JZipp

Yes, in America we can't and should not be offended.We are so thin skinned,looking for any reason to cry foul.Why not focus on real racism? not a catoon trying to make a point about a spending bill.Ever read the Post?

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The cops did shoot the chimpanzee multiple times. Whether or not the author's intent was to imply the chimp was Obama is arguable, but I can see how it can be considered racist.

I don’t think your view is a stretch at all. My point is that you are inserting your own set of biases into the cartoon:

 

1) You assume the cops are white and that that makes a difference.
2) You assume that chimpanzee = commentary on race instead of intellect.
3) You assume the chimpanzee is Obama.
4) You assume that Obama’s father’s lineage makes up his entire racial identity. If they really wanted to make fun of black people, they would have shown something half Caucasian and half chimp.

 

You said he doesn’t look black or Asian. Tiger Woods doesn’t look Asian either, but he is. Steve Byrne doesn’t look Irish, but he is. Duane Johnson and Lisa Bonet don’t look black, but they are. Lenny Kravitz and his daughter don’t look Jewish, but they are. Halle Berry and Obama don’t look Caucasian, but they are.

 

And the fact that I would not have made the connection otherwise is exactly why it is clever. They took two entirely unrelated events and put them together in a creative way to make an accurate political statement about the absurdity of the stimulus package.
 

@jdolder

Really? You're going to tell me the cops were supposed to be black in the cartoon? Please. Did they look asian? Did they look Native American? OK, maybe they were Hispanic, but that's just as much of a stretch to assume based on the physical traits that were drawn into them. As all black and white cartoons do, shading plays a big part. Before cartoons were in color, would you have thought Charlie Brown or Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbs) were anything other than white? No.

I think it's funny that you're inferring your own view of the cartoon, but think my view is a stretch. No, I don't think an animal who viciously (and in an unwarrented manner, apparently) attacked a person and then was shot by cops directly relates or connects to the Stimulus bill... and you wouldn't have connected the two either without the cartoon. It's not clever, it's just unnecessary all around. They could've just as well shown cops shooting the stimulus bill and saying "There! Now that crazy chimp won't be able to hurt anyone else."

They chose their words to be pandering in a negative way.

Wasn't the cartoon in black and white?  How can you infer anything about the race of the cops?  Additionally, President Obama did not write the bill, so it could just as easily have been referring to our legislature.  Finally, given some of the crazy things they are trying to pass off as economic stimulus (contraception?, come on, you'd have to be an idiot to believe that less people = more growth), don't you think that equating it to a wild animal drives home the point?

@flarex

GWB was likened to a monkey in ways that clearly connected the two in a joking manner. The only thing this cartoon insinuated was that a wild chimpanzee was equal to Barack Obama. I absolutely think it was in reference to that incident. I'm not an idiot. However, they used two current events stories to poke fun at Obama... and they did it in a heavyhanded, racial way. Don't give me the "it just so happened to be a chimpanzee that day rather than a crocodile" argument... had it been any other animal, they wouldn't have likened the two.

You don't think it was a reference to the chimpanzee incident also in the news?

Plus, GWB was likened to a monkey several times in political cartoons; no one said that they were trying to claim he was black. I think the allegations are circumstantial.

@flarex

I think the racial connotations are impossibly hard to ignore. Had a non-African American person been President, they wouldn't have used the same caption. In addition, both cops in the image are white... and they fired more than one bullet. I think the NYPost was trying very hard to be as blatant as possible.

I'm actually kind of surprised you think it's racist <whereistand.com>" alt="" />