Update: Black people portrayed as monkeys is still racist
By contributing hater, Kenny Darter
Advice for newspapers: Don’t compare the first black president to a chimpanzee. Especially one that was shot to death.
The New York Post – which qualifies as a newspaper in that it has words side by side accompanied by pictures – printed a Feb. 18 editorial cartoon that combines two bits of topical humor: a chimp called Travis that lost its mind and almost killed a lady in Connecticut and the passage of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, signed by President Obama yesterday.
Page 6: Toughen up America. Racism ended on Election Day.
Having just pumped three bullets into the rabid chimp, one of the cops laments, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The Post cartoonist, Sean Delonas, might have meant that the stimulus bill – criticized by conservatives as haphazardly compiled – could have been written by monkeys.
This criticism could have been aimed at Congress, which writes legislation.
Hey, who are you calling rabid chimps riddled with bullet holes?
But to print this cartoon the day after Obama signed the legislation was, as Al Sharpton said, “troubling at best.”
There was only one monkey. There’s only one president. Oh, also, the president is black, as you may have heard. The racist undertones are harsh enough to melt your eyeballs.
The New York Post released a statement saying the cartoon was a “clear parody of a current news event.” Is clear really the best word to describe this drawing? To many people — most people, I dare say — it was clear that the Post was either calling Obama a chimp or tacitly encouraging violence against the president and/or others who pushed the stimulus bill through Congress.
And yes, for those (white) people who will surely point out that George W. Bush was portrayed as a chimp for eight years on every major editorial page in America, let’s remember our ABCs of racism. Mocking members of the race that holds power is not defined as racism. It’s sociologically impossible.
Prejudice, yes. Racism, no.
Beverly Daniel Tatum’s “Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?” analyzes the common sociological definition of racism as “prejudice plus power.”
Racial prejudice when combined with social power – access to social, cultural and economic resources and decision making – leads to the institutionalization of racist policies and practices
History doesn’t help the New York Post’s case. There are innumerable instances of black Americans portrayed as primates in American media. Don’t trust me. Watch “Bamboozled.”
Let’s not forget, we’ve been through this before.
A side note to Post editors: if people perceive that the slain chimp is a metaphor for Obama, it’ll awaken fears of assassination. The animal has three bullets lodged in his upper body. From the minute Obama became a front runner to win the White House, millions of Americans have feared “the thing of which we do not speak,” as my friends and I say.
The possibility looms. When he accepted the Democratic nomination in Denver, it loomed. When he thanked his supporters on election night, it loomed. When he delivered his Inauguration speech, it loomed. And it will continue.
So, in summary, to all you newspapers out there that don’t want to incite riots during the next four – possibly eight – years, stay away from anything that could be mistaken for an Obama-monkey comparison. We’ll hate you that much less.
Thank you for this article.
Just when I thought nothing could make me more sick than the existence of this cartoon, there is a poll on popeater.com with 94,000 responses that says 50 percent of people don’t think the cartoon is racist. Clearly the only option here is to kill myself immediately.
Wait, Obama is black? When did that happen?
This cartoonist and the editorial board are apparently retarded.
Most US citizens could expect the secret service at their doorstep to ask questions if they published reference to assassination of the sitting President of the United States.
I know of a trader in the Chicago area that sent an email to friends suggesting something like this regarding Bush. He answered his door to the secret service asking if he would like to retract his statement. When he said, “no”, they read the list of charges he would be facing. At which point he decided he would retract his statement.
I hope these goofy people at the Post will have the same opportunity.
That cartoon annoys the hell outta me
The fact that popeater’s results have a dead-equal stance on racism turnes my stomach. im a New Yorker & I was VERY disappointed in the Post for publishing such an insensitive ( & humorless) article. There is no room for interpretation when you compare a black man to a chimp. Its racist, period.
For those that don’t think its racist, you all are being blind to the cartoon. For years we (blacks people) have been called monkeys and here we go with a cartoon thats putting three shots in a monkey and saying in the upper right hand corner of the cartoon that they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill. Why didn’t we see a cartton the critique the first stimulus bill. COME ON PEOPLE. We have bin kept down for four hundred years and its time for us to rise.
I must say, I could not agree with you in 100%, but it’s just my opinion, which could be very wrong.
p.s. You have an awesome template . Where did you find it?