So you’re arguing that the historical context of Pooh"s design matters, and I fully agree.

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Would it make a difference to know that these are the original designs? Would you consider the original designs to be permittable?

then make a charicature that makes fun of that and isn’t yellow, I would be fine with that

How would you feel about a white Pooh bear?

Does it strike me as odd that there’s an illustration of Pooh and Tigger together, two characters that are friends in the same fictional world?

No, it doesn’t strike me as odd, can you explain that one to me? What’s the history of racism in the Hundred Acre Wood that predates some world leaders with possibly fragile egos? And why is all the attention always on the Pooh half and never on the Tigger half?

Not to split this but the real obvious parallel with Obama would be Tigger. I’m slightly surprised that didn’t come up, because it’s literally the same origin story.

I’m gonna have to explain this out very simply: blackface has a long history going back more than a century before Obama was even born.

There do exist racist caricatures of Chinese people with squinty eyes. Pooh does not have the squinty eyes. Ive yet to see any evidence of Pooh being used as a racist caricature before Xi Jinping.

none of his personality resembles pooh, it’s just his race, if anything he’s ruthlessly efficient

I think you accidentally admitted the real issue: Pooh is silly, soft, and generally not that smart. Certain types of rulers need to be seen as strong, powerful, and perhaps even ruthless at all times.

The real offense is a possible degradation of his “strong man” image.

I could be corrected on this but as far as I’m aware, it’s not a caricature of Chinese people or Asian people, it’s specifically a caricature of Xi Jinping, one of the most powerful people in the world. In fact, on Forbes list in 2018, he is listed as the #1 most powerful person in the world.

So I don’t think it’s a question of race so much as a question of how far are we allowed to make fun of the most powerful people on the planet.