Haitian Refugees Slideshow

In doing research for my cartoon on the disgusting and discriminatory treatment of Haitian refugees, I came across a helpful and extremely long slideshow on Yahoo. One of my favorites is below. The show includes a lot of photos both of the refugees being detained and of protesters demanding their freedom (but it has since been removed, sadly).

Jeb looks away as Rep. Carrie Meek calls on him to help the refugees.

Refugees Cartoon Roundup, part 2 (see part 1)

The really obnoxious thing about a lot of the cartoons I've seen about the 200+ Haitian refugees currently being detained by the INS is that they're not even about the particular problems faced by the refugees, but an excuse to make some other comments:

Now, Bruce Plante is a nice guy (I got to meet him at a big political cartoonist dinner thing last year) but I totally disagree with this cartoon--which seems to suggest the arrival of the refugees is proof of how we need to beef up "Homeland Security." I'm particularly disturbed by the caricature of the man holding the newspaper. Who is he supposed to represent--Osama Bin Laden or just some horrible generic stereotype of a maniacal hook-nosed Arab Islamic Fundamentalist? Um. Eeeeek. Help.

John Trever also uses the Haitian refugee situation as an excuse to make a snide attack on those who dare to suggest the rest of the world has reason to hate us. Apparently he takes the fact that so many people want to live in the US as proof that they love us? But I would argue that part of the reason people in many other countries have so little is because America has too much... which it apparently doesn't want to share with any Haitian refugees.

I will say flat-out that I don't think I've ever even VAGUELY agreed with any of conservative cartoonist Chuck Asay's ideas, and this cartoon is no exception. Here he contrasts opportunistic politicians' views of what he refers to merely as "illegal immigrants" (and not "refugees") with what he presents as the "normal" person's reaction to Haitian migrants, which apparently involves a thought bubble containing the words "Illegals!" and a phone call to the INS. This sort of thing makes me feel nauseous... Stacy, a reader who saw the cartoon, thought that perhaps it makes a point its author isn't even aware of:

okay, if asay's drawing has a point (which may have escaped him) it is that almost everybody sees these haitians as only one more variable in a "success formula" and not as people in desperate circumstances

I completely agree. Sadly, the only new cartoon I saw on the subject that actually addressed the subject of discrimination against Haitian refugees was this one by Don Wright. But most of the new cartoons I saw today weren't about the refugees at all, but were just gags about Winona Ryder's shoplifting trial...