A cartoon likening the author of the stimulus bill, perhaps President Barack Obama, with a rabid chimpanzee graced the pages of the New York Post on Wednesday. The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.
“They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” reads the caption.
An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper. At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that’s what Delonas wanted.
Huh….what were they thinking?
#54 bobbo,
Education, really… Liberals are not educated, they’re indoctrinated.
Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar and a chimp is only a chimp…
If there hadn’t been that chimp attack this week, then maybe the “Rev Al’s” claim might have some merit, even though he himself is a known bigot.
But, to conclude that the chimp in the cartoon is a depiction of Obama, says more about the bigoted mindset of the viewer, than it does the intent of the cartoonist.
#65–BigBoy==”Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar and a chimp is only a chimp…” /// Correct. That admits that sometimes a chimp is more than a chimp…so analysis requires more than just denial.
When a political cartoonist has 1134 pictures from the recent news to make a reference from, I think there is more than time frame being applied.
If you don’t, then sometimes a chump is a chump.
IMHO, it is funny because the dead ape looks exactly like Pelosi. I mean exactly. It’s eerie.
Unlike certain Danish cartoon of last year, no one is killing anyone.
There is something right about a society that can argue over something as deeply felt as this without shooting each other.
Obviously this cartoon IS a reference to Obama as no one else has written THIS stimulus plan.
Historically, black folks have been referred to as monkeys, as in porch monkeys etc. and have been drawn as monkeys or resembling monkeys.
Is the cartoon some kind of racial slur?? I’d say with 99% certainly yes it is.
Anyone old enough and worldly enough to know the historic reference and aware enough to catch the stimulus reference and intelligent enough to connect the dots would come to this same conclusion.
I honestly believe many here just like to argue for argument sake. I can stay home and hear all that nonsense….
First of all WHY is a NY rag even remotely interested in a CT event of such small proportion that when I watch the nightly news the attack was not mentioned. Just more crap on the plane accidents recently, the economy and some imbecilic feel good story.
Second, what the hell does a random chimp attack have to do even in the slightest about the stimulus bill? I mean THAT is a HUGE stretch. To equate a chimp attack with the economy? How many regular people could even make that leap?
Now if the president had been irish, I’ll bet most would not have gotten it unless they still know what 23-skiddoo means, who the “IT” girl was and liked ragtime music! But nowdays people immediately picked up it as a slight towards dark-skinned americans. Its pretty clear that the cartoonist was either influenced in that respect OR is an complete moron and shouldn’t be in the business.
Now seriously which is worse to admit?
Closet racist?
Complete Moron?
I’d take bonehead, idiot, complete moron over racist myself. Especially when there is only homo sapien on this planet and skin colour is determined by location in relation to the equator.
Cursor_
Let’s weigh the two possibilities of the significance of this image in our culture.
1) Black man = monkey :: A racist meme that has been around since the dawn of racism, recognized by virtually everybody.
2) A lone chimp who bit off a finger = U.S. congress writing an ill-conceived stimulus package :: A head-scratching twist of the imagination that seems perfectly natural only to you and maybe 6 other lunatics.
Which makes more sense? Oh, which, which, which?
I still can’t get my head around how biting off a finger = writing a bad bill. Perhaps my powers of logic are insufficient…
And if the cartoonist wanted to represent a “crazy” group of people, why not pick, I don’t know, a crazy group of something…?
So many questions… But of course we must keep on fishing for some explanation in order to avoid the one uncomfortable explanation that is perfectly clear to 98% of the world’s population…
What right-wingers don’t seem to understand is that neither you nor I get to decide what’s racist. Racist things are racist things. It doesn’t matter if your grandpa thinks “nigger” is a term of endearment. He doesn’t get to decide that. So if he says “nigger” in public, it’s a racist term whether he feels it is or not.
But this case is not even at the grandpa level. Because you’d have to be a complete lobotomized fool to believe that this cartoonist is *unaware* of the long, long history of comparing blacks to monkeys, and to the countless Obama = monkey expressions we’ve already seen throughout the presidential campaign.
Good to see free expression still exists in America. Leaves a good taste. Makes living the white circus monkey of a president more tolerable.
#36 – “Obama as chimp means he lives in the jungle, swings from trees, and really isn’t quite human.”
