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Double Feature: The NY Post, Police and Gun Shots.
Racist Much?
I’m sure we have all see this cartoon and read various reactions. If you haven’t seen it already, below is the NY Post’s apology:
Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon – caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut – has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.
It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Period.
But it has been taken as something else – as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.
This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.
However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past – and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.
To them, no apology is due.
Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon – even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.
Can this really just be “meant to mock” the bill, and not be a display of racism? Is it possible for people to send a racist message unintentionally? What about First Amendment rights? As the (black) president, is he now “fair game” for certain shots?
As for “the opportunist” they speak of, e.g. Rev. Al Sharpton, is he being opportunistic? Or is he just doing what should been done in hoping that the paper suffer some home? Is this just a cause of the moment, or a part of a larger on going battle? Is there an end in sight?
Share your thoughts folks. Because we know you have them.
Right fists in the air,
The Three Ways Crew
21 Responses to “Double Feature: The NY Post, Police and Gun Shots.”
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I was listening to some commentary on the radio about this and someone called in and said they were probably just being radical to get everyones attention and they succeeded. Think of how many hits to their webpage they’d received now. It definitely isn’t right, but I imagine they just were trying to do something controversial to get everyone talking about them.
I think every President is destined to have jokes about them in newspapers, but this one definitely crossed a few lines.
As far as is it possible to send racist messages unintentionally? Yes, absolutely. It’s called ignorance. I grew up in a primarily white area and I can tell you that I didn’t learn of many stereotypes until I hit college when it was discussed openly in classes. However, in this situation I don’t think it was ignorance. I think they knew exactly what they were doing.
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I know Al personally and suprisingly he’s not the attention hungry, media opportunist that he is made out to be. What he speaks out against he really feels strongly about; it just so happens that he feels strongly about a lot of shiznic lol. However, I am bothered by the cartoon on both sides. First, I think the paper (cartoonist and editors) is stupid. Did they really think that this couldnt be taken in any other light? Do they really think that we are that stupid? To all the protesters, simply dont buy the paper. The paper has every right to print whatever it wants. You dont like it, dont buy it and I bet they cut this shiznic out. I bet you more ppl bought the NY Post that day than any other day in recent history. This reminds me of the Imus situation. In both cases the offender offended people who werent even in their user base. Everyone knows blk folk dont listen to Imus nor read the NY Post. The NY Post is the ugly red headed step child of NYC newspapers.
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ife1love Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Al get’s a bad rap…
I may not always agree with him, but he deserves everyone’s respect for always being willing to sticking his neck out for all of us.
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Oh, please, NY Post. Spare me the attempted slickness. You ain’t slick.
Everybody and their mama knows:
A. Barack is the one mostly associated with the stimulus bill (even though he didn’t originally pen the bill).
B. A monkey has been an insult against Black folk since way back when.
Put that together? And you got one racially charged (masked as “just a cartoon”) sammich. And feed it to the general public who they knew would automatically think of Barack Obama. For shame, NY Post.
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Sowhatiff Jenkins Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Lol. You said “sammich”.
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CHeeKZ$ Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
But Cheekie, your making the case for the Post. Its not their fault that people are literally ignorant to how government works. A President doesn’t write legislation. I am assuming that a political cartoonist knows this!
But you want him to hold back on expressing his opinions, based off the fact that the rest of the country is ignorant to who is actually responsible for legislation?
I actually thought it was a clever joke. I am not going to pretend I don’t know anything just for another chance at playing the race card like that actually makes a difference in society.
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Cheekie Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
CheeKZ,
I’m saying, though, when you FIRST look at the picture, and you see the term “stimulus bill”, whose name comes to mind? Whose name has been in the media concerning the stimulus bill? Who has been fighting Republicans for it to pass? No one is going to think of who actually wrote the bill because the cartoon is executed poorly. And it’s a cartoon. A mini one at that. It’s not even an entire comic strip. It relies on two-second response. It doesn’t call for in-depth thought, the average Joe reading a mini-cartoon will have an image created in their head JUST LIKE THAT. And the image meant to be created is quite obvious.
Why did they use a monkey? They said it tied into the recent news of that monkey who attacked that lady…or you can even use that old “dumb monkeys at computers” bit to criticize whomever penned the bill. But the cartoon is a part of media. That cartoon was probably printed