After the Secret Service got caught up in a blunder, letting an intruder get passed security and into the White House, it was only a matter of time before the media would take shots at them. While some media outlets cracked jokes, one newspaper took humor to an uncomfortable level.
Appearing in the Wednesday edition of The Boston Globe, renowned cartoonist Jerry Holbert sketched a cartoon of the White House intruder in a bathroom. The intruder is pictured taking a bubble bath, while President Obama is leaning over the sink, brushing his teeth. The cartoon appears harmless, but in a bubble above the intruder reads a question that many have found offensive. “Have you tried the new watermelon flavored toothpaste?,” the intruder asks the president.
The Boston Globe received backlash from readers who were highly offended by the cartoon’s racist undertones. In response to the backlash, Gwen Gage, a spokesman for the Boston Globe, stated that “contributors to our Editorial and Opinion pages have the right to express their views, and satire is clearly used in Jerry Holbert’s cartoon Wednesday.” During an interview on Wednesday’s Boston Globe radio show, Holbert attempted to defend himself from the criticism, saying that he had “no intention at all of offending anyone,” and that is cartoon was “stupid” and “naive.” Holbert repeatedly said that he didn’t see the “racist element” and that he was only thinking of himself. Holbert stated, “I really like watermelon.”
His words: “It was completely naïve or innocent of any racial suggestion. I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all,” said Jerry Holbert, who has been drawing political cartoons for the newspaper since 1986.
Holbert made the apology during an interview on Boston Herald radio with Joe Battenfeld and Hillary Chabot on Wednesday morning, just hours after snapshots and links to the cartoon went viral.
Holbert told Chabot and Battenfeld that the idea to use “watermelon” instead of “peppermint” or another common toothpaste flavor in the text of the cartoon came after he looked through a cupboard and discovered someone had left “a kids Colgate watermelon flavor” there.
“I, myself, love watermelon, and I thought that would be a great one,” he said.
After images of another version of the cartoon that were featured on a syndicate site called GoComics.com made the rounds online, there was speculation—including from Boston—about whether the Herald chose to change the name of the toothpaste flavor right before the newspaper went to print.
But Holbert clarified Wednesday that it was his intention to include the term “watermelon” in his cartoon, not thinking about the racial connotations, and the switch to “raspberry” was made by outside editors since his cartoons are syndicated.
Holbert told the radio station that on Tuesday night someone wrote to him and asked if they could change the watermelon reference, and he was “confused” by the request. “I changed it to raspberry and sent it back to them,” he said.
Why others noticed the racial implications before publishing, but the Herald didn’t, still remains unclear.
The Herald issued an apology Wednesday as conversations swirled online, gaining national attention, but they failed to address that answer, and merely stated they were sorry for “inadvertently” offending anyone who read the political cartoon.
“I also apologize to anyone I offended, it was not my intention at all,” said Holbert. “I don’t think along the lines of racial jokes, I never do. Naïve, stupid—those kinds of things I understand. But racist, I am definitely not.”
Talking Points Memo pointed out on Wednesday that the cartoon was also published on Gocomics.com. Instead of referring to watermelon flavored toothpaste, the cartoon depicts the intruder asking about raspberry flavored toothpaste.
