Now, let's see. The Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport runs a cartoon in which Mario Balotelli is depicted as King Kong. People take exception to this as being racist, and the newspaper apologizes: good taste is necessary, it says; it was not one of the best efforts of their talented cartoonist. However, no one should accuse them of racism.
Two questions. (1) Why, then, are they apologizing? For bad taste only? Pull the other one. (2) Are they among those who take the view that if it ain't intended as racist, it isn't racist? This view is not rationally defensible (see section 4 here). All they had to say was that it was misjudged; the cartoon is racist, but our paper isn't - end of story.
