Latest News USA: Racist Caricature In Depiction Of Black Woman Looking To Be City’s First Female Mayor
Amid the launch of her mayoral campaign, Tami Sawyer, who is looking to become Memphis’ first female mayor, is already facing racism. She became really disturbed upon seeing a recent cover of Memphis Magazine, which featured caricatures of two other candidates running for mayor and herself. They all had exaggerated features on the magazine cover but it was Sawyer’s image that was most offensive because it included symbols which have been historically used to mock black women.
“I just felt like I was slapped in the face. My face got red,” Sawyer told HuffPost. “And immediately my eyes welled up with tears. I just can’t believe it. It wasn’t that I recognize myself in the caricature, but I knew from the arrangement of the cover who that was supposed to be. And I was appalled.”
A peep at the image reveals the exaggerated nose and lips with ragged hair by the artist, Chris Ellis. In a Facebook comment where a user shared her disgust with the illustration, Ellis said the point wasn’t to take a cheap shot.
“I submitted numerous versions of everyone until the editor, art director, and publisher were satisfied,” Ellis wrote. “More than that I cannot do, not should I. Nevertheless, I am unhappy about having provoked ill feelings in you.”
However, the magazine issued an apology which Sawyer found even more offensive.
“It was not our intention to demean any of the candidates or to satirize one more than the others, but we are sympathetic to the perceptions our readers have shared. We regret and apologize for any pain this caricature of public figures has caused,” the apology read, in part.
“For over four decades now, Memphis magazine has been a progressive voice in this city, a city which has historically had very few voices of that persuasion,” it continued. “With every issue we publish, we hope we are building upon that progressive tradition. We would ask any of our readers who think otherwise to review the past issues of Memphis.”
“The initial apology was as offensive as the magazine itself,” Sawyer told HuffPost. “It was defensive. … And then to call themselves, ‘Hey, we’re progressive!’ They might as well have been like, ‘We have Black friends, guys.”
She told HuffPost that she’s been receiving death threats for years, including from people who threatened to throw her into the Mississippi River with a noose around her neck.
“The violence that people throw at me and throw at my body just propels me,” Sawyer told HuffPost. “You’re proving my point. … You’re proving that you do not see me as human, as a Black person or as a Black woman.”
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