Huh, Obama as chimp means he’s doing a pretty piss poor job as POTUS so far…unless it really is his goal to destroy the US and turn it into a 3rd world hellhole, in which case he’s doing an excellent job.
People defending Barry does bring humor into an otherwise grim situation though…
I personally think it’s a statement about how uber-conservatives are over critical about Obama’s stimulus plan, and how they want it to fail (Rush L.) or say it is already failing. I am seeing a simmilar mindset coming from the cops and a lot of the right wing nutjobs you see interviewed on FOX news that wind up being parodied on The Daily Show.
#66 bobbo,
We can go around and around on the issue of racism ’til we wear our fingers to the bone.
I think we can agree that the cartoon is at minimum in poor taste given the tragic events surrounding the chimp attack. I think we can agree that the New York Post has a habit of publishing crappy cartoons.
We will never see eye-to-eye on the issue of racism that you perceive in this specific cartoon and I don’t. This is not a issue of who is right or wrong. It’s a issue of differing opinions. That’s a good thing, believe it of not.
All of you moroons who see no racial tones in this cartoon is probably because you are RACIST!! STOP and think about the IDIOT that just left office that got us in all this mess in the first place. I see the cartoonist depicting the bill being implemented by a out of conrol chimp or monkey as blacks are so often referred to. How do you think the owner of the chimp feels as he was the love of her life after the tradgic death of her husband and daughter. I am furious about this cartoon, and I brace myself for more as long as Obama is in the WHITE HOUSE…get over it America!!!! the people voted BLACK and WHITE and he is there and nothing you racist cartoonist or anyone else can do about it. As long as a WHITE man sat in the WHITE HOUSE, all was fine we all had to answer to his laws…SO GET OVER IT….TO THE CARTOONIST YOU ARE A RACIST IDIOT!!!!!!
Did Delonas know that the police officers were white or even men, or did he just “need” them to be so? It’s time for us to grow-up. No wonder we’re not respected. We don’t even have respect for ourselves.
# 77 Carolyn Peterson said, “All of you moroons who see no racial tones in this cartoon is probably because you are RACIST!!”
Actually, those that don’t think of race when they see this don’t think of humanity as different “races” but, as human beings. Those that constantly see racism in everything have, in their mind, divided up mankind along artificial lines…
Ah yes, Paddy-O, the wonderful conservative and Libertarian fantasy that you get to just make up cultural contexts and histories from scratch every time you open your mouth.
My grandpa believes he’s not racist, either. He also believes “nigger” is a term of endearment when whites say it to blacks. According to your impeccable logic — he’s right! Why? Because he says so! Because that’s his “intention”!
So you and grandpa feel free to sing “nigger” along the city streets whenever you please because you’re “beyond race” and you apparently don’t live in a world with a cultural context and a cultural history. You’ve transcended it! There’s no more racism.
Twit.
# 80 Wretched Gnu said, “He also believes “nigger” is a term of endearment when whites say it to blacks. According to your impeccable logic — he’s right! Why? Because he says so! Because that’s his “intention”!”
Apparently, your reading comprehension is low. As I said, if someone sees races (your grandfather by his labeling based on skin color does) as different and not simply as human being, they are racist.
Try reading and understanding what I wrote. You failed in this the 1st time. Try again.
Amazing what this ad represents but where was the publicist when Bush wrote his stimulus plan that afforded rich executives to travel the world on taxpayers dime. Maybe that ad should have shown a donkey oops jackass being shot when that plan was put into motion. How easy we forget the time when the previous plan was written by a white president as oppose to a black one. I would say racism is at an alltime high. I didn’t realize the New York Post was written and owned by the KKK.
Signed,
Bitter in New Orleans
#81 Yes, a small child who sees this cartoon and hasn’t a clue about it being about Obama, is by definition, the biggest racist on the planet. 😉
ROFL!!
# 83 Kelly Brossett-Desmond said, “Amazing what this ad represents but where was the publicist when Bush wrote his stimulus plan that afforded rich executives to travel the world on taxpayers dime.”
If you are referring to the Bailout in the fall, that was written by Pelosi & crew…
This debate about a monkey being degrading to blacks reminds me of a discussion I once had with an a person who was so concerned about woman’s rights, they wanted to completely change the English language. They insisted we remove words like woman. There point was woman contains ‘man’ in it. Therefore it degraded women. I argued that it is just as easy to interpret woman as ‘man with a womb’, therefore, a woman is more than a man, better. There mind was made up, they could not see it any other way. In the same way, only whites can be monkeys.
