NY Post's "Racist" Cartoon

Commentary: NY Post cartoon is racist and careless

"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist," he said, referencing a news release the civil rights activist sent out blasting the paper and demanding an apology.

Delonas, the cartoonist, said to CNN, "It's absolutely friggin ridiculous. Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon. The chimpanzee was a major story in the Post. Every paper in New York, except The New York Times, covered the chimpanzee story. It's just ridiculous. It's about the economic stimulus bill. If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not."


Post sorry for controversial chimp cartoon
New York Post says the image was exploited by longtime antagonists

After two days of protests, the paper posted an editorial on its Web site Thursday saying the cartoon was meant to mock the federal economic stimulus bill, but "to those who were offended by the image, we apologize."

The editorial also says some people who have long-standing differences with the paper saw the cartoon "as an opportunity for payback."

The editorial calls them "opportunists" and says: "To them, no apology is due."

If the paper wants to apologize, I have no problems with it - but I'm going to re-state something I wrote to my Facebook page ealier:

I take offense to racism when it's present, it exists, and still does even with the new President breaking a high level racial barrier, and it's real and its ugly when it occurs. I really have no tolerance for any form of ignorant bigotry and hatred.

That said, those making such a huge deal over this being "racist" are really fishing. Obama didn't "write" the Stimulus bill, that was left to Congress (and was unfortunate that it was at that - I'd have rathered had Obama be the driving force behind the language of the bill).

It's hard in fact to see this as anything other than what the Cartoonist described as his motivation - lampooning a current event and the broad array of the halfwit politicians that cobbled together such a pork laden spend-happy sure to cause problems in the future stimulus package around fear as the primary motivator.

Really... to say this was aimed at Obama because he was black takes the context of this cartoon so far away from what is actually depicted it's hard to see those making a big deal out of it as anything other than opportunists. I'm all for combating racism and it's real, very ugly, and harmful effects. But when you stretch reality to this level of ridiculousness, you do nothing but harm your own cause.

Really look at that cartoon. Is there anything there that would suggest to you the artist meant to convey Obama as a monkey? Anything? There's not the slightest hint of Obama-like-ness to that chimp, and cartoon artists are notorious for making clear allusions when mocking someone particular. If the artist was making a subtle reference to Obama as a monkey, don't you think they'd have put some kind of Obama-like reference on the monkey? Some kind of facial features... or hair, or ears... Something? Anything at all?

Obama didn't write the Stimulus bill, and at best its only something he supported. So you probably have a lot of dumb / ignorant (take your pick) people thinking to themselves that Obama actually wrote the bill which makes them think the reference is clearly about him and therefore racist. And if that had been the case, had the artist put Obama-like features on the monkey, I'd agree, it'd be racially insensitive at best, and down-right racist at worst. But he didn't. Anyone trying to claim that's what the artist here intended is just stretching so far it's ridiculous.