2008 Woodie Awards
U. Florida cartoon sparks debate on race
Chloe Lutts
Issue date: 9/29/05 Section: Campus Watch
The student newspaper at the University of Florida printed a racially charged cartoon Sept. 13, igniting a campus-wide debate over race, language and the press.
The cartoon depicted rapper Kanye West holding a large playing card labeled "The Race Card" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposite him, exclaiming "Nigga Please!" It was in reference to West's recent comment on a televised fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
The response to the cartoon was instantaneous and intense. Beginning the next day, the paper began printing letters to the editor from the Black Student Union, the dean of minority affairs and concerned students and alums. Three days after the cartoon's publication, a group of over 50 outraged students and several administrators marched to the offices of the paper in protest. On the same day, the editor of the paper received a death threat. The president of the university wrote a letter on the following Monday demanding an apology from the paper.
The newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, is staffed and run by UF students but is not affiliated with the university.
UF's student government president, Joe Goldberg, issued an executive order Sept. 20 halting all student government-funded advertising in the Alligator, despite a student government statute requiring that certain information be advertised in "the newspaper with the greatest circulation among University of Florida students," according to an article in the Alligator.
Goldberg's action was seen by many as an excuse for the student government to attack the Alligator, which frequently criticizes the student government, according to a student government senator quoted in the Alligator.
Andy Marlette, the cartoonist, said Goldberg was making a hypocritical attempt to be politically correct.
"The best thing that has happened (as a result of the controversy) has been exposing the hypocrisy of the (UF) administration," Marlette told The Herald. Besides the student government, the president of the university and other administrative officials have been accused of hypocrisy in articles and letters to the editor printed in the Alligator.
The cartoon depicted rapper Kanye West holding a large playing card labeled "The Race Card" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opposite him, exclaiming "Nigga Please!" It was in reference to West's recent comment on a televised fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."
The response to the cartoon was instantaneous and intense. Beginning the next day, the paper began printing letters to the editor from the Black Student Union, the dean of minority affairs and concerned students and alums. Three days after the cartoon's publication, a group of over 50 outraged students and several administrators marched to the offices of the paper in protest. On the same day, the editor of the paper received a death threat. The president of the university wrote a letter on the following Monday demanding an apology from the paper.
The newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, is staffed and run by UF students but is not affiliated with the university.
UF's student government president, Joe Goldberg, issued an executive order Sept. 20 halting all student government-funded advertising in the Alligator, despite a student government statute requiring that certain information be advertised in "the newspaper with the greatest circulation among University of Florida students," according to an article in the Alligator.
Goldberg's action was seen by many as an excuse for the student government to attack the Alligator, which frequently criticizes the student government, according to a student government senator quoted in the Alligator.
Andy Marlette, the cartoonist, said Goldberg was making a hypocritical attempt to be politically correct.
"The best thing that has happened (as a result of the controversy) has been exposing the hypocrisy of the (UF) administration," Marlette told The Herald. Besides the student government, the president of the university and other administrative officials have been accused of hypocrisy in articles and letters to the editor printed in the Alligator.