Racists disturb me when they shift from “dogwhistle” social media posts to saying things out loud.

This isn’t a dogwhistle

There’s a lot of online nonsense currently on social media involving the Louisiana Deserves Better (LDB) organization. LDB coordinates the movement to recall Louisiana Governor Jeff Murray and Attorney General Liz Murrill. Two women stepped up and organized LDB as a means to collect signatures on legal, verifiable petitions. The movement and organization achieved unprecedented levels of support since its inception.

Online isn’t reality

Disagreement and dissension among liberals on social media exist in quantities much greater than real life, IRL, meatspace. While I hesitate to give too much oxygen to a person known online for disruption of progressive causes and organizations, there are times when comment is necessary.

Leila Habib can be best described as a person who regularly disrupts progressive discussions. To make a point, she clipped a scene from Disney’s movie The Jungle Book in a recent social media post. Again, this is social media nonsense, but it speaks volumes about the person posting. That’s because this is absolutely racist.

Why is this racist?

This social media post shows an orangutan, “King Louie.” The jazz musician Louis Prima, from New Orleans, voiced the character. While Disney always rejected the notion that their portrayal of orangutans in the film were racist caricatures, the film received criticism. The studio argued that Prima provided a recognizable voice and that was that. In spite of that defense, Jungle Book is one of five movies the studio later added a “Cultural Warning” to.

In my NOLA History Guy writing and podcasting, I deal with an extensive amount of primary source material. Discerning someone’s meaning when using these sources often presents a challenge. You can almost hear someone in a Disney writers’ room saying, “we’re not using chimps or monkeys for this, orangutans are orange!” Then they hired a Sicilian jazz musician. The relationship between Creole musicians and Sicilians in the city was fraught. This dates back to Nick LaRocca, who argued that the Sicilian musicians owed black musicians nothing with respect to the development of their jazz interpretations.

In short, a Sicilian voicing a character representing a Black person is problematic.

Ignorance?

Is it possible the OP here is ignorant of the background here? Of course. The Jungle Book came out in 1967. A lot has happened in the intervening sixty-odd years. Still, when someone wants to make a point about an organization that is led by two Black women, reaching for a clip of a dancing primate doesn’t leave me with questions. This isn’t subtle. It’s racist.