Meghan Markle

Royal Potatoes

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Here’s your cartoon for this week’s CNN Opinion newsletter. Please sign up to get these in your inbox every Sunday. 

When Meghan and Harry talked about someone in the royal family, the Firm, expressing concern over their baby Archie’s skin color, I could relate. I believed them.

My family is closer to trailer parks than it is to palaces, but we have the same shit as the royal family. We have racism and I have family members I can’t talk to anymore.

In 2015, when Donald Trump was just a candidate for the presidency, I had to stop talking to two family members. It wasn’t because they were Trump supporters but them being Trump supporters is indicative of why we don’t talk. The obnoxious hate, ignorance, and narcissism that makes one a Trump supporter extends to other facets of people’s lives

I have several nieces. At that time, one of them was pregnant. She is white though she is Latina but most people may not be aware or they just forget…but whatever. She appears white. Her boyfriend, the father of the child, is black. They all live in a different state than I and you’re about to find out why I don’t want to live near my family.

A family member told my pregnant niece that society would not accept her baby because it would be half black. When I first heard this, I thought maybe there was miscommunication, someone was making it worse than it actually was, or even that she did say something horrible but it wasn’t racist. You see, my family has a penchant for drama and there are members with histories of making shit up. I did not hear it directly from the accused but I wanted to find out for myself.

My sister in-law told me of the offense. Then I talked to my niece who backed it all up and was obviously very upset. So I went straight to the horse’s mouth. I asked her specifically, “Did you say the baby would not be accepted by society because it would be black and white?” She said yes. She was proud and defiant that she said that.

It broke my heart.

I adored this person. I even let this person live with me for several years rent-free. Once, a friend needed to use my printer and I wasn’t home. But the relative who would later claim society won’t accept a mixed-race baby was home. I told my friend, who is female and black, to stop by my house and my relative would let her in. When she got there, my dog went nuts barking at her. My relative told her, fully believing her bullshit, that the dog was barking at her because dogs can’t see black people clearly because they have dog eyes which only allows them to see a grey silhouette when they look at a black person. Seriously. Never mind the fact the dog was a Jack Russell (they bark at everything. They bark at wind) who had already bitten about a dozen of my friends, most of them being white. It was embarrassing when my friend told me of this later but I chalked it up to my relative’s adorable stupidity. She’s not racist. She’s just ignorant and very stupid so don’t be too mad.

I was wrong. She was racist…and ignorant and stupid.

So years later, she’s back living in the Midwest saying hateful, terrible, and racist things to a pregnant teenager. When she admitted she did it, her argument was that we weren’t raised that way. But the racist motherfucker who raised her didn’t raise me and even if he had…it wouldn’t have been an excuse to carry on any stupid family lineage of hate and ignorance. I had to tell her right then, in 2015, that I couldn’t talk to her anymore. I told her I would not bother her, would not call her, and I would not text her. It’s 2021 now and I haven’t contacted her since.

There were a couple of comments here and there on Facebook (she once made hateful public posts about my girlfriend at the time even though my girlfriend had never done or said anything to her. Drama), but I have since blocked her and two others in my family just so I don’t have to see their shit on other family members’ posts and to keep myself from replying to them…or even thinking about them. And for the most part, I don’t think about them until racist royalty gives me a reminder. Oh, yeah. I have racist fucknuts in my family.

But the racism my family member expressed was only a part of the vile thing she said. Have you ever known a pregnant woman? You don’t say mean shit to a woman who is pregnant. You get in trouble when you say innocuous shit to a pregnant woman. I’ve had things thrown at me for asking a pregnant woman if my hair looked OK. She gave my pregnant niece a vile, despicable, hateful shit sundae. The racism was just the shit cherry on the top of the shit sundae.

I still love my family, even the stupid racist ones. But, that doesn’t mean I have to talk to them. From the sounds of it, Harry is still open to talking to his father and brother. If either of them is the perpetrators of the skin-tone comments, I wouldn’t be in a rush to talk to him. The thing is, racist people are not open-minded. It will be a long time and probably never that they ever call and apologize. They will probably never see they were racists or ever did anything wrong. These people are not good at “sorry.”

