Heh. Ha heh ha, heh heh ha, hold on now -- let me, heh, catch my breath. He drew a -- a what? Ha heh, heh, ha heh heh ha, heh, indeed!

Thank you, National Review Online:

For this “cartoon” demonstrating that George Zimmerman’s acquittal is analogous to the legacy of white-on-black violence in America because Al Sharpton is a knotted oak. Only a racist would look at that and think it referenced something so vile as a lynching. Those noosed truths — like someone else we know — don’t even have heads. For all we know they’re wind chimes in their Sunday finest. Only a racist would notice that they’re headless necks from root to wick, because only a racist would associate something as basic to the human condition as fire to the history of racism in the United States. Without fire generations of Americans of all races would’ve frozen to –

– and I can’t do it. Michael Ramirez’s “Lynched” serves a single purpose: to allow the overwhelmingly white readership of NRO to believe that the imagined lynching of an abstract value is morally equivalent to the actual lynching of actual human beings. Because it’s been a long time since white people could really enjoy an image of a lynching. Some of them probably thought the day would never come again.

But thanks to Michael Ramirez, white readers of NRO can stare with childish wonder at the shapes of men dangling from a limb and feel glee instead of having to fake guilt.

UPDATE: I can't believe I forgot this! It's only like my favorite scene in Maus:

Ha heh heh! Heh heh ha heh! Ha ha heh ha heh!

Comments

[Mikey]

I mean, it also seems like he's blaming lynchings on the tree instead of the people? So it's racist, and doesn't make sense?

[Robert Marriott]

I hate to do this, but let me add some pulitzer-winning fuel to the fire:
http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2013/07/25

In my opinion, it easily outstrips Ramirez on several levels.

[Crazy Lady]

Are you actually claiming that arson is just an accident? And ignoring the shooting part? (I can't figure out any other possible meaning for the "fire" reference.)

Or did you not know that people were murdered in the Crown Heights riot and, yes, in the Freddie's Fashion Mart arson and shooting?

You are completely missing the point of the cartoon. Which is that the inaccuracies being spread by -- really the press more than Al Sharpton, but him too -- are causing so much rage as to actually make people fear for their lives.

Because, unlike you apparently, these people actually know what happened in Crown Heights and Freddie's Fashion Mart.

Argue that people are over-reacting, that they shouldn't fear for their lives, whatever...but don't ignore that they do and that's what's behind the cartoon.