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Post by Bigboy on Feb 18, 2009 13:55:37 GMT -5
Have any of you seen the cartoon in the New York Post that has 2 cops killing a monkey that says something like "who will they get to write the next stimulus plan"? If you want to see it go to (nationalactionnetwork.net).
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Post by SixtiesAggie on Feb 18, 2009 15:33:27 GMT -5
What would one expect from NYC's ultra conservative rag? Maybe Oberman will make them the "Worst Persons In The World" today. Their explanation will be couched in such a fashion that it will paint anyone who questions their motives appear to be the racist.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Feb 18, 2009 16:30:01 GMT -5
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Post by SixtiesAggie on Feb 18, 2009 17:01:21 GMT -5
Yeah, I know about the chimp tearing the woman's face off. Primates are wild animals. People want to make them pets. However, to me this is just a clever disguise by the Post.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Feb 18, 2009 17:08:36 GMT -5
You said the operative word: "clever"
That is what political satire aims to be. Basically they are saying that the stimulus bill was so bad, in their opinion, a monkey could have written it. Some people will read that and say they are calling the president a monkey because he is black. Some people will not. However, let's not forget that congress (mostly white folks) authored and made revisions to a great deal of the bill.
Personally, I know I am one of the smartest people on this planet. I have long since stopped worrying about what other races think of me.
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Post by SixtiesAggie on Feb 18, 2009 18:52:38 GMT -5
"one of the smartest people on the planet" huh? Okay.... LOL
Even though it (stimilus) was mostly written by whites, the post has a picture of you know who signing it. The post has a history of being racially provocative. I agree with you about not worrying about how you are perceived by other races. Doesn't matter as long as it does not interfere with your rights.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Feb 18, 2009 22:05:08 GMT -5
Commentary: NY Post cartoon is racist and careless
By Roland S. Martin CNN Contributor
Editor's note: A nationally syndicated columnist, Roland S. Martin is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith" and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America." Visit his Web site for more information.
(CNN) -- President Obama earned kudos from the media when he said he screwed up in nominating Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services despite his problem with paying taxes.
Too bad the leadership of the New York Post didn't follow the lead of the president in admitting that an editorial cartoon they ran today by Sean Delonas was offensive, careless and racist.
If you haven't seen the editorial in question, it shouldn't take you long to figure out that the subtle message was clear: comparing President Obama to a chimpanzee.
In the cartoon, a cop is holding a smoking gun and, with another officer, looking at a bullet-riddled body of a chimpanzee. The caption reads: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." New York Post: See cartoon
In a statement to The Associated Press, Col Allan, the Post's editor-in-chief, said the cartoon was an obvious reference to the story of a chimp in Connecticut that viciously attacked a woman and was killed by police.
"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."
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. VideoWatch civil rights groups criticize the cartoon »
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.
What could be seen as silly humor if President George W. Bush were in the White House has to be seen through the lens of America's racist past, as noted by the leaders of the New York Association of Black Journalists, who also are demanding an apology from the Post.
"How do you think the Jewish community would feel about the use of rats in any depiction of them? How do you think the Italian community would feel about being generalized with mobsters?" the organization said in a statement.
"Monkey slurs against Africans and African-Americans go back to the days of early colonialism, when Anglo Saxon, Spanish and Portuguese conquerors used these types of drawings and descriptions to dehumanize black people so that their mistreatment and enslavement would not be viewed as wrong or sinful. The practice also took on more sinister roles later in history including during the slave trade here in the U.S. and in Hitler's Nazi Germany."
Ignorant leaders of the New York Post and others may think everything is fair game, and certainly criticizing the president of the United States is just fine. Yet while everyone seems to be caught up in the delusion of a post-racial America, we cannot forget the reality of the racial America, where African-Americans were treated and portrayed as inferior and less than others.
And just as some members of the media brotherhood were taken to task for their obvious sexism during the Democratic primaries because of comments about then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, we had to be sensitive to the historical treatment of women.
Oh yes, the Post will have its defenders, accusing African-Americans and others of being hypersensitive. The Post has already shown its hand by trying to make this all about Sharpton, since they know he's the black bogeyman to white America. But they should understand that my e-mail box and Facebook page are filled with comments from folks of different backgrounds stunned by the callousness of the Post.
I guess it's fitting the cartoon ran today, because the best statement to sum up the issue can be taken from a black history month speech given today by our first black attorney general, Eric Holder.