When I talk to my family members again, if I do, it will be on my terms, not theirs. People like this are poison. It’s best to cut poison out of your life…even if that poison is family. It’s just too bad but you have to cut it out…especially if you’re building a new family. It’s better to keep that poison away from your wife and child. I totally understand why Harry and Meghan moved to Far Far Away. I did too.

My advice when you have troglodytes in the family: Stay away.

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Blame It On Meghan

cjones01152020

Congratulation, Meghan Markle. You are now Yoko Ono.

Is it fair? Of course not. Last week I thought, “Here come the Yoko comparisons,” and within ten minutes, I saw the memes. A staunch conservative friend of mine who doesn’t fit the stereotype (not religious, has gay friends, appreciates good music, has never posted anything about Trump EVER on social media, helped me build this website years ago, not an asshole) posted that it was the funniest thing he’d seen all week. It was NOT the funniest thing I had seen all week. For starters, since I was expecting it, I saw it coming. It was obvious. The other thing is, why are sexism and racism still funny?

Yes. Not only is blaming Meghan Markle for Prince Harry wanting to be less involved with his royal family sexist, but it’s also racist. How so? You never heard anyone blame Linda McCartney for the breakup for The Beatles. What does that have to do with Meghan Markle? Bear with.

Yoko Ono, the wife of John Lennon (duh), is blamed for breaking up the world’s greatest band and songwriting team in history. But the person who officially broke up the band was Paul McCartney, who made the public announcement and filed for the legal dissolution of the band’s partnership. Sure, every member had left the group in a tantrum in the middle of a recording session at some point, but it was Paul who officially killed The Beatles. Should we blame his wife?

I don’t think Linda McCartney broke up The Beatles, but if you’re going to take blame away from the people who were actually in the band and lay it on a wife, then why poor Yoko? Is it because she’s artistic and played music with John? Uh, Linda did that too. The reason Yoko is blamed is that she’s not white. And if you go with that she wasn’t British and cast her as an outsider nationally, Linda wasn’t British either.

And why would Yoko break up The Beatles? Did she manipulate John to believe he didn’t need Paul? He already knew he didn’t need Paul. Hell, even Ringo didn’t need Paul as he had his own number one hits (he needed George, who wrote “Photograph” for him). Paul didn’t need John either. They were geniuses and they both wrote incredible music post-Beatles (despite “Silly Love Songs” and “The Girl Is Mine”). But if it was Yoko’s desire for John to be a bigger star than The Beatles, she failed as John spent the bulk of his time between the band’s breakup and his untimely death holed up in the Dakota being a house husband and recording uncompleted songs on cassette tapes in his living for the band to finish up a decade and a half after his death (still better than “Silly Love Songs”).

If you’re going to blame Yoko for breaking up The Beatles, then maybe we should give her credit for the solo songs “Baby, I’m Amazed,” “Band On The Run,” “War Is Over,” and finally…”Imagine.” Instead, today her name is synonymous with women who break up good things. If we’re going to hate anyone for what they did to the greatest rock and roll band of all time, hate Phil Specter (rapist, indeed). People were blaming Yoko Ono for breaking up The Beatles before The Beatles ever broke up. But The Beatles were never going to last forever. You can’t keep two genius songwriters from flying out on their own. For example: Look at the rock band Kiss and their two main songwriters, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. After nearly 50 years, they’re still together.

John Lennon was an adult at the time capable of making his own decisions. No “tiger woman” had him under a spell forcing his hand, which he joked about in “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” But the fact is, the only one who broke up The Beatles were The Beatles.

But going with a narrative without information is par for the course when it comes to being a conservative. If you design a meme correctly and blame Meghan Markle for pissing off the Queen, Republicans will probably believe she’s the reason we’ll never get another “Bohemian Rhapsody.” At this very moment, conservative bots are sharing bullshit all over the internet claiming that arson in Australia is proof climate change doesn’t exist.

And it’s not just the bots. Rupert Murdoch’s news empire in Australia, where his empire started, is hot (no pun intended) on the false narrative too. While scientists state 3 to 5% of Australia’s wildfires are caused by arson, Murdoch’s outlets are claiming it’s not a climate emergency, but an arson emergency.

