Joe Manchin: A Cartoon
By Crystal Good
Hi, from Morgantown, West Virginia!
Thankfully, our second BBG edition made it to the printers. We were two days late, but we got there. We had a problem with our blacks. (The ink, that is.) We need to be “perfectly black,” and we are.
The poetry of not being perfectly black for our newspaper that centers Black voices in West Virginia reminds us of not only of Afrilachian Poet and Kentucky Poet Laureate Crystal Wilkinsons book, “Perfect Black,” but also the humor and satire that we have been expressing in our BBG Sunday cartoons for over a year.
We welcome you to participate in our “Secret Cartoon Editorial Board” today and beyond. Our process is simple. Someone comes upon a theme or idea to express. Then, Shawn Alleyne draws a proof. Finally, we brainstorm the cartoon dialogue before Doda Designs colors, and then we share it with our little BBG world.
This week’s cartoon idea came out of a conversation – “There are the Black people in West Virginia who work for Joe Manchin and those who do not” – reminding of the complexity, diversity, and survival of Black life in West Virginia.
We know that many in West Virginia are afraid of Joe Manchin and others are loyal to the Senator as they seek to navigate a caste system in America and inside West Virginia that often rewards Black ManchinEERS for generations.
West Virginia Democrats Are Afraid of Joe Manchin, a recent article by Zack Harrold, explores how few officials are willing to express it publicly. It’s worth your read time, and we also encourage your attention to listen to Racism in the West Virginia Democratic Party on the Mothman in the Bible Belt Podcast.
(Sign this petition to tell the WV Democratic Party to protect Black & Indigenous peoples’ right to participate. )
Political upward mobility in West Virginia can be afforded to those like the many WV Democrats, including media mogul Doug Reynolds who can switch parties from D to R for self-benefit, and the Joe ManchinEERS who see their only way up in loyalty to Joe Manchin that offers a thrill of proximity to power and for some leverage to resources.
The catalyst for this week’s cartoon (see below) is a tongue-in-cheek look at how ManchinEERS use Black people to recruit and “sell” his agenda, much like the stereotypical drug dealer image. But we know every street-level drug dealer is simply a pawn in the machine of import-export of drug policies, be that heroin or the addiction of dangerous “entitlement” ideas.
Look no further than Rev. Paul Dunn from the historic First Baptist Church in Charleston, WV, who supported @Sen_JoeManchin with TV ads but has now had a change of heart and has a different message for our Senator.
