Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
Hot on the heels of Asheville cartoonist David Cohen’s recent Obama cartoon controversy, it appears that the New York Post has a controversy of its own:
At first glance, the main editorial cartoon in today’s New York Post seemed like just another lurid reference to the story that the tabloid had been covering with breathless abandon for two days running – the shooting by Connecticut police on Monday of a pet chimpanzee that viciously attacked his owner’s friend.
But the caption cast the cartoon in a more sinister light. “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” it read, prompting accusations that the Post was peddling a longstanding racist slur by portraying president Barack Obama, who signed the bill into law yesterday, as an ape.
In a statement issued today, Al Sharpton, the Baptist minister and civil rights activist, called the cartoon “troubling at best, given the historic racist attacks [on] African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys”.
He added: “Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama … and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder: are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?… The Post should at best clarify what point they were trying to make, or in fact reprimand their cartoonist.”
David Paterson, the governor of New York state, told a local television station that it was “very important for the New York Post to explain what the cartoon was intended to portray”.
In response, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Col Allen, noted Sharpton’s love of media attention. “The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut,” he said. “It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”
You want to get technical they are shooting congress not obama. Obama don’t write the bills, he just signs the stupid things into law. Also, I think his idea to throw millions of dollars at STD research was the dumbest idea in the WORLD! He wasn’t ready for this office and now he’s going to run our country into a hole.
"…prompting accusations that the Post was peddling a longstanding racist slur by portraying president Barack Obama, who signed the bill into law yesterday, as an ape"
Uh, hello…didn’t we just spend the past 8 years referring to the president as Chimpy, complete with accompanying artwork all over the papers, and no one thought it was anything but funny? Al, honey, sit down and take a few hits off an inhaler or something. It’s a cartoon, and a not so funny cartoon at that. Just let it die a natural death (which, on the internet, is what…0.0005 seconds?).
B Smart- One of the best comments I’ve read in a long time!
I think the people who equated the monkey with Obama need to examine the bigotry in their own minds. Sometimes bigots hide in humanitarians’ clothing.
The cartoon was simply stating the opinion that the stimulus package is so terrible, it could have been written by a monkey – specifically the monkey that was recently shot. It in no way had anything to do with calling Obama a monkey.
It is the very people who express "outrage" over the comparison that are making the comparison themselves! The cartoonist did not remotely make that connection. For someone to object to the cartoon, they must first have made this connection in their own mind: monkey = black man. Then they have the audacity to criticize the cartoonist for drawing it. Amazing.
This is the same mentality (in radical Islam) that says women should not expose any skin because it makes men think evil thoughts. The problem is the weak minded men, not the women.
In this case, the problem is the weak minded pseudo-humanitarian, not the cartoonist.
Tasteless regardless of its undertones.
I hate ‘Page Six’ so much it makes my veins wanna pop. And that artist has a history of race-baiting cartoons.