Last week, readers of Maddow Blog were the first to suggest that the creator of the racist Tea Party Comix might be the same person selling them on eBay. So far as we can tell, that seller, Tom Kalb, runs a store called Caveman Comics, in Mesa, Arizona.
I wrote to Kalb and asked him to talk to us about the Tea Party Comix. On Sunday, he told us he has stopped selling them on eBay. "As far as 'who-dun-it?', if I knew I wouldn't tell you or anyone," Kalb wrote. "I'm not into hurting people." (Full text, after the jump.)
Ethan Persoff, who posted the first three issues of Tea Party Comix on Comics with Problems, tells us he also heard from Tom Kalb, right after he posted the third issue last week. Persoff redacts the name and includes a redacted screenshot and full text, including: "[P]lease see my caracature of Janet Napolatano in Tea Party Comix #2!"
Persoff's done a lot of digging. You'll see below that Kalb asked us about a particular page showing a kid wearing an Alan Keyes T-shirt. Persoff's got that posted, along with screenshots from Kalb's eBay sales.
I'm still hoping Kalb will talk to us about the Tea Party Comix, which I still think are racist. I want to hear what he has to say, and I've told him as much. Before I contacted Kalb, I bought the series from him on eBay, hoping they might contain a clue about the creator's identity. Assuming the comics show up -- and Kalb's got a 100 percent positive rating on eBay -- I'll share anything that seems noteworthy. We still don't know whether Kalb identifies with the Tea Party movement. Talking Points Memo got a denouncement and a denial from Tea Party leaders.
Meanwhile, here's this from Persoff: "If these were published in a forum like National Lampoon in the 1970s we'd likely applaud it as daring and hilarious. And I know a lot of people who agree with me. So there is space in this discussion for appreciating Tea Party Comix, even if they're possibly the most racist looking things since, say, Clean Fun Starring Shoogafoot Jones."
From Tom Kalb:
Excuse the delay, but it is hard to respond to someone who suggests that you "did" something and calls you a "racist" and asks for a "discussion" all in a few sentences.
I am no longer selling them on Ebay or anywhere. I do not consider them "racist", and probably over one hundred million other Americans wouldn't consider them "racist". In YOUR circles I'm sure everyone does. ..Should the artist have portrayed him as a "Greek God"? I'm sure even then, it would be "racist" to many. He is the President, and EVERY President has been portrayed in an unflattering light by cartoonists who are against that president's policies.
FYI, I am pretty sure that leftist bloggers have still not posted the page with the kid handing out Tea Party Comix, who happens to be wearing an "Alan Keyes 2008" tee shirt. OR the "Luke Cage" comics in which the HERO is black.... You tell ME, is it TRUTH you are looking for, or is at an agenda you wish to attend to?
I understand, this is what you do and who you are. And why I hesitated to respond at all.
I only responded because you were a "customer", and I am old fashioned that way. I am no longer selling the item because it offends "some", and I never had enough of them to make any real money anyway.
As far as "who-dun-it?", if I knew I wouldn't tell you or anyone. I'm not into hurting people.
You are free to edit this as you will. Hopefully you are not as "evil" as I think you may be. I myself listen to Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and others EVERY day, so you can understand MY trepidation....
Let's leave it at that, I have a business to attend to, a sick dog and and aging mother. I have NO interest in internet debate. -Tom Kalb
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Sounds Like this Tom Kalb is Just as Equally Guilty for Selling Them, and He Doesn't Know Who Made these Comic Books?
The Comic is Targeting Anti- Hindu, but the Racist Sentiment Out there Really is Anti-Muslim??
If Comic Book Creator is Identified as Being in the Tea Party ( I am Sure He is ), Just Another Link, in LInking the Tea Party to Prejudice and Racism!!!
Diana B
Hmmmmm... looks like a lot of the 30's and 40's racist comics. Clearly, tho, the artist is good enough to have the black man look enough like Obama to be recognizable.
The care and feeding of nut-jobs.
I think the phrase "He can't be racist; he's wearing an Alan Keyes' t-shirt" really needs to find its way into our vernacular. It's way better than the "I have black friends" pitch that people toss out.
