For an editor, Rowan shows an appalling ignorance of both the contents of the cartoon and the media in which it appeared. Over and over, the Supreme Court has made important distinctions between the public media and paid media. “Family Guy” and “South Park” appear on cable stations that people have to pay for to receive in their homes. The Recorder is distributed free to a wide college audience that includes many White, Latino and female students Rowan’s own age who were deeply offended and are demanding his removal.
In addition, while even conservatives acknowledge the rights of adults to view sexually explicit materials, the society has drawn a clear line at the sexual exploitation of children. Yet, the “Polydongs” cartoon, which can be downloaded from the Sept. 12 edition at http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/, seems to deliberately invoke all the most extreme circumstances: White characters imprisoning and sexually abusing an underage minority girl just like the six miscreants in West Virginia. We don’t know if Rowan is a racist, but he’s clearly got such bad editorial judgment he needs to be fired immediately.
- Paul Ruffin is a longtime contributor to Diverse: Issues In Higher Education and former editor of NAACP’s Crisis Magazine.
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