I'm not going to say whether or not I think the word "nigger" should be used in a school newspaper. Nor will I argue about whether or not a cartoon depicting "a goat bragging to a mouse about how he had hit a black person on a bicycle" is funny. But that's just me. I'm not an "issues" person.

However, I will say without equivocation that the above described cartoon scenario is more funny when the goat uses a racially insensitive term. Not necessarily funny, but more funny.

The editors of Carnegie Mellon's paper, The Tartan, must not be issues people either. They ran the above described cartoon (the more funny version, with the slur) in their April Fool's edition. As you might have guess, the reaction hasn't been great.

Again, I'm not an issues person, but I'm disturbed by the reaction, nonetheless. In the AP story, the edition of The Tartan is also described to contain "poems about rape and mutilation." Surely those are more offensive than a cartoon goat using a racial slur. I mean, poetry is bad enough. Add rape and mutilation to the equation, and you've got a recipe for something really not very funny.

Analogcabin @ 10:44 AM
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