Cartoon strip pulled from newspapers, Cartoonist refuses to apologize to critics

Award-winning cartoonist Bianca Xunise finds herself in a controversy over one of her cartoon strips. The angry mob tried to cancel her and she refuses to play along. Xunise is offering up no apologies for her work.

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The second Black woman to be nationally syndicated in the U.S. — one of three Black women syndicated today, Xunise’s cartoons are typically dark humor. She drew a cartoon about face masks and when it was published, the complaints rolled in. The cartoon shows a Black woman (her) walking past a White woman in a grocery store. She is wearing a face mask and an “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirt. The White woman looks at her and says, “If you can’t breathe, then take that silly mask off!”

Looks like just a dumb joke, right? At first glance, yes. However, the cartoonist had a more nuanced message in mind. She’s a social justice warrior, which her work reflects, so that should have been expected by her audience. Mostly, her comics reflect her depressed personality with a gothic-style of artwork. This isn’t Peanuts, y’all. The comic strip was called inappropriate and offensive and it was removed from several newspapers. The comic is provided by Six Chix, a rotating team of creators that provides comics for over 120 newspapers. One newspaper ran an apology in place of the comic.

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The newspapers are being accused of censorship now and of running away from potentially offending White readers. There is a more nuanced message in the cartoon, you see, and people are just not getting it, or something. Xunise was pointing out that White people trivialize the inconvenience of wearing a face mask by conflating it with oppression. And, it was a dunk on liberal White people who regularly call others racist.

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So, there’s an explanation for you. Looking at you, liberal White people who feel superior to everyone else.

Tea Fougner, editorial director at King Features, the comic strip’s syndicate, confirmed to NBC News that angry responses to the strip resulted in some newspapers dropping “Six Chix” from publication entirely.

While the company is not allowed to share the names of its clients, Fougner said, an apology was printed at an undisclosed newspaper in the comic’s usual spot later in the week.

“We have notified the syndicate that provides the comic that we will no longer be running Six Chix in our newspaper as a result,” the apology read. “We’ve also requested an apology from them. Our apologies for a cartoon that reflected the exact opposite of what we stand for as a newspaper.”

The part about an apology being issued in one newspaper didn’t sit well with the cartoonist. She’s not apologizing.

She’s right. It is censorship and she is perfectly entitled to not issue an apology for her work. The newspapers who picked up the syndicated cartoon strip knew what they were getting. Not every comic strip is going to appeal to every newspaper reader. Her cartoons veer into politics so, at any given time, at least half of the newspaper’s readers will not appreciate her message. Fougner is speaking up for Xunise and points to the fact that the comic strip combines two timely issues – the plague and the BLM movement, in her own way.

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“Bianca created the July 28, 2020, ‘Six Chix’ cartoon to be a joke commenting on how Black issues are often disregarded as a personal problem and not a systemic issue,” Fougner said. “She is shedding light on two pandemics right now: one on race and another on COVID-19, and both are not being taken seriously while they are destroying lives.”

Usually, when the outrage mob strikes, liberal artists are the first to cave and apologize for whatever offense that they created. The newspapers running the comic strip wanted to run a woke comic strip. That’s what they got. Instead of apologizing to their readers, the newspapers took the squishy response and simply got rid of a controversial comic strip. The hypocrisy now is that the newspapers feign surprise that an offensive comic would be published. They knew what they were getting when they signed off on running it.

Xunise added that the comic went through two checkpoints: one with her editors and another with the newspaper editors that made the final decision to publish it.

“The editors at whatever newspaper it lands at should’ve read the comics and flagged it if they got offended,” Xunise said. “I’m just an artist; that’s your job.”

This is such a 2020 kind of controversy. No one will ever be woke enough to please everyone. Cancel culture is a creation of the far left who demand uniformity in thought and speech. Let them live with it. Why are White liberals surprised that Black social justice warriors call them out for their own racism? You know why. Liberal White people don’t see their own racism, that’s why. And, they sure don’t like it pointed out to them.

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Jazz Shaw 7:20 PM | March 18, 2024
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