoroughly DISproven.
After considering the conversation for a bit, particularly the stark contrast between the peaceful focus of MLK and the violent way that mobs were behaving as a result of Martin, the idea was born.
Like Dutch, I was conflicted as well about this case... which definitely muddied the water. One of the things that had given me unsettled feelings was the fact that the situation with Martin/Zimmerman was so sketchy... it wasn't at all clear whether it was a case of racism on the part of Zimmerman, or aggression on the part of Martin. In either case, the riot violence was disproportional to the facts of the case.
Zimmerman vehemently denied that racism played a role in his actions, and a jury of his peers agreed. Martin was painted as an innocent victim, but the facts didn't line up with that, either. The part that really bothered me about the whole situation was that no one really knew what really happened as far as motivations went... or the actual incident. It was all speculation. But none of that seemed to matter to those rioting. It was a forgone conclusion that racism was at the heart of it.
Enter my son. My precious son, my next-to-youngest, being very involved with current protests (and, unfortunately, rioting and violence himself), seized upon this cartoon recently (7 years later) as "evidence" that his old man was a "racist." A term that used to have a specific meaning in our society, but which is now flung around at random, it seems, towards anyone who isn't in lock-step with someone else's political ideology as a damning epithet.
What hurt me the most about his condemnation-in-the-absence-of-comprehension was the fact that he never paused, even for a moment, to give me the common courtesy of asking me about it before just "deciding" that I was morally impaired and hopelessly bigoted... he simply declared me a "racist" and cut off all communication literally overnight. I felt gutted and betrayed. I had never treated him that way. Ever.
This was not an abused, neglected, or otherwise mistreated young man.
This was a young man whose dad doted on him, and loved him beyond measure... who would have done anything for him, including sacrificing his own life.
This was a young man who knew that his dad had his back... who went to bat for him repeatedly and consistently during his Jr. High and High School years... sometimes taking on an entire school district on his behalf when dad felt like he hadn't been treated fairly.
A young man for which his dad sacrificed heavily. A young man who his dad had constantly encouraged and supported.
A young man whose dad went above and beyond to support his music, and attended every single one of his concerts.
A young man whose dad had committed hundreds of hours as a debate judge, when that son became involved with debate in High School... just to support him and help him out and to be involved with something that was important to him.
A young man whose life was literally saved by that same dad when he tried to commit suicide... and who never left his side while struggling in the ICU.
A young man whose friends marveled at how non-judgmental and accepting that dad was when he "came out" several years later... friends whose own parents had disowned them for their choices.
That same young man couldn't be bothered to ask before severing his relationship with that dad forever... because of a political cartoon. Not content with that, that same son then repeatedly and viciously stabbed that dad in the back by trashing him on social media. And that son considers all of that to be "justified" somehow... because racism.
The world we live in is becoming extremely frightening in its cruelty and savageness. Family units and intimate familial relationships used to be sacrosanct when I was growing up. Family was all-important. It was our bedrock... our base. Our foundation. And there were lines within those relationships that one simply did not cross... no matter how mad or hurt you were. Those indelible lines related to remembering, at the end of the day, that no matter what else may be going on in the world, we're still family. That we still, even though mad today, love each other and will be better tomorrow. That we have each others' backs. No matter what. That we don't betray our own.
As the family has constantly come under attack in the last few decades, one of the casualties has been that we no longer seem to hold those all-important relationships to be as sacred as they really are... or should be. We've come to the point where they are cheap and expendable... and many have been summarily destroyed without a second thought... out of spite, meanness, cruelty, and/or indifference.
Loyalty to our loved ones has become a thing of the past. Intentional cruelty, "cancel culture," and public attacks to shame and guilt are wielded with devastating results as a way of punishing someone for "thinking wrong." It is emotional blackmail, where a lifetimes of love, devotion, and sacrifice are all thrown away as if they mean nothing... with the resulting anguish, betrayal, and hurt being waved off blithely because it is somehow intolerable that someone that we love should dare to be independent, and to believe or think differently than we do. Instead, they must be punished. Outed. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Canceled. And then destroyed.
That's the real tragedy here. Families are no longer "safe spaces." They are undermined at every turn, and their importance constantly attacked and denigrated. We can no longer rely on our families to be there for us... and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of all. And the most frightening.
I love my son. I always will. When and if he ever decides to come home, figuratively or literally, I'll be here waiting for him with open arms. Maybe he will, and maybe he won't. But my job as his dad is to love him regardless and hope for the best. That doesn't mean that it isn't devastating and crushing, though. But that's the story.