I have to join those who say “I did not think the cartoon was racist”, it just did not occur to me to take it that way. Perhaps I am less prejudice than most. Apart from a footnote in the history books, for good or ill, we have a president, not a “Black” president. Certainly (IMHO) a better man than GW had any hope of being.
And yes, I am way over forty, so know what the 60’s were. I am not naive. Perhaps I am just hopeful that someday people will stop noticing what race a person is, and just see a person.
#56, Fullofit
Photoshop a green tophat on the chimp and you can reuse for St. Patrick’s Day.
Eff you asshole.
Bobbo,
Thank you sir, you have made some extremely valid and timely comments.
I agree with RBG that Bush was often referred to as a Chimp. I was never comfortable with that comparison. Yet, I acknowledge that it was not because of any resemblance, but more so for the intelligence he used.
When the same comparison was used for Obama during the election, it was very racist in nature.
You don’t need to be a racist to think this cartoon is just fine. It sure is a good indication though.
If you think using words like “Japs”, “Slanty Eyes”, “Spook”, “Chink”, “Pork Chop”, “Nigger”, “Wet Back”, “Chief”, “Mud Puppy”, “Coon”, “Rag Head”, “Paki”, or “Wa Hoo” are inoffensive really are racists. Even if you don’t think so.
This cartoon is a subtle as a cartoon of Tony Blair blowing “W” while “W” gives Ehud Olmert a “Rim Job”. Which I believe actually happened. Will someone create and submit that cartoon to dvorak.org/blog . . . please?
There’s nothing remotely racist about it, the only way you’re going to see anything racist is if you’ve got racism on the brain. It’s a very straight-forward cartoon that says exactly what it means, nothing more, nothing less. A lot of people need to stop reading their own agenda into everything they see.
A friend of mine (a staunch supporter of a political party I don’t belong to) sent me the following joke, forwarded from another of his friends:
“I got my stimulus package in the mail today, it consisted of watermelon seeds, bannanas[sic], cornbread mix, and 10 chickens.”
I’m almost hesitant to point out how offensive I find it, because I know I’ll be labeled as a racist for misinterpreting a perfectly innocuous, lighthearted joke. It’s probably my fault for being offended, and if I weren’t such a racist myself, I’d see nothing wrong with these funny word images.
Meanwhile, other people who claim to not be racists are rolling on the floor, laughing their asses off because of the racial stereotypes in the joke. Coincidentally, these are the very same people who made sure that no one forgot what Obama’s middle name was, although less than one in a hundred knew McCain’s middle name.
Maybe I’ll go to church and beg the Lord to purge my heart of the ugly racism that prevents me from laughing at this hilarious non-racist joke. Oops, I almost forgot — the Lord has certain racial preferences of his own, so maybe he’s not the one to cure me.
# 95 Gary, the dangerous infidel said, “I got my stimulus package in the mail today, it consisted of watermelon seeds, bannanas[sic], cornbread mix, and 10 chickens.”
Sounds like my main diet while growing up.
#76–BigBoy==you continue to amuse. You have parried twice now with answers that admit the obvious error of your own position-yet you think you are contesting the issue. HAW!!!!!
Sadly, your intransigence and somnambulism is similarly marked by others arguing your side.
Why do you argue instead of learn?
Is it not logically inescapable that “some” people find the cartoon racist?
To ignore those “some” people and to maintain your opinion as if they and their opinion don’t exist is the nature of a zealot.
I can see you next week saying “I’ve never heard that monkey is derogatory when used with reference to blacks.” === and of course, you would be correct, because you haven’t heard, you refuse to listen, you refuse to learn.
How does that happen?
Gary, your fine post will be lost on these wingnuts. They will — with a straight face — tell you that you were overly sensitive to think the bananna, watermellon seeds and chicken “stimulus” package as a racist email.
If you showed them a white person smearing themselves with blackface and dancing a minstrel jig, they would tell you that *you* are the racist for thinking it racist. After all, it’s just innocent paint — the same kind you use for all kinds of household purposes. How could it be racist?
I’m not joking. These are the arguments Paddy-O and others are typing right now…