Q Toon: Trading Places

Linebacker Carl Nassib of the Las Vegas Raiders came out as gay last week, the first active NFL player ever to do so. He did just about everything about his coming out right, except for waiting until immediately after my deadline for last week's cartoon. But we'll let that pass.

His video announcement had a somewhat matter-of-fact air; there was no sense of any personal crisis or I've Been Trying So Hard To Live A Lie, no apologies, no regrets. Perhaps most importantly, he didn't make the announcement purely about himself, instead pledging $100,000 to the Trevor Project.

“They’re an incredible organization, they’re the number one suicide-prevention service for LGBTQ youth in America and they’re truly doing incredible things. I’m very excited to be a part of it and help in any way that I can and I’m really pumped to see what the future holds.”

As part of a determined show of support for Nassib, the NFL has matched his pledge; the publicity also sparked a 100% increase in on-line donations in the first week after Nassib's announcement.

Meanwhile, teammates, coaches, and many others around the league have expressed moral support for Nassib, and we're just not hearing the sort of qualified tolerance or even homophobia that would have greeted such a statement twenty or thirty years ago. (Or just eight.)

Oh, no doubt that antipathy is out there, muttered sotto voce. We just aren't hearing it.

Q Toon: Deal Or No Deal?

As a cartoonist, I love sitting down to my drawing board when I have a subject who is ripe for caricature.

No, I don't mean Georgia Governor Nathan Deal. He's got a face like a bowl of grits.

I'll probably never have another reason to draw Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, but his face has all the definition a caricaturist could ever want. If Hollywood wanted to cast someone to play the president, generalissimo, or financier of Greece, Italy, or a Latin American country circa 1972, his face would be perfect.

In case you haven't been following Georgia politics lately, the state legislature has passed what they call a "Free Exercise Protection Act," which doesn't do anything to ensure the safety of weight lifters and joggers. Rather, it purports to protect discrimination against same-sex couples by anyone who professes "sincerely held religious beliefs" as the basis for denying housing, employment, or other services to people they don't like.

Blank's Atlanta Falcons have been pushing for a new football stadium in the hopes of hosting the Superbowl soon after it is finished, but now the NFL has announced that the league will not site any Superbowl in the state of Georgia if Deal signs the Free Exercise Protection Act into law.

Considering that, Blank, not surprisingly, opposes the Georgia bill.

"I strongly believe a diverse, inclusive and welcoming Georgia is critical to our citizens and the millions of visitors coming to enjoy all that our great state has to offer,” Blank said in a statement. “House Bill 757 undermines these principles and would have long-lasting negative impact on our state and the people of Georgia."

Disney, film production companies, tech firms, and even Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola! — have also threatened to pull out of the state over FEPA.

Governor Deal has until May 3 to decide whether sincerely held religious beliefs are trumped by sincerely held economic ones.

By Their Fruit Shall Ye Know Them

I first saw Jerry Holbert's Boston Herald cartoon about intruders in the White House on the gocomics.com site, so I didn't see anything wrong with it. The cartoon shows President Obama brushing his teeth in the White House living quarters bathroom, surprised by a stranger bathing in the tub behind him who says, "Have you tried the new raspberry flavored toothpaste?"

Only that's not how it appeared in the Boston Herald. In their original version, the toothpaste flavor was watermelon, which a lot of people thought echoed the racist image of Little Black Sambos grinning from ear to ear enjoyin' demsefs a big ol' watermelon.

“I feel awful about the perception that it was racist, but it was nothing of the sort,” Holbert tells The Washington Post’s Comic Riffs. “I wanted another flavor of toothpaste for the cartoon, and we had a bottle of Colgate kids’ toothpaste that was watermelon-flavored … watermelon seems to be a big flavor these days, so…I went with it.”

Apparently, the editors at Holbert's syndicate thought it was something of the sort, enough to have him change the toothpaste flavor; anything of the sort certainly slipped by his editors at the Boston Herald.

