The Cartoon
To the editors who approved the cartoon, as well as the cartoonist, the piece was clearly all fun and laughs. But anyone with half a brain, especially someone knowing the history of African-Americans being called monkeys and gorillas, would have said, “We need to rethink this.”
First, mixing the two stories is ridiculous. Yes, the chimpanzee incident and the passage of the stimulus bill have a lot of folks talking, but to put them in the same element just doesn’t make sense.
Second, the cartoonist didn’t hang a sign around the neck of the chimp, so he left it up to the reader to determine exactly who the cops were referring to.
We all know that the stimulus bill was the first priority of the new president, so when reading the caption, it was easy to infer that the cartoonist was implying the president of the United States.
You know, the black guy.
And that’s where the problem comes in.
When you read stories like this, you will realize that it is really just a crapshoot as to whether someone will take a shot at our President, just because he is black. Seeing a cartoon depict that brings home that reality. And no one should be laughing.
EDIT by cassandra_m: I’ve added some pictures after the jump that should remind everyone where they’ve seen these same monkey references in the last 6 to 8 months.
I can’t believe you had to explain this.
The thing is, that there will be more of this, not less.
The people who have this kind of baggage are always and everywhere delighted to show it off. The shame of it is they they really just don’t get that the tawdriness of their baggage directly correlates to a lack of character.
White supremacist groups may indeed be having something of a resurgence, but I would worry less about them taking potshots at Obama (who would be very tough to get to) but worry more about the more motivated among them taking out their resentments on more local black and brown people.
Good point, Cassandra. The most likely victims are the ones that are convenient. I also wonder if some of the outrage directed at “octomom” Nadya Suleman is related to this.
That’s a good question, UI. I just discovered that she was receiving death threats and the like. But I don’t know.
I hate these pictures, but they need to be seen. Seems some people have selective memories.
Good points, ladies. I hadn’t considered Suleman. Now I have never considered having a litter of babies praiseworthy, but I do remember it being highly praised by the Right in the past. What’s the difference now?
Where is there standard Far Right defense, “Eight babies was God’s will. Praise her for giving all of them life.”
Not that I’m calling the NY Post a real newspaper 🙂 , but I think the Cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker during the 08 campaign started a lot of this mess. And I agree, there will be more of this…
For every Obama monkey, I can show you a dozen Bush monkeys.
And a hundred blog posts and commentaries that refer to George W. Bush as a chimp.
As for the alleged assassination angle, consider the sort of “kill bush” rhetoric that emanated from the Left for the last 8 years. Bet you had nothing to say there — and probably found some of it rather amusing.
I’m stunned by the lack of reaction from the Radical Right. I wonder if the cartoon had the police throwing oreos at a monkey, maybe the reaction would have been different.
In addition to being racists, the cartoon suffers from the fatal flaw that most wingnut “humor” suffers from.
It is not funny.
I was just thinking that, Jason. It’s really, really bad.
Apparently Al Sharpton had something to say about this earlier. They’ll all be howling about why Rev. Al had to speak up tomorrow.
“And a hundred blog posts and commentaries that refer to George W. Bush as a chimp.”
I think they meant chump. 🙂
“consider the sort of “kill bush” ”
Kill Bill that was a movie wasn’t it?
Hey NONE of those things happened in a major newspaper or magazine. There is a big difference between people in blogs writing something and something being published a newspaper. Can’t you admit that this was f-d up and move on?
BTW, Bush was a chump and we may have been better off with a chimp as president.
heh, did Roland Martin just call Al Sharpton a half-brain?
Man does that guy look like a petterass!
Though good for him for adhering to Alton Brown’s rule of buying uni-taskers.
A stuffed monkey for making an overt racist statement, plus it can be (and probably has) used to lure unsuspecting boys to his lair, otherwise known as his mother’s basement.
Creepy!