The Boondocks (comic Strip) - Controversies

Controversies

The content of McGruder's comic strip often came under fire for being politically left-wing and occasionally risque, leading to its being published in the op-ed section of many newspapers. For example, a strip making fun of BET's rap videos, some of which rely on the sexually suggestive gyrations of female dancers, and a strip mocking Whitney Houston's drug problems and emphasizing her buttocks, were pulled out of circulation. The Boondocks garnered significant attention after the September 11, 2001 attacks with a series of strips in which Huey calls a government tipline to report Ronald Reagan for funding terrorism. Soon after, he "censored" several strips by featuring a talking patriotic yellow ribbon and a flag (named Ribbon and Flagee, respectively) instead of the usual cast.

Several strips have been briefly pulled from prominent publications. For example, the "Condi Needs a Man" strip, in which Huey and his friend Caesar create a personal ad for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, portraying her as a "female Darth Vader type that seeks loving mate to torture", resulted in The Washington Post withholding a week's worth of strips, the longest such suspension ever by the paper. However, the paper's ombudsman, Michael Getler, later sided with McGruder. The Post also declined to run "Can a Nigga Get a Job?", which had black contestants compete on a reality TV show to work for Russell Simmons, only to find that all the contestants were rude and lazy.

McGruder wrote a strip where Huey and Caesar discuss the "Most Embarrassing Black Person of the Year Awards", which they dub the "Elder" after black political commentator Larry Elder. In response, Elder published an opinion piece in which he created the "McGruder Awards", naming liberal commentators, and including six quotes from McGruder.