Climate change still exists. Even if all of the fires could be blamed on arson, drier and hotter seasons enable these fires to spread further, last longer and destroy more of our environment. Climate change causes it to destroy more personal property and lives. Saying arson is proof climate change doesn’t exist is really just as stupid as blaming Meghan Markle for the wildfires…or Harry distancing himself from his royal responsibilities.

And dammit, right-wing fucknuts. Stop blaming the black girl every time.

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You can help me continue to create cartoons, blogs, and videos by making a contribution. All support, large and small, is greatly appreciated. You can also support me by purchasing a signed print (8 1/2×11) for $40, or a signed poster (18×24) for $100 by clicking the PayPal button (just include a note if you’re purchasing a print). If you want to support but don’t want to use PayPal, you can send a contribution through the mail (address is on the contact page. Again, include a note for a print). I don’t plan on going anywhere and your support will help guarantee that. Whether you support, can’t. or just choose not to, please know that I am truly thankful that you visit my site and read my work.

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From The Trumpster Fire

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Imminent Lies

cjones01132020

Would Donald Trump blame Meghan Markle for her and Prince Harry’s decision to leave the Royal Family? Trump? Blame a black woman for something? Duh! It’s not like it’d be the first time…or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the…etc, etc. After all, he is afraid of strong black women. They’re “nasty.”

I expect Donald Trump to issue a public opinion about Harry and Meghan any time now. It’s something that doesn’t concern or affect him, so it’s right up his alley. Let me remind you, back in the 80’s, he openly discussed having sex with Harry’s mother and wrote in The Art of the Comeback: “I only have one regret in the women department, that I never had the opportunity to court Lady Diana Spencer.” Court? That’s how you know he used a ghostwriter. According some royal sources, Diana felt “stalked” by Trump and it was “creepy.” Yeah, we know the feeling.

He also expressed LOTS of opinions about Kate Middleton being caught by the paparazzi sunbathing in the nude. But maybe that’s acceptable because he’s also expressed several opinions about his two daughters’ bodies.

As Trump scrambles to justify his assassination of Soleimani, he builds one lie on top of another without regard to the appearance of tell-tale signs. As it’s been proven multiple times, Donald Trump is NOT a good negotiator, having been owned by people from Nancy Pelosi to Kim Jong Un to the plaintiffs in lawsuits against the Trump Foundation and Trump University. The man doesn’t have a poker face. So when Trump goes from the claim that Soleimani was targeting one American embassy…to FOUR the very next day, you know he’s making it up as he goes along. It makes you wonder why he didn’t go ahead and claim a thousand? We don’t have a thousand embassies, but who cares? He made the claim at a Trump rally. Next thing you know, Lou Dobbs would be on TV claiming we have a thousand embassies and anyone who doesn’t agree loves terrorists.

This “four embassies” claim presents two of the problems with having Donald Trump as president (sic) of the United States of America. His history of lying has destroyed any credibility the office may have given him. Even in an international crisis, friends, allies, and enemies alike are skeptical of anything Trump claims.

The other problem is that he can’t negotiate or sell. Sure, stupid people buy his shit. There’s probably a Trump shirt-wearing fucknut right now purchasing $15.00 plastic straws to sock it to snowflakes, but the mullahs of Iran may not be as gullible, stupid, or pathetic.

Trump’s own administration has refused to say if four embassies were targeted. They claim it’s classified, even though Trump has declassified it by saying it. They say the president is correct about “imminent threats,” go into a long repeat of Soleimani’s past crimes and never back up Trump on the four embassies thing. They never explicitly state Soleimani was targeting “FOUR” American embassies. There’s gotta be someone in the administration dumb and gung ho enough with a quote to repeat Trump’s claim. Where’s Kellyanne?

And, with the way Trump projects, I’m waiting to find out it was him who was targetting four American embassies.

When will we find out if Trump’s claim is true? Never. Even Iran would step first to admit they were wrong and messed up before Donald Trump ever would. Look at the airliner situation? Iran finally claimed credit last night after initially denying it.