I believe he made his point that he isn't racist. Yet who does he listen to everyday and where does he live? I don't think he even knows the definition of "racist". In my life time no other President has slandered like Barack Obama with racial slur-type cartoons. One other President has been put in the same position and many of his cartoons were very racial for his stand on slavery, Abraham Lincoln. He is racist!!!
Hey Hey Hey not everyone in arizona is a racist!
...time to add 'regionalist' to our lexicon.... It's so annoying the bi-coastals toss this BS around so often... travel a little...spend some quality time in other parts of the country people.. it's a PURPLE country not red and blue... stop it.
The fact that he does not feel the comics are racists and yet he has complaints about them being so, makes his agenda at only making money...and feelings (hurt or not) are unimportant. Or so it would seem.
He wants to make sure he dosen't deny his loyalty...
any comic that needs explanation is not being read the way you intended... if he is claiming this uber sophisticated critique beneath the minstral show cartoons - he better cop to the fact that his audience is not at all sophisticated when it comes to race or class or economics for that matter and so will not be reading it with the subtlety he claims he indends...R.Crumb he ain't.
Well, using his logic, guess the old caricatures and newspaper "comix" back in the 1870's during and after the Reconstruction Era weren't "racist" either! Isn't it strange how all the GOP/right-wing rhetoric is so similar to the insecurities and angst of those days?! Rachel, please do a show showing the newspapers of this period in our history, along with the sentiments and how much they sound like the right-wing of today. The danger of that period is that it directly lead to the KKK and their terrorism. Could such terrorism be implemented after 2012 if Obama wins the WH again?
Great idea Raymond. I sometimes try to argue with people here in Arizona bringing up how the Irish were vilified when they immigrated here and I get glazed eyes and a lot of "No they weren't". Some visual reminders of the hatefulness of the past that seems to be revisiting us today would be helpful for all to see.
Absolutly a good idea! not only the racist reconstruction era caricatures, but all the racist and xenophobic drwas towards irish too.
caune,
Every time I bring up how our country has this habit of being racists to any new immigrant movement, I get shot down. I swear if the "illegal" status was legal, we'd still have anti-Mexican hatred going on. The fact that they can pinpoint "illegal" on to the movement, it fuels the hatred into being "legit" and ok.
the tea party is riding on the unddercurrent of of race and religon.
There are PLENTY of illegal whites in the US... and lots of them are Irish, English, Canadian... but they are essentially invisible. Nor are they seen as problematic. When we talk bout 'illegals' we are talking about people who are brown.
Good point! Now how about those pesky Cubans? All they need do is reach shore and they are welcomed with open arms. Yet, they aren't vilified as "illegals".
That there are, EAMc - which is part of my point. This whole thing is very complex. Fascinating, like Rachel says, and yet very scary.
Between 9/11 and and going through the Iraq/ Afghan war and the collapse of our economy...and President Obama being elected in...this Tea Party movement is very fascist...national & racial identity mixed with war and economy blow out..
If McCain would have won...we wouldn't hear about a tea party movement. If President Obama was white, born in and raised in Iowa and had no affiliation with Muslim, say step-father and school...he would not be picked upon with such vigor.
I don't care if a president was of any race or color or religious creed...and personally if he was even born here...what matters is in his heart for the good of the American people...and people in general. Some immigrants have more love and heart for America then natural born citizens do.
I want a president who loves the American people - not power. I think we have that president. :)
Wow, you people are easy.
Racists are too much like those who are insane! An insane person usually thinks their way of thinking and acting is perfectly normal, and others who DON'T share their way of thinking are insane! They also rarely, if ever, ADMIT that they're insane! How many of you have heard a racist admit they are racist??
way to oversimplify mental illness. kudos.
now apologize to people who have to deal with said illnesses for putting them in the same box as racists.
I am a cartoonist. In looking over this material here is my take. The illustration skill level and style is mediocre, and the subject matter is, at the very least, in poor taste.
Don't give this guy one more minute of media press coverage, you are feeding a monster in comic clothing.
Want to see some fine illustrations and good humor in cartoon form? Go to my blog at http://leftfieldcomic.blogspot.com/ and give a starving artist who is trying to do good things in this world the break she needs.
Sherri Faye,
Artist/Writer/Thinker/Voice
I see it as free speech. Silly, stupid and racially incendiary, but free speech, nonetheless. But Freedom of Speech comes with responsibility. If you are going to speak, publish or sell something that is controversial, you should at least have the stones to defend your actions. Running and hiding, or deflecting the conversation (you are "evil") is juvenile and cowardly IMHO.
