N.Y. Post's Racist Cartoon: Cops 'Assassinate' Chimp Symbol of Obama

The bigots are STILL jumping up and down in joy.

Now it's the New York Post  -- quick to deny, slow to apologize for the racist cartoon (above.) Two weeks ago, it was the Washington Post printing the story "Raccoons Invade White House Grounds." They too denied that it was racist; however, the next day the paper's online edition changed the headline to read  "Masked Intruders" instead of "Raccoons." (Read Ethic Soup's story "Raccoons at White House: America Still Waits for Post-Racism." )

I'm sick-at-heart over the blatant racism and denials. This time I'm going to write a brief media roundup on the comments of other journalists regarding the Post's cartoon. At least this time I don't have to ask "Doesn't anyone else see this besides me?" or "Why won't more of the media speak up about this racism?" Maybe they're willing to talk about it now because it was printed in a Rupert Murdoch newspaper, or racist journalism is accelerating in pace, or perhaps it's just too blatant to be able to ignore.

In the St. Petersburg Times, Eric Deggans writes: "Riddle me this: the New York Post, a famously combative, conservative newspaper owned by Fox News proprietor Rupert Murdoch, runs a cartoon implying that a crazed chimpanzee wrote the recent economic stimulus bill, which was actually championed and developed by our nation's first black president. Is that a racist joke?"

LACK OF AWARENESS OR RACIST ? 

Deggans questions that even if most readers don't think the cartoon is consciously racist, why would a major newspaper in the most diverse city in America publish a cartoon which could be taken this way? And is it more disturbing if they published the cartoon with no awareness of its racial connotation, or if they published it after discussing it at length?

The Kansas City Star notes: "...jokes that might have rolled off the back of a typical politician (in the past) now take on new resonance when levied against someone from a race of people who were stereotyped as ape-ish animals for hundreds of years."

At NBC New York, Gabe Pressman says "The cartoon in the New York Post suggesting that Barack Obama or one of his supporters is an ape is both offensive and stupid." Pressman asked whether it was meant as an insult to the President, or was it intended to insult African-Americans? "Whatever the motive, it wasn't funny. It seemed to be the product of a warped mind or of warped values."

In The Times Mirror, South African edition, foreign editor Jackie May writes: "What on earth was the editor thinking? It is hard not to interpret the cartoon as racist and violent."  Regarding New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allen, who denied any racism in cartoon, May asks "Could he really not have been aware that this cartoon would be interpreted as racist considering the history of monkey name-calling in racist attacks on black Americans?"

At CNN, contributor Roland Martin says: "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."

MONKEY SLURS: TRIED & TRUE DEHUMANIZATION

The New York Association of Black Journalists released a statement, which included the following: "Monkey slurs against Africans and African-Americans go back to the days of early colonialism, when Anglo Saxon, Spanish and Portuguese conquerors used these type 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."

Interestingly, the N.Y. Post cartoon ran the same day that our first black attorney general, Eric Holder, gave a speech on black history month. Holder's words included the following:

"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.

"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."

TO READ "Great White Hope: Metaphor for Racist Kansas Politician," CLICK HERE.

TO READ "Raccoons at White House: America Still Waits for Postracism," CLICK HERE.

TO READ "Kansas Church Marquee: Obama Muslim President a Sin," CLICK HERE.

TO READ ETHIC SOUP'S "Hatemongers Exploit Racial Fears After Obama Election," CLICK HERE.

  By Sharon McEachern


 

Comments

[Karen Douglass]

This borders on illegal--threatening, violent, racist. The newspaper should suffer a dramatic loss of readership if this exemplifies their editorial position toward people of color. I applaud free speech but this offends me and I hope it offends others in a country that has been self-congratulatory about our recent presidential election.