Thursday, February 19, 2009

Chip Cartoon

This cartoon appeared in the NY Post. Many people are outraged thinking that this is a racist comment toward President Obama. What do you think? Is it racist or is the cartoonist just trying to make a point about the stimulus package?


Here is the whole story:
The New York Post is standing behind a cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police. The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. One of the officers says the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." Civil rights activist Al Sharpton called the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys."
But Sharpton said the Post should clarify the point it was trying to make with the cartoon, which was playing off Monday's rampage by a pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Conn., that left a woman severely mauled. Police ended up killing the chimp. In a statement, Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan said: "The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do not believe that this cartoon is racial against President Obama. He is NOT the one who wrote this Stimulas package, he just signed it into law. This package was put together by a bunch of monkeys. Wait a minute, no one knows exactly what is in this package!

Anonymous said...

The cartoon refers to those who wrote the bill, not to the idiot who signed the stupid thing. Funny that nobody ever complained when President Bush was compare to a monkey. Now we get even a hint of it and it's front page news. Ridiculous!

RWW said...

A political joke needs to meet three requirements to be effective to me.

1: Be provocative, even at the expense of good taste.

2: Be funny.

3: Be relevant.

This one is clearly NOT FUNNY.

It also does not connect the two news items acurately. If they had portrayed a bunch of monkeys dead, it would've tied in congress and senate, but then they would've lost the Chimp story. So it is also not relevant.

This is just a bad cartoon and should have never made it past the editor's desk.