Is this cartoon racist and sexist?

Don’t answer until you read the essay…

Semi-recently a reader that I’ve never heard of sent me a message on Facebook that said the above cartoon was racist and sexist and she was embarrassed for me, which I really appreciate.

If she’s embarrassed for me then I don’t have to go to the trouble of being embarrassed myself and I wouldn’t mind letting her feel some of my other less enjoyable emotions like humiliation, anxiety and in this particular case, irritation.

As you might recall I drew the cartoon because Joe Biden said he was going to nominate a Black female to the Supreme Court.

Now here’s the Merriam-Webster definition of sexism: “prejudice or discrimination based on sex.”

Joe Biden said he wouldn’t consider a male for the Supreme Court job.

And the Merriam-Webster definition of racism: “the systemic oppression of a racial group to the social, economic, and political advantage of another.”

Joe Biden also said he wouldn’t consider a White person.

According to those definitions, Joe Biden was being racist and sexist (more on that in moment) which didn’t appear to bother our embarrassed reader, but me pointing out that Biden neglected to emphasize actually being qualified for the Supreme Court did.

In fact, if you said you wanted to hire someone, but the hire needed to be a Black female, you’d be breaking the law and here’s a quote from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission website about that:

Under the laws enforced by EEOC, it is illegal to discriminate against someone (applicant or employee) because of that person's race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

Nevertheless, as I said at the time I first posted the cartoon:

I think it’s hypocritical for White males to complain about reverse racism or reverse sexism when we’ve benefitted from racism and sexism for centuries and the word “systemic” is important because in general the system has benefitted us and not Black females.

So I understood why Biden might want to even things out just a little bit, but I also said I thought it was dumb for Biden to say that out loud and he and whomever he picked would be better off if Joe kept his mouth shut until he made his pick and then said he picked the person best qualified for the job and guess what…she’s a Black female.

But then Biden wouldn’t get credit for proving he’s not racist or sexist by doing something both racist and sexist, but many Liberals are OK with that as long as it’s the right kind of racism and sexism.

Also…

By announcing he was going to pick a Black female instead of just doing it, the Black female Biden picks will be suspected of being a token pick, unqualified to get the job on her own merits, which is unfortunate because when you look at Donald Trump’s picks, being qualified for the Supreme Court doesn’t seem all that difficult and I’m sure a number of Black females could clear that bar without Joe’s help.

In any case, feel free to express your opinion and if you think I’m wrong go ahead and say so, but be aware I might use your comment in a petty and vindictive essay that proves I was right all along.

ID.me: OK…you’re an idiot

Back in January I posted this cartoon and a story about the IRS and their plans to force everybody who wanted to look at their tax records to scan their faces and send that scan to a government contractor called ID.me.

Yet another upset reader (this one was on my side) left a comment about how bad the IRS plan was and I responded to that comment and said once people became aware of the plan, it might not go forward and that’s exactly what happened.

If Life has taught me anything; it’s delete the search history on your computer.

And if Life has taught me two things, it’s that stuff about computers and you really ought to enjoy the moment when you turn out to be right about pretty much anything, because I’m also the guy who thought the internet was a fad and you couldn’t get elected President of the United States if you talked about the size of your penis and grabbing women by the vagina.

My prognostication track record is spotty at best which is demonstrated by the fact that it took me two tries to correctly spell “prognostication.”

Anyway…

The IRS abandoned its facial recognition plan last week, but if I’m reading a somewhat confusing Washington Post story correctly, 7 million Americans have already sent their facial recognition scan to ID.me and the IRS response is pretty much the same as Otter’s when Flounder saw what his friends had done to his parents’ car:

(And if you don’t get that Animal House reference you really need to watch more movies because it won’t be my last cinematic reference.)

So now the question is what ID.me will do with the information they already have and the company said they will drop the facial recognition requirement in their software used by 30 states and 10 federal agencies, which seems to avoid saying what they’ll do with the scans they already have.

ID.me also said that effective March 1, anyone would be able to delete their selfie or phone data, which makes it sound like the people who gave them their scans will be responsible for deleting them and you know not everybody will do that and I’m guessing ID.me won’t make the process simple; maybe you’ll have to provide a new face scan to delete the old face scan and they’ll want to know your mother’s maiden name, your favorite teacher in high school and what you had tattooed on your ass when you were young and thought you were in love forever.

The IRS was asked what they would do to oversee the process of deleting the face scans and how much money they’d already spent on the $86 million, two-year ID.me contract and how much more the IRS will have to spend to eliminate the problem they created and if the IRS had a response, it wasn’t included in the story I read.

And all this happened after the General Services Administration warned that face-scanning technology had too many problems to justify its use.

Just in case you’re not already sufficiently freaked out; there is no federal law regulating how facial recognition can be used or how the information can be secured so you can add this to the ever-increasing list of government fuck-ups like getting in land wars in Asia or invading Afghanistan when 15 Saudi Arabians, two guys from the United Arab Emirates, one guy from Lebanon and one from Egypt hijacked planes and flew them into buildings.

Which oddly enough brings us to…

Cage-free eggs

I recently read a story about demands for “cage-free” eggs which means they won’t stuff a bunch of chickens into a tiny cage like they’re shoving clowns into a miniature car, a cause which I support, but the story made me ask myself when was the last time I read anything about Guantanamo Bay.

Suspected bad guys are being held there indefinitely without charge or trial which is about as un-American as you can get.

According to a story on NPR, five of the 39 people still being held there are 9/11 defendants and if they had anything to do with that event I’d be in favor of locking them up and putting the key in a Tesla that Elon Musk – which sounds like the World’s Worst Cologne – would then shoot into space, but if you’re going to do that to somebody they better be guilty and those five defendants still haven’t had a trial even though what they’re accused of being involved in happened over 20 years ago.

And just in case you don’t feel sufficiently outraged: according to the NPR story, Guantanamo is costing American taxpayers about $540 million a year, so it would be quite a bit cheaper to let the 39 suspects go and give each of them a million dollars as they walk out the door.

Just in case you want to read more, here’s a link to an article on the ACLU website:

https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/detention/guantanamo-bay-detention-camp

A group of Republicans has asked that Joe Biden’s mental health be tested and you can see what I think about that in the cartoon above. To be fair – a temporary policy – back when he was president Democrats wanted Donald Trump’s mental capacity tested and grandstanding on an issue that has no chance of becoming reality is a game both parties are willing to play and one of the reasons we’re doing so well as a country.

Okey-dokey, that’s it for today.

Talk to you soon unless you decide I’m a racist and sexist and don’t want to hear any more from me which would also mean I have a decent chance of going to work for Fox News although they better not say they want to hire a White male even if they do.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/