Crumb is clearly not racist if you've read and analyzed any of his work
He celebrates black muscians in so many of his work. Just read his Patton biography. Or his strip about white record collectors discovering obscure, one-shot blues guitarists (That's Life). Or even his Jelly Roll Morton's Voodoo Curse story. His Angelfood McSpade work is clearly satire, and it seems that too many people take it at face value.
Another thing humorless feminist cretins like Trina Robins (who is a terrible cartoonist to boot) and left wing 'progressives' like Deirdre English are ignoring or mislooking completely is the element of NOSTALGIA in Crumb's work. His fascination with 'the good ol' days and sadness at changing social, sexual and cultural attitudes is ominpresent in his work. His obsession with racist caricatures is more of the simple-mindedness and the innocence of a lost era of cartooning than the vicious racism attached affixed to it nowadays. This bears the question: Have we grown more enlightened, or are we just in denial? What exactly is WRONG with these caricatures, anyway? Why are there no caricatures of white people that society deems offensive (and Crumb's work is filled with grotesque portrayals of White Men)?
Deirdre English struck me as extremely shallow in her critique of Joe Blow and Ooga-Booga - relatively early work by Crumb as a young rebel and contractarian - which makes me wonder if she has read any of Crumb's more explicitly satirical pieces, the ones where he clearly spells out to you that what he is doing is social commentary:
- His Weirdo story "When the N*****s take over America" and "When the Goddam Jews take over America"... How can anyone not see the obvious irony in these strips? The first strip ends with white people working at plantations singing and the their black slave owners saying "White people sure are musical!" The second strip ends with a white KKK caricature blowing up the whole world. Are you as shallow as to think that Crumb is advocating the destruction of the planet eart to esterminate all Jews? (Keep in mind his wife Aline is Jewish herself) These two strips are Crumb's final and ultimate statement on racist hatemongering in America shortly before he moved to France.
- It the strip Whiteman he even explicitly makes fun of an uptight, uber-American's fear of black people.
- 'Lets Talk Sense about this Here Modern America" decrying the decline of the Western Civilization.... at one section he lists everything he hates about America and goes on to name "Cowboy rednecks and other white trash, their wives and kids Coons, Jews, Italics, Wasps... and other ethnic groups, clearly in a knee-jerk, sarcastic manner. In the next panel he is demonized mby a mob crowd as he confesses not to like much about America in general.
I advice you young folks not to approach his work in a shallow manner.. there's more to it than meets the eye.