While I consistently challenge people to show responsibility for their plight, regardless of the behavior of others, this does not mean that such behavior should go unrecognized. Whether the NYPost takes a hit over this ad and backs down will tell us a lot about where America really stands in its thinking – and this ultimately is a good thing. Truth is always better than fiction.The fact that the paper could choose to run such a cartoon with blatant racial and violent tones applied to the president establishes credence to this particular perspective of the country. The only question is how many people are laughing in agreement, versus shaking their heads in disgust. Understandably, the responses are tempered by the dire economic straits we find ourselves. But how much tempering should there be?
Relative to the former president (with any due respect) Obama is far from primate land, other than the racist association some might make of his African ancestry. Is the Post attempting to establish an acceptable benchmark for characterizing and challenging the White House? Are they attempting to see how ‘thick’ his skin is? In light of recent partisan splits, stirring blood in the water sooner rather than later will sell newspapers, perhaps? Who knows what they were thinking.
In any event, I expect the White House to remain cool. The next four years is a long race, and they’re just out of the gate. Obama will be called many names and characterized unflatteringly by people, like Limbaugh, who seek their own profit in the president’s and the country’s greater failure. There is nothing to do about these unpatriotic parasites, but to ignore them. Personally, I have been ignoring Murdoch and his rags for many years.
James C. Collier
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Technorati Tags: Acting White: NYPost Chimp Cartoon, Obama, Murdock, Stimulus, Racism, Acting White
*sigh* this is no good. Opinions are tolerated; blaten disrespect deserves retractions.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, my first thought upon seeing the cartoon was the "infinite number of monkeys writing Shakespeare" joke, followed by confusion over who a single chimp would represent (the executive branch still doesn't write bills, no matter how many proposals they put forward), followed by remembering that an actual chimp was shot by police officers in Connecticut earlier this week. So I'm going to vote for this being an example of stupidity and insensitivity, rather than malice towards the President.
ReplyDeleteI'm as thick skinned as they come when it comes to this type of stuff but, come on : how could anyone not see how this cartoon would obviously be seen as racist ?
ReplyDeleteBoy, you guys are touchy! But I'm glad you're around, because I never would have recognized that cartoon was racist until you said so!
ReplyDeletethis cartoon proves that Eric Holder was right after all.
ReplyDeleteNever would have thought it was racist either.
ReplyDeleteThey used the recent chimp shooting as an attempt at humor and the fact they don't care for the stimulus bill to infer it was bad enough that a monkey wrote it?
The pic doesn't look like Obama.
The illustrator could have easily done that if he wanted. Then maybe the race thing could have had merit.
Other than that it only has merit as a racial cartoon if a person prefers to see it as such.
"Relative to the former president (with any due respect) Obama is far from primate land"
ReplyDeleteLet's assume for the sake of argument that the monkey in the cartoon is Obama (although I believe that Congress, not the president, is responsible for writing a bill and thus the target of the cartoon). Now that both Obama and, far more commonly, Bush have been compared to a primate, what if I were to defend the latter in the spirit of James's post:
"Relative to the current president (with any due respect) Bush is far from primate land..."
KKK alert!
The lesson here is that a primate comparison is okay when used against non-blacks, but "racist" when used against blacks (or half blacks, as the case may be).
I see a racial double standard here, but obviously people who are expert in this sort of thing agree that it is not "racist."
So the next time I feel like exclaiming, "Even a monkey can do a better job!" -- whether the undertaking be a legislation, a painting, or a foul shot -- I'd better find out the race of the undertaker first. Otherwise, he may turn out to be black, and black people will get all upset, and, witnessing this, an innocent child may learn that "monkey" is a slur against black people, thus necessarily associating the two. And we all don't want that, do we?
This reminds me of what the Islamo-fascists did to Salman Rushdee or what they did to a Denmark newspaper. The cartoon says they shot the monkey who wrote the stimulus bill. Pelosi is the monkey who wrote the stimulus bill. If you explained the politics to a 5 year old they would tell you that the monkey in this analogy was that scary lady called madam speaker. A 5 YEAR OLD, you morons! A some point the American people won't jump when you say boo! or boo-hoo!
ReplyDeleteWell they need to shoot the monkey that wrote the 400 billion omnibus bill that includes literally thousands of earmark projects.
ReplyDeleteKeep waiting on the change........