Obama cartoon in the Boston Herald causes angry commotion

[Hottage]

The only thing I find offensive about this cartoon is how underwhelming it is, humour wise.

[Orange Joe]

Again, how is that relevant?

The joke was changed from a fruit that has no racial stereotypes, to one that does with a half black president. If there was white president right now they probably would have stayed with raspberry, the switch to Watermelon for a half black president by a newspaper in Boston is quite clearly aiming to be controversial.

It's not like the same exact joke was used for one and then for another. They're a newspaper, they probably have a freaking pr department, no one would accidentally do that, it would just be ridiculous to miss. No one looked at this and thought "no racial connotations at all! Run with it!"

Where are you getting it was changed from raspberry?

Interestingly, in a different version of the cartoon, featured on GoComics.com, the toothpaste is "raspberry-flavored," not watermelon.

How do you know they didn't just change it from watermelon to raspberry?

Here is a comment from the person who drew the comic.

He told the hosts that he had "no intention at all of offending anyone" and that he doesn't "think along the lines of racial jokes." While he acknowledged that his jokes can be "naive" or "stupid," he said he was definitely not racist. He repeatedly emphasized that he "wasn't thinking of the racial element" when he used watermelon toothpaste.
"I was thinking of myself," he said. "I really like watermelon."