There has been a lot of things of the sort going on lately. Some feminists were upset by a Jeopardy category this week called "What Women Want" (for example, "Some help around the house; would it kill you to get out the Bissell bagless canister one of these every once in a while?" "What is a vacuum cleaner?") Christianists have complained about people mocking Tim Tebow's praying on the football field, but no team he played on was ever penalized 15 yards for it as the Kansas City Chiefs' Husain Abdullah was Monday night.

Do racism, sexism, or religious bigotry have to be intentional? In effect, no. The name of the Washington Redskins and the tomahawk chop of the Atlanta Braves (and surely of the Chiefs) offend Native Americans whether or not someone sat down and decided, "You know what? I think we should all get together and offend some Indians."

It isn't Political Correctness to try to avoid giving offense to people, intentionally or unintentionally. Yes, there may be some hypersensitive people out there, and I myself certainly can't promise that I'll never offend some group of people. Heck, I'd say that I offend people for a living except that I don't quite make a living from it.

But we take this episode as another warning to be mindful of stereotypes and cultural insensitivity. I'm not sure how anybody could fail to catch the racist association there is between African-Americans and watermelons. Image-googling "Obama watermelon" will show you that there are plenty of racist assholes out there who know it very well.

Q Toon: NFL PDA

This week's cartoon probably comes too late for my monthlies and too early for my weeklies. With Adrian Peterson smiling back at me from my breakfast box of Wheaties, where else could I go this week?

Paul Berge
Q Syndicate✒Sep 25, 2014

EditorialCartoonists.com

By my count, this is the fifth cartoon I've drawn this year about the NFL — which is a lot, if you consider that I draw one cartoon for Q Syndicate per week. I'm already at one out of ten for the year.

I suppose something had to replace "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Q Toon: Coming Clean

Prior to the St. Louis Rams' decision not to sign openly gay linebacker Michael Sam, ESPN aired a report from Josina Anderson that focused to a weird degree on whether Michael Sam was showering with his teammates or not:

"Another Rams defensive player told me that Sam is, quote, 'respecting our space,' and that, from his perspective, he seems to think that Michael Sam is kind of waiting to take a shower as not to make his teammates feel uncomfortable, while [Kendall] Langford and linebacker Alec Ogletree told me that they didn't know that specifically, and also weren't tracking that. Now, while Langford told me, 'Listen, I have not been in the shower at the same time as Michael Sam,' he said that there definitely could be a million reasons as to why that is; he said he could be doing extra work on the practice field, he could be riding his bike, he could be doing extra cardio. But overall, Langford said, he seems to be adjusting to the life in the NFL and to the state of the game..."

At the risk of having no punch line for this week's cartoon, I didn't want to ridicule Rams players, who for the most part seem to have been most gracious and complimentary of Mr. Sam. Langford was quoted in Anderson's report as saying, "If he doesn't make our team, I'm pretty sure that someone will pick him up on another team. ... He's shown some flashes." (His pre-season flashes included eleven tackles and three sacks, in case you're counting.)

And Chris Long responded to the report by tweeting "Dear ESPN: Everyone but you is over it."

After first defending the report by saying that "multiple Rams brought up the shower topic," the network eventually apologized: "ESPN regrets the manner in which we presented our report. Clearly yesterday we collectively failed to meet the standards we have set in reporting on LGBT-related topics in sports."

Since I sent this cartoon in to Q Syndicate, the Dallas Cowboys have picked Sam up for their practice squad. The former Mizzou defensive end is reportedly thrilled to return to Texas, his childhood home.

Q Toon: The Eve of Distraction

The Tampa Tribune recently quoted former NFL coach Tony Dungy as saying that he would not have drafted openly gay defensive lineman Michael Sam. "I wouldn't have taken him. Not because I don't believe Michael Sam should have a chance to play, but I wouldn’t want to deal with all of it. It’s not going to be totally smooth … things will happen."

Dungy had been less concerned about dealing with less than totally smooth things happening with Michael Vick's return to the NFL after he had served his sentence on dog fighting charges; ESPN describes Dungy as a "mentor" to the rehabilitated quarterback.

After facing some criticism for apparently worrying more about having a gay player on his hypothetical football team than a convicted felon (see Drew Litton's cartoon here), Dungy issued an apology, stating that he has always believed that Michael Sam deserves the same chance to play in the NFL as any straight dude.

