Australian Newspaper Faces Criticism For Racist Kamala Harris Cartoon

An Australian newspaper is under fire after publishing a cartoon of presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, that many readers found to be racist.

The cartoon shows Biden delivering a message to heal America’s racial divisions and pointing to Harris saying, “I’ll hand you over to this little brown girl while I go for a lie-down.” The Australian, one of only two nationally distributed newspapers in the country, defended their choice to publish the cartoon when people criticized them online.

Members of the Australian Labor party also spoke out about the incident calling it “offensive” and a “diminish to society."

“Racism has no place in Australian public life,” said politician Andrew Leigh, in a tweet. “The Australian should pull today’s offensive cartoon off their website and issue an immediate apology.”

“In the past I’ve described this newspaper as a poor man’s Breitbart. It indulges racism, and uses it as part of its business model,” Former Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission,Tim Soutphommasane, stated in a tweet.

This is not the first backlash the paper’s cartoonist, Johannes Leak, has received. In November 2019, The Australian published a cartoon showing a refugee family in a bushfire-ravaged town saying it “feels just like home.” Johannes' father, Bill Leak, a former cartoonist for the same paper, was also often called out for creating provoking and racist content.

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