If it was Trump, he would have blamed a black woman.

Creative note: I’ve been sitting on the Cats! joke for two weeks. Originally, it was going to be for George Soros. Then earlier this week, Trevor Noah used it for Soleimani. Damn him! But I figured after a few days had past and it’s not my punchline, that I can still use it.

Support the cartoonist.

You can help me continue to create cartoons, blogs, and videos by making a contribution. All support, large and small, is greatly appreciated. You can also support me by purchasing a signed print (8 1/2×11) for $40, or a signed poster (18×24) for $100 by clicking the PayPal button (just include a note if you’re purchasing a print). If you want to support but don’t want to use PayPal, you can send a contribution through the mail (address is on the contact page. Again, include a note for a print). I don’t plan on going anywhere and your support will help guarantee that. Whether you support, can’t. or just choose not to, please know that I am truly thankful that you visit my site and read my work.

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From The Trumpster Fire

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Trust-Fund Royalty

cjones01112020

I had an excellent blog planned out in my head and I started on this cartoon at 5:30 a.m. Then, something struck in my stomach and I’ve been laid out nearly all day. I don’t know if it’s the cheeseburger I had last night or that I had two of them.

At any rate, no blog today. You got this. I gotta try to rest up before I start writing ideas for CNN. I hurt.

Support the cartoonist.

You can help me continue to create cartoons, blogs, and videos by making a contribution. All support, large and small, is greatly appreciated. You can also support me by purchasing a signed print (8 1/2×11) for $40, or a signed poster (18×24) for $100 by clicking the PayPal button (just include a note if you’re purchasing a print). If you want to support but don’t want to use PayPal, you can send a contribution through the mail (address is on the contact page. Again, include a note for a print). I don’t plan on going anywhere and your support will help guarantee that. Whether you support, can’t. or just choose not to, please know that I am truly thankful that you visit my site and read my work.

You can purchase a signed print of this cartoon.

New Book: Tales From The Trumpster Fire

Watch me draw.

Royal Racism

cjones05252018

I think the thing that bums me out the most about the wedding between Prince Harry and American Meghan Markle is that I remember the wedding between Prince Charles and Diana. God, I’m getting old.

A lot of people seem to be making a stink about Meghan being of mixed race. I thought maybe it was being overblown until I saw a headline in a British publication saying something about Markle, who was born in Los Angeles, being “straight outta Compton.”

So, it’s not just white Americans freaking out when they see a black person in a situation they deem unusual, like sitting in a coffee shop, or a library, or selling a house, walking in a white neighborhood, breathing air, etc. The Brits can do it too.

Markle is half black and half white. I wouldn’t have known this if it wasn’t pointed out. It’s not that I’m so open-minded as much as I can be oblivious at times. I can be really oblivious. Once in my early 20s, I didn’t realize a friend of mine was Latino until I read an article about him, and his last name is Ramirez. See? It’s especially weird because I cover and talk about race so much.

It’s a good thing that society isn’t just becoming tolerant, but accepting reality. From a mixed couple in a Cheerios commercial to the royal family, we’ve come a long way. But then again, we have people freaking out because they see two black guys at Starbucks and people are voting for Donald Trump. You may not be racist if you voted for Donald Trump, but racism is not a deal breaker for you.

We still have a long way to go.

I did watch the royal wedding this morning. But I didn’t wake up at 4:00 AM to watch the coverage. I’m usually up at that time drawing. I was watching it on MSNBC and saw anchors I respect totally geek out and become starstruck when the newly married couple passed them in their carriage. But, I’m a guy. I didn’t really enjoy going to my own wedding.

This is another bonus cartoon. I wanted to do the race subject and I had another idea on the subject that made a stronger point, but I knew adding the wedding would probably get it more attention and make more publications. One aspect I struggled with in my decision was Markle’s skin tone. She’s half black, yes. But, technically, she’s not a dark-skinned person. I imagine you would have to be a fiercely dedicated racist to get upset if you saw her at Starbucks.

Now, I’m taking the rest of the night off. I’m going to eat a club sandwich, eat some ice cream later, and appropriately, I plan to watch Black Panther.

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