"What I was asked about was my philosophy of drafting, a philosophy that was developed over the years, which was to minimize distractions for my teams.
"I do not believe Michael's sexual orientation will be a distraction to his teammates or his organization. I do, however, believe that the media attention that comes with it will be a distraction. Unfortunately we are all seeing this play out now, and I feel badly that my remarks played a role in the distraction."

Later, Dungy appeared on the Dan Patrick Show, where he eventually said, "I would want to wish [Sam] the best and let him know I have no bitterness or animosity to him, even though I don't agree with his lifestyle. I love him and I wish him the best and I'd love to say that to him."

For his part, Michael Sam has taken the high road, telling ESPN that he respects Dungy, and thinks Dungy is entitled to his opinion, but "Thank God he wasn't the St. Louis Rams coach."

Q Toon: You Must Remember This

Well, I went ahead and cartooned about The Kiss anyway this week.

People like ex-Giant Derrick Ward have been stunned to find out that not everyone finds it "disgusting" that Michael Sam would kiss his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano: "Man U got kids lookin at the draft. I can't believe ESPN even allowed that to happen." Happily, this attitude is not universal in the NFL (although there was also Dolphin Don Jones, who was briefly suspended and issued an apology for tweeting that Sam and Cammisano's celebration was "horrible.")

Dallas TV host Amy Kushnir stormed off the set of a local The View-esque TV show when she didn't get unquestioned agreement with her disgust. “When parents do not have a choice about whether or not they want their children to see this, it is wrong…I don’t call it a moment of celebration."

Ward and Kushnir didn't just object to the possibility of children seeing two grown men kiss. They also objected to the possibility of children seeing two grown men pushing cake onto each other's faces.

Said Kushner, "I would have said, 'Get a room!' I don't want to see cake on your faces." All but saying that some of his best friends are gay people, Ward tweeted before running out of characters: "No matter if he's gay or not. I could careless. Shoving cake into your significant others face then deep" (In a subsequent tweet, he completed the thought that Sam and Cammisano had gone "overboard.")

Mixed-sex couples pushing cake onto each other's faces has been a staple feature of every wedding reception I've ever seen . I guess Sam and Cammisano were trying to destroy the sanctity of marriage with that bit of Gay Agenda.

Now Kushnir is defending herself on Fox News, where her right to free speech is protected because nobody  there is going to contradict her. And Ward is claiming that he never said that he would begrudge Sam a little peck on the cheek, like heterosexual athletes do, but going at it like you mean it was just too much for Ward's delicate sensibilities.

Q Toon: Michael Sam

It's been over a week since top NFL draft pick Michael Sam announced to the world that he is gay, so my fellow cartoonists have had plenty of time to draw bulky, hairy bruins quaking in the locker room at the prospect of showering in Mr. Sam's proximity. My cartoon this week is an effort to draw something else, which is too bad for those of my readers who would have enjoyed another picture of naked hunks in their gay newspaper.

One thing that none of my fellow ink-slingers have not drawn is Mr. Sam himself (except from the back or under a helmet). I bought a copy of Sports Illustrated last week in part to make sure that I had plenty of pictures of Michael Sam to work from -- only to find that the cover story about him featured only one photo of his face.

Here's wishing him a long and illustrious career so that I have enough time to get his caricature right.

Title Town, 1962

From the Wisconsin State Journal on January 1, 1962, comes this snapshot of the NFL championship game in the pre-Superbowl era:

NFL's Payoff Richest Ever
Green Bay (UPI) -- The payoff for each player in Sunday's National Football League title game was the richest ever.
Each member of the winning Green Bay Packers received $5,195.44, and each member of the losing New York Giants got $3,339.99.
The total take was $1,013,792, with $300,000 trimmed from the top for the NFL Player Benefit Fund before the proceeds were divided.
A slice of $42,333.25 was set aside for the winner of the Detroit-Philadelphia second-place game in Miami next Saturday.

The second-place teams got a trip to Miami, while the first-place contenders slogged it out on New Year's Eve in Green Bay?