The New Yorker this week ran a very troubling comic. Have a look, but resist the temptation to jump to conclusions:
It’s content, generalization, and motives are highly offensive, however transparent. Lets review.
- Just because the kid is holding his finger in a crack doesn’t mean he’s Dutch. That would make most of the guys in New York and San Francisco Dutch, and that’s not probable.
- The kid is obviously dressed in Lederhosen. Lederhosen are German. There is the matter of Germany having occupied the Netherlands. It is not OK to confuse invaders with the invaded. That’s like calling Europeans…I mean, that’s like calling Romans…, I mean that’s like calling Turks…Well, maybe it is conventional to confuse invaders with the invaded, but it still not OK, and it still pisses me off.
- I’m going to assume this comic is poking fun at the kid who stuck his finger in a dike to plug a hole. Dikes hold back water, so his intent was to keep water from leaking through the dike. So why is the kid holding his finger in a wall? Is he heroically trying to keep air from escaping from China into Mongolia? If so, he has the small matter of the air moving freely across the top of the wall to worry about first. This kind of misplacement of priorities is atypical of the Dutch and more prominent in Belgians. But Belgians don’t wear Lederhosen.
Based on the above observations, I can only assume the comic’s intent is to deliberately start a war between The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Of the three, only Germany has a history of aggressiveness, so my only conclusion can be that this is the work of a Neo-Nazi bent on world domination.
Suffice it to say, I’m very disappointed in the New Yorker for not seeing through this obvious trick.
