Uh Oh...
The New York Post published this cartoon today, and the Honorable Al Sharpton is not happy about it. The cartoon references the chimp attack yesterday in Connecticut where a woman was badly mauled and the chimp was eventually shot and killed by police.
Mr. Sharpton had this to say:
“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?”
Maybe Al, maybe...
Perhaps the person behind the cartoon is trying to say that someone with the mentality of a chimp would put this much stock in a pork laden bill that adds nearly One Trillion dollars to our National Debt. Or, maybe this person is racist and was drawing from the well of old stereotypes. Regardless, this cartoon is, at best, in bad taste given the history in our country of the monkey or chimp being used as a symbol of our black population. But, when have we ever accused the NY Post of having good taste?
If it was, in fact, drawn with a racist slant and intent...so what? Presidents have been getting hammered on for a couple of centuries now. I have seen numerous articles and pics comparing Bush II to Hitler and others. We should not expect those that dwell in the fringe to pull their punches because of Mr. Obama's skin tone. Sorry, He knew this was coming if he won.
I am not condoning this cartoon, but I will defend the right of the cartoonist to draw it and the NY Post to publish it. And Al Sharpton's right to speak out against it.
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