Twitter reacts to 'racist' political cartoon in Australian newspaper

The people of Australia had a collective conniption recently when a Vanity Fair writer called the country “America 50 years ago.” But after the recent allegations of torture and abuse levelled at the Northern Territory government, and after today's "racist" political cartoon in one of the nation's biggest newspapers -- people could be forgiven for thinking twice about whether that statement has more than a little legitimacy.

After images and video emerged showing the horrible treatment of Indigenous children at the hands of Don Dale juvenile facility staff, the Australian media has been in a frenzy, with most news outlets expressing shock and outrage. However, The Australian newspaper’s newest political cartoon has taken aim at the extremely marginalised community. Again.

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The cartoon implies issues of “personal responsibility” and parental neglect are the underlying cause of the mass overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in Australian prisons.

As opposed to considering issues like, you know, systemic racism and social inequality. Ninety-seven percent of jailed kids in the Northern Territory are Indigenous.

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One of the reasons the cartoon is being called out so strongly on Twitter is that it’s just the latest in a series of cartoons by the publication’s illustrator, Bill Leak, that depicts the Aboriginal people as violent and misogynist, caricaturing Aboriginal men, especially, in a way that draws parallels to the depiction of black citizens in Jim Crow era America.

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Independent publication New Matilda has called Bill Leak, "The ultimate ‘all care no responsibility’ cartoonist," whose defenders will say targets politicians just as harshly. But it seems that using satire to challenge the powerful sits better with the average modern person than using it to further degrade an already oppressed, already racially stereotyped, group of Australians.

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Founder of @IndigenousX, commentator and Gamilaroi man Luke Pearson has previously called out Bill Leak's work, but also the system that allows them to be deemed acceptable for publication. In a post on IndigenousX, he says "we need to look beyond the hype around individual acts of racist cartoons and articles, and see the systemic impacts of racism within media ... Bill Leak’s cartoons are still very racist … but so are a lot of articles in The Australian, so are a lot of articles in a lot of other papers, and so is the lack of diversity in many newsrooms."

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Pearson adds: "If the conversation about Mr Leak doesn’t lead to a reflection of those other issues then ... media orgs will use it to get more hits and sell more papers, and then we will start it up again next time someone publishes something racist, and presumably not get any close to actually addressing racism in our media, or in our country."