Why do people always do this. Free speech is about being protected from THE STATE shutting you down...not from being criticized by other citizens who point out that you are a racist, you are full of @!$%#, you are stupid, you are not talented...etc etc etc...
This is not a 'free speech' issue.
Oh my, he sure is "fond" of putting things in "quotations," as well as making his POINT with gratuitous CAPITALIZATION.
It is interesting how much he sounds like the people he listens to, even in plain text.
This is so sad and irresponsible. I don't believe this garbage will make someone into a racist, it just fuels the fires of the racists out there and these can be dangerous people.
He listens to "Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and others EVERY day"? Either he is very thorough in trying to understand (as much as *that* might be possible!) the white-wing nutjobs and tea-baggers (highly unlikely, but not impossible), or else he is indeed a full-on racist (cf. Occam's Razor). There just isn't much room in between.
The New Slavery
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Web_Links&l_op=visit&lid=152
Bob
It's amazing that he won't stand behind what he sells, whether he makes them himself or not, and even worse that he's willing to invoke an aging mother as cover. That's the kind of intellectual cowardice I've come to expect from right-wingers.
Mr. Kalb; If you did not write them, and then you sold them, and you don't think they are racist, but that they may have offended some people, then what the heck are you talking about? Are you trying to bring back Amos and Andy? I agree with Mr. Richards that it is intellectual cowardice, because you are either framing an issue, or your entertaining racists. I did not read Crumb's caricatures in Zap comix, nor did I read the quoted National lampoon above, nor do I listen to certain slave based words, used by MNM and Richard Prior. I have made jokes when I was a kid that I am ashamed for. Speech entails responsibility, not political correctness. Be responsible; I don't care if you fly the stars and bars inside your house, but don't shove it down my face in public.
Why does he put "racist", "customer", and "who-dun-it" in quotes? Is he being ironic? Please, someone send him a book on grammar and punctuation.
I have the sneaking suspicion that overall this is something that should not have been news. Honestly spending more than a precursory glance at this strikes me as pointless. I'd much rather have us covering things that are in some way making an impact on our country in a large way. While I am in total agreement that racism isn't something to be condoned, coming back to it time and time again only adds fuel to the fire. And obviously the actions of this fellow prove that he is not standing by his original marketing decision, so why should it go any further? Simply put: drop the racial stories because it is only going to fuel racially motivated hatred to a new level making it "cool" for the fringe of society because it is not socially acceptable.
The thing is, the racism of the Tea Party movement actually does matter.
We can't make racism go away by ignoring it.
I think the fact that he's said he's not selling them any more is interesting, too. I certainly don't want him to do that. He has every right in the world to sell them, to make them if he's the one making them, etc., and if he's been pressured into stopping I think that matters too.
He probably ran afoul of some ebay TOS agreement... and it was pointed out to ebay...
I agree with i40west.
I think most people are decent and fair. By publicizing this kind of stuff, more people become aware and disgusted with this vileness and turn away from those who push it.
Tom Kalb: Poor Sicko. Bring out the white coats, put him away with the help he needs, then let him be. No more attention for his ignorant, hateful kind.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and hangs around with other ducks, its almost certainly a duck. Failing to see one's self-image as being racist is an admission of error which people like him will never admit. Just as a person is what he eats, so a person is what he consumes through his other senses. You cannot be a regular listener to those who preach fear, hate, bigotry, distortions of fact, conspiracies and lies without absorbing and becoming of the same genre. This man is so filled with fear, anger and hate that he strikes out in the only way he knows how. He has been disappointed with his status and success (or lack thereof) in life and he is fearful of people who look, act and believe differently from him. He is willing to slander and hurt a group or specific individual he fears or hates but his insecurity and cowardice will not allow him to take credit for the garbage he produces. Not worth another minute of news or TV time.
There are other words in the dictionary besides racist--like nationalist and fascist.
The thing about art is that it reveals things even an artist isn't aware of. He may believe he is just trying to draw Obama in a negative light to show that he is the enemy, but to him that means drawing him, literally, blacker than he is. But the racism is only one aspect to his broader nationalist view.
