The New York Post has a history of being outrageous in its expression of right wing extremism. We’ve come to expect that. But yesterday they outdid themselves with this cartoon. It’s been cited for its obvious racism, but its offensive on so many other levels as well. With the idiotic cops in the cartoon saying now that they killed this monkey “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” it’s clear who they were trying to put viewers in mind of when they published this sick crap.
What worries me most about this is that, as I had predicted, the election of Obama, as much as it means to African Americans and everyone else who are sick and tired of racism and bigotry in this country, would bring out the worst in those elements of hatred in our society. Holder was damned right when he made his reference to a “nation of cowards,” and we surely deserve that if we let this pass.
While a majority of the country recognizes the election of an African American as an accomplishment we all can be proud of, there are those seething in dark corners, plotting and hoping for the worst. Limbaugh’s hate-filled demand to see Obama fail is just the tip of the iceberg. And not to be outdone, now here comes Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post. History has shown that it is these types of incidents that get brushed off as nothing that ultimately lead to violence and disaster.
This cartoon takes it to another level in its advocating extreme and graphic violence as an acceptable response to political disagreement. (Imagine if a major newspaper printed a cartoon of Palin, lying in a pool of blood after being machine gunned by a moose? You’d be hard pressed, because it wouldn’t happen!)
The cartoon itself fails as comedy because there’s no connection between the points it attempts to make. It’s offensive on so many levels:
1. It clearly intends to put in people’s minds that our president is no more than a monkey who it’s okay to kill.
2. With the two cops in the picture looking dumbfounded reminds of all the killings of unarmed blacks.
3. The woman who got mauled in the incident is fighting for her life, and they make a mockery of it.
Al Sharpton questioned it:
“The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"
Obviously stung by that, here’s how the cowardly The NY Post is using Sharpton’s comment to defend its handiwork:
“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."
So, again, they’re making a parody of a sad event, the near fatal attack on a woman who lies in hospital, fighting for her life. The use of the term “Washington” to attempt to deflect from the points Sharpton made, that are obvious, is disingenuous as well. They are right to use the term “broadly,” here, but miss the point that it is so broad that it misses the mark and as such fails as comedy.
This cartoon is sick and offensive, and they need to hear about it from us. I don’t read the Post but I will write them. A lot of people have already written to cancel their subscriptions as well. The NY Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News. His email address is rmurdoch@newscorp.com.
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Thursday, February 19th 2009 at 9:10AM
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