5 Secretly Racist Cartoons

As a child, you may have not have realized that 5 of the most popular cartoons were secretly racist.  While they may not have aimed to be blatantly racist, they often used offensive stereotypes with over-the-top characters that fed into a negative mindset.  Some of the stereotypes used have become even more offensive over time, due to changes in our society, such as an increase in globalization that allows people to better understand other cultures. But even that is no excuse for these racist cartoons.

Bugs Bunny

Over the course of multiple cartoons featuring the famous rabbit, so many types of people were belittled that some of the older Bugs Bunny catalogs have been removed from television.  One went so far into racist territory that Bugs actually appeared in the offensive "blackface" during an episode.

Peter Pan

Sometimes patriotism can lead to racism during troubling times, as was the case with the famous cat and mouse during the turmoil of World War II.  While belittling the Japanese with stereotypes might have seemed fine as the Japanese were the enemy of the United States, over time, the caricatures manage to belittle an entire culture.

Dumbo

The famous cartoon about Dumbo the elephant barely even tried to mask its racism. Not only did Disney portray the crows as being uneducated by using ebonics, they even had the audacity to name one of the crows Jim Crow, making a blatant reference to the mistreatment of African Americans.

Popeye the Sailor Man.

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