The message I see in these comics is only people who subscribe to a conservative, capitalist ideology are real Americans.
The Tea Party has been redefining the term "American" as a label that only applies to people with a particular ideology. This is a struggle over national identity. Black people may be included in their definition of American, but only if they're conservative. When they talk about reclaiming America, they're talking about an identity.
They're not segregationists, they're assimilationists. They're anti-subculture or believe subculture is overtaking the mainstream culture, if it hasn't already. They may very well accept black people, Latinos, gays and women as equals, but only if they assimilate into what they view as the real American culture and abandon African-American, Latino, queer or feminist identity. That's why they don't view their ideology as racist--anyone is welcome, as long as you lose your ties to any subcultures you might have.
I think they believe they are losing the culture war because all the minorities have united against them. And maybe they view Obama as the enemy because he has united the left. The right is monocultural and orderly and the left is diverse and egalitarian. (And yes, I am aware of the hypocrisy, but maybe it's not necessary to point out who else has believed in a monocultural state. It's a bad idea no matter who holds it.)
they desperately need to re-read Adam Smith....
Point is this is not 1970's, we are talking about today. The mention of the merit of other possibly similar publications is no excuse. I don't wish to attribute to the work by the patronage of my clicks but there is a fine line between humor and bigotry.
Intent has a lot to do with it. Intent such as, if the artist doing it because of their personal racial distaste for the subject or whether it is purely tasteless humor taking advantage of a popular topic's potential for revenue and recognition. Some classify both reasons as one and the same because the artist/commentator/satirist is responsible for his/her work and all of the emotions that it can create.
I must ask Rachel Maddow and the rest of her staff WHY she is promoting racist comic books. This is the most disgusting junk I have seen. Then at the end of this thread the link to a suga foot jones ??????? What type of stuff are u guys promoting?
That auto tunes stuff is racist. This is NOT funny. The racism exhibited over and over again at MSNBC is mind blowing. I guess you will start regular showings of Step and Fetchit anytime now and call it news.
Is discussing racism racist?
You are not discussing racism with dumb comic books. That is insane. Is that the excuse this site gives for promoting this vile mess? Go on u tube. One can pull up all types of racist rants and pictures from back in the day . What is wrong with people?????? What is gained by promoting this obvious racist vile crap. This might as well be a site for the KKK. I am not understanding the motive.
A link to suga foot jones????? Really, that helps u discuss racism? This is disgusting.
The dumb comic books give us insight into how the Tea Party thinks
This site isn't promoting the comic books, they are condemning it. If it's ignored it, it doesn't actually go away...it just gets worse.
We do have to acknowledge racism exists and the ways it manifests itself in order to discuss it. There's no way to discuss racism without saying what it is. Since people aren't born knowing how to be racist, then we have to figure out how some people get that way in order to undo it or prevent it.
Tanya pointing out things like this doesn't mean they are promoting. They are informing others who may want to see deeper into the minds and lives of people who vow they are not racist and belong to the teaparty and the republicans.
The KKK can be explored on the Internet. The tea party is not new. No matter how much the white media trys the tea party is the KKK.
If you want to study the tea party, google KKK If you read closely you will find both have the same agenda. The tax stuff is a front. This is not a hard thing to understand. Comic books are not needed.
Racism
1. the belief that races have distinctive cultural characteristics determined by hereditary factors and that this endows some races with an intrinsic superiority over others
2. abusive or aggressive behaviour towards members of another race on the basis of such a belief
racist , racialist n & ad
the comic portrays the president as being an angry anti white monster, who only associates with other monsters and black people who hate white people. the reason the comic is here is to show the true feelings of its promoters. if the names were changed and there wasn't a political spin, im sure anyone looking at this would see it as a racist and disgusting doodle. unfortunately it is about the president so people actually buy it... like mr kalb said,"Hopefully you are not as "evil" as I think you may be. I myself listen to Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager, Michael Savage, Mark Levin and others EVERY day, so you can understand MY trepidation...." i could not have said it better myself
I see one cannot comment under that auto tune story at the top of this blog. This site is just offensive. There is NOTHING funny about sexual attacks/rape. I guess its funny when it is about Black people living in the projects. Do you guys really think this is funny??????? WOW
Racists comic books, links to suga foote jones and singing Black victims. This site is a riot.