"Even as we fight a war against terrorism, deal with the reality of electing an African-American as our president for the first time and deal with the other significant issues of the day, the need to confront our racial past -- and our racial present, and to understand the history of African people in this country -- endures," he said.
"One cannot truly understand America without understanding the historical experience of black people in this nation. Simply put, to get to the heart of this country, one must examine its racial soul."
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Roland Martin.
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Post by aggielove on Feb 20, 2009 11:33:17 GMT -5
That's not the ONLY conclusion that can be drawn - I think they were trying to say that the stimulus bill was written by a bunch of monkeys, or at the least, that a monkey could do the same. Since Pres Obama did not write it, you can't definitively conclude that they were talking about him. All that said (or rather typed), it shouldn't have run for the simple reason that it would be looked at as a racist message directed to Pres Obama. Oh and it was pretty damn stupid and not very funny.
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oleschoolaggie
Official BDF member
2009 Poster of the Year, 2009 Most Knowledgeable Poster
Posts: 24,246
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Post by oleschoolaggie on Feb 20, 2009 11:43:08 GMT -5
its racist, period. that's all to it. even if it wasn't intended to be racist, any editor would have realized that it would cause a lot of controversy because it would "easily" be interpreted by a lot of folks to be racist. for that reason alone, it shouldn't have been printed...
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Post by Bornthrilla on Feb 20, 2009 12:15:36 GMT -5
New York Post apologizes for, yet still defends, chimp cartoon
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A day after publishing a cartoon that drew fire from critics who said it evoked historically racist images, the New York Post apologized in a statement on its Web site -- even as it defended its action and blasted some detractors.
Many of those critical of the cartoon said it appeared to compare President Obama to a chimpanzee in a commentary on his recently approved economic stimulus package.
"Wednesday's Page Six cartoon -- caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut -- has created considerable controversy," the paper said about the drawing, which shows two police officers standing over the body of a chimpanzee they just shot.
The drawing is a reference to the mauling of a woman by a pet chimpanzee, which was then killed by police. In the cartoon, one of the officers tells the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
The Post said the cartoon was meant to mock what it called an "ineptly written" stimulus bill.
"But it has been taken as something else -- as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism," reads the statement. "This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize." VideoWatch reaction to Post's apology »
But the statement immediately swerves to fire back at some of the image's critics.
"However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past -- and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback," the statement says. "To them, no apology is due. Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon -- even as the opportunists seek to make it something else."
Several African-American leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, attacked the image, which was drawn by artist Sean Delonas.
Sharpton said Thursday he and the leaders of "various groups" would respond at 5 p.m. Friday outside The Post's offices in midtown Manhattan.
"Though we think it is the right thing for them to apologize to those they offended," the statement appeared to blame those who raised the issue "rather than take responsibility for what they did," Sharpton said.
He accused the newspaper of having "belatedly come with a conditional statement after people began mobilizing and preparing to challenge the waiver of News Corp in the city where they own several television stations and newspapers."
Delonas has made Sharpton the butt of previous cartoons in The Post.
In a brief phone interview with CNN, Delonas called the controversy "absolutely friggin' ridiculous."
"Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon," Delonas told CNN.
"It's about the economic stimulus bill," he added.
Col Allan, the Post's editor-in-chief, said Wednesday that the cartoon "is a clear parody of a current news event."
"It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist," Allan said in a written statement.
But Sharpton was not alone in his criticism. Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said The Post showed a "serious lapse in judgment" by running the cartoon.
"To think that the cartoonist and the responsible editors at the paper did not see the racist overtones of the finished product should insult their intelligence," Ciara said in a written statement. "Instead, they celebrate their own lack of perspective and criticize those who call it what it is: tone deaf at best, overtly racist at worst."
"Comparing President Obama and his effort to revive the economy in a manner that depicts violence and racist inferences is unacceptable," said National Urban League President Marc Morial in a statement issued Wednesday.
The nearly $800 billion stimulus package was the top priority for Obama, the first black U.S. president, who signed it Tuesday.
In an open letter to The Post, musician John Legend criticized the newspaper and called on New Yorkers not to buy it, or talk to its reporters or buy its advertising space.
Addressing the newspaper's editors, Legend wrote, "Did it occur to you that our president has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?
"If that's not what you intended, then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly provocative, racist and offensive."
Either way, Legend said, the fact that the cartoon was printed "is truly reprehensible."
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