Got this passed along to me via Twitter... Well, I guess someone thought this was funny. Tony Hall, longtime cartoonist for the UK's Eastern Daily Press, decided to dial up the racism to 11 in his latest strip, set in the "China Space Agency." Buck-tooth caricatures, lazy mock English mispronunciation ("Uh-oh, tellible setback..."), and a planetary rover that inexplicably uses chopsticks to pick up "lock" samples.
The comic strip was spotted in the paper by Twitter user @paulcoxon, who snapped a photo and called it out as unacceptable. Or as I'd put it, blatant racist bullshit.
Seriously @EDP24, in what way is this cartoon acceptable? pic.twitter.com/3q03Le3V37
— Dr Paul Coxon (@paulcoxon) December 19, 2013The Eastern Daily Press, sensing the negative reaction to the strip, got up on the Twitters to offer up a crappy explanation and one of those sorry-if-you-offended non-apologies:
Hi there. It's @David_Powles here, assistant editor of the EDP. I just wanted to reply to the comments we've had regarding today's ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... Tony Hall cartoon. The cartoon was clearly meant as a parody, much in the same way of many comedies that you see on TV, eg; ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... Allo Allo, the Kumar's at Number 42, Alan Partridge etc etc, where fun is poked at language in different ways. However ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... it has clearly struck a nerve with several people and if it has offended anyone, we wish to apologise - that was not our intention ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... We at the EDP pride ourselves in our tradition of supporting the huge range of diverse cultures in Norfolk and hopefully ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... anyone who regularly reads our content knows this. Believe me we are saddened if people are upset in such a way by our work ...
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013... If anyone wants to discuss this further Ill stay on this account for a while. We are sorry offence has been caused @David_Powles
— Eastern Daily Press (@EDP24) December 19, 2013In other words, get over it.
