Saving Betsy DeVos

Why one cartoonist deemed it necessary to preserve her“image”

In James Baldwin’s 1972 novelNo Name in the Street, he points out that “The key to a tale is to be found in who tells it. . . .” I don’t mean to bring up Baldwin again, but, for one, too much Baldwin is never such a thing, and two, this phrase provides the proper framework for why this DeVos cartoon is even a thought. I can only imagine the thought process behind Glen McCoy, the conservative cartoon artist, who, in his fantastical mind, deemed it appropriate orevennecessary to save Betsy DeVos from public shame.

I suspect—on the most primitive level—their shared conservative ideologies could explain McCoy’s blasphemous depiction (above) of Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With”—a piece memorializing the day in 1960 when six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first Black person to desegregate William Frantz Elementary in Louisiana. (below) Three years prior to this stood a courageous fifteen-year-old Dorothy Counts, who desegregated Harding High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, while being spat upon and threatened by angry mobs. In this present instance, McCoy’s apprehension of the commonality between Bridges and DeVos is futile, at best.

McCoy, to some, perhaps, will be described as a conscious feminist: a nobleman #ForTheCulture, who under these prevailing circumstances, sacrificed his relative esteem within his own profession to save the humanity of his fellow comrade. Others, this country’s “free-thinkers,” will reduce this to a level of opacity, in order to see throughyetanother attempt to subjugate Black history. If that is not the case (which I am willing to concede for the purpose of making this point), McCoy is certainly an unoriginal culture vulture, who is delusional enough to believe that Betsy DeVos relates to him as an equal, which confirms my last point. McCoy’s blind allegiance to DeVos runs parallel to notion that “if you white, you alright.”

I would be remiss if I did not mention, in this scarcely compelling journey to restore DeVos’ humanity (or image), the “Why don’t you just give her a chance?” people. This precise question, by her supporters, raises a loaded and even more critical concern—if you ask me—of whether Black people enjoy the same right to be unqualified. I, in good conscience, could not answer this in the affirmative. Neither should you for that matter. Furthermore, it is one thing to challenge a person’s qualifications; but, it is another thing to discriminate against someone on the basis of skin color. The willingness of this country to play Red Cross and turn DeVos into some charity case slaps the face of every American, especially Black people, who are qualified yet remain jobless.

The “key” to this “tale,” which is what you came for, is the preservation of White supremacy. But, of course, I did not have to tellyouthat. Or, didI? McCoy’s behavior and the likes thereof, when gone unchecked, encourages the subduer to continue to subjugate the subdued. This marks a point where we have been tasked to check the subduer in order to protect Black history, American history. At any rate, to save herself the embarrassment of being declined to enter a public school, DeVos could have resigned or withdrawn her name. Ruby Bridges, on the other hand, could not divorce her blackness nor should she have to in order to obtain a quality education.

This peculiar notion of “absolute” acceptance was the catalyst for McCoy’s travails to protect DeVos’ image via a disingenuous cartoon. As America would have it, when our country(wo)men are not accepted by the masses, Black people are expected to exorcise our well-placed judgments to protect their fragile egos. This is a curse. One curse that I am not interested in divesting DeVos nor McCoy from.