Viral political cartoons fuse separate racial phobias into one composite threat
Evidence
Hanging from the wall of the Oval Office behind Obama is a portrait of Osama bin Laden. Burning in a fireplace underneath it is an American flag. Obama sports a shalwar kameez, a turban, and a pair of sandals, while Michelle Obama totes a gun and a round of ammunition, wears an Afro that recalls the Angela Davis of the 1960s, and features guerrilla-style military fatigues. The couple, fist-bumping in a gesture of solidarity and success, are black/ Muslim/Arab, and they are in the White House—of all the colors that a house might have. — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 604
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Directly extends ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’: the New Yorker cover weaponizes dress (shalwar kameez, turban, fatigues) as fused markers of black/Islamist/revolutionary threat — a visual nervous-system image of racialized political signaling in elite media.
- XREF: Connects to the reader’s running topic of how composite/monster images fuse multiple anxieties (signal-ground-field, figure-ground collapse; the multi-racial threat as a single Gestalt). — connects to: the MOC “The Viral Refinery: How Preexisting Fringe Fears Get Smelted Into Mainstream Reality”