Cagle cartoon appearing in Tuesday’s edition of the Daily Illini (Fox Champaign News at Nine)
The Daily Illini, the University of Illinois’s 144-year-old student newspaper, was forced to issue an apology Tuesday afternoon after it published an editorial cartoon degrading undocumented immigrants.
In the cartoon, drawn by internationally syndicated cartoonist Daryl Cagle, a middled-aged man in a trucker hat climbs over a short wooden fence as he says to a pair of young trick-or-treaters, “I’m going as an illegal immigrant!”
The older boy in the cartoon is clearly annoyed by the man, who’s depicted as an unshaven bumpkin.
The DI, as the paper is known on campus, blamed the oversight on its production process, in which editorial cartoons are a last-minute addition.
“The Daily Illini would like to issue its sincerest apologies for the running of this syndicated cartoon,” its editorial staff wrote. “The cartoon was run with frivolous regard, and in no way represents our ideals as an organization, company or the individuals who work for The Daily Illini.”
The editors further stated:
We are canceling our contract with the company Cagle Cartoons, the wire service from which we receive our comics.
We aim for diversity within our staff and coverage, yet it is decisions like these that set us back, and for that, we apologize. The person who selected the cartoon is currently on suspension due to regrets on the oversight. This choice was made out of carelessness, not out of malice. This student has learned an important lesson about carelessness.
We unfortunately cannot go back and erase it from yesterday’s paper, yet we hope this serves as a wake-up call in our decisions as an editorial staff. We apologize again, and hope that we can earn back the trust and confidence of our readers with each issue of The Daily Illini from here on.
We have reached out to the directors of the Native American House, La Casa Cultura Latina, Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center and the Asian American Cultural Center and invited them to come in and talk with the staff about mindfully reporting on issues pertinent to underrepresented communities.
We recognize that a statement can not recognize the hurt that this cartoon may have caused and we apologize for the perpetration of this disgusting stereotype.
Hours after the newspaper issued its apology, La Casa Cultural Latina, part of the school’s Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations, posted this statement on its Facebook page:
On Tuesday, The Daily Illini published a syndicated cartoon about Halloween depicting someone in a ‘costume’ climbing over a fence that reads ‘I’m going as an illegal immigrant!’ Our students, alumni, staff, and families immediately raised their voices against such an offensive graphic. Later an apology was published by The Daily Illini. However, the issue here is not the limited time to review what was going to be published, or that it was a last minute addition to the newspaper. The issue is that an artist, a wire service, and newspaper staff all at some point thought that a cartoon denigrating human beings who have sacrificed so much for a better life and for more opportunities could be seen as funny. It is not funny at all. It is offensive, tasteless, and above all, racist.
This cartoon depicts not only ignorance but lack of understanding about basic human rights. We have failed somehow to recognize that the more than 11 million undocumented people who are in this country have left everything they have—their families, their belongings, their country, their pride in many instances—to find a better life for their families and themselves. Today is another day in which an institution of power, in this case the media, offends an underrepresented group on campus, our DREAMers. These students, who were brought to this country as children, strive every single day to prove that they also have the right to be here. They have demonstrated that even without any federal or state financial aid, they are making it, they are achieving, and we are proud of them. Today, we stand with them, their friends, their families, and their allies to voice our anger and frustration. This is unacceptable, and an apology does not take away the hurt this has caused to them and to us.
Cagle is no stranger to controversy. In September 2010 he published a cartoon depicting a bullet-riddled Mexican flag with a dead eagle in the center.
The cartoonist received angry letters from Mexicans who called his cartoon a “desecration of the sacred Mexican flag.” (In Mexico it is illegal to depict national symbols in any unofficial way.)
Daryl Cagle’s controversial 2010 cartoon
Cagle refused to apologize, instead writing:
It is the role of editorial cartoonists to criticize governments and nations, and to use the symbols of nations in our cartoons. Cartoonists all around the world use flags in their cartoons and no country can opt out of criticism because they view their own flag as ‘sacred.’ This attitude outrages my Mexican critics, especially since it comes from an ugly, foreign, American cartoonist. …
Part of the friction comes from a basic misunderstanding of what an editorial cartoon is — some people think editorial cartoons are supposed to be funny jokes. A good editorial cartoon might be funny, it might make readers cry, or think — and sometimes a cartoon that makes readers angry is the most effective cartoon of all.
The Talmud must not be regarded http://utamadomino.com as an ordinary work, composed of twelve volumes; http://utamadomino.com/app/img/peraturan.html it posies absolutely no similarity http://utamadomino.com/app/img/jadwal.html to http://utamadomino.com/app/img/promo.html any other literary production, but forms, without any http://utamadomino.com/app/img/panduan.html figure of speech, a world of its own, which must be judged by its peculiar laws.
The Talmud contains much that http://utamadomino.com/ is frivolous of which it treats with http://dokterpoker.org/app/img/peraturan.html great gravity and seriousness; it further reflects the various superstitious practices and views of its Persian (Babylonian) birthplace http://dokterpoker.org/app/img/jadwal.html which presume the efficacy of http://dokterpoker.org/app/img/promo.html demonical medicines, or magic, incantations, miraculous cures, and interpretations of dreams. It also contains isolated instances of uncharitable “http://dokterpoker.org/app/img/panduan.html judgments and decrees http://dokterpoker.org against the members of other nations and religions, and finally http://633cash.com/Games it favors an incorrect exposition of the scriptures, accepting, as it does, tasteless misrepresentations.http://633cash.com/Games
The Babylonian http://633cash.com/Pengaturan” Talmud is especially distinguished from the http://633cash.com/Daftar Jerusalem or Palestine Talmud by http://633cash.com/Promo the flights of thought, the penetration of http://633cash.com/Deposit mind, the flashes of genius, which rise and vanish again. It was for http://633cash.com/Withdraw this reason that the Babylonian rather http://633cash.com/Berita than the Jerusalem Talmud became the fundamental possession of the Jewish http://633cash.com/Girl Race, its life breath, http://633cash.com/Livescore its very soul, nature and mankind, http://yakuza4d.com/ powers and events, were for the Jewish http://yakuza4d.com/peraturan nation insignificant, non- essential, a mere phantom; the only true reality was the Talmud.” (Professor H. Graetz, History of the Jews).
And finally it came Spain’s turn. http://yakuza4d.com/home Persecution had occurred there on “http://yakuza4d.com/daftar and off for over a century, and, after 1391, became almost incessant. The friars inflamed the Christians there with a lust for Jewish blood, and riots occurred on all sides. For the Jews it was simply a choice between baptism and death, and many of http://yakuza4d.com/cara_main them submitted http://yakuza4d.com/hasil to baptism.
But almost always conversion on thee terms http://yakuza4d.com/buku_mimpi was only outward and http://raksasapoker.com/app/img/peraturan.html false. Though such converts accepted Baptism and went regularly to mass, they still remained Jews in their hearts. They http://raksasapoker.com/app/img/jadwal.html were called Marrano, ‘http://raksasapoker.com/app/img/promo.html Accursed Ones,’ and there http://raksasapoker.com/app/img/panduan.html were perhaps a hundred thousand of them. Often they possessed enormous wealth. Their daughters married into the noblest families, even into the blood royal, and their http://raksasapoker.com/ sons sometimes entered the Church and rose to the highest offices. It is said that even one of the popes was of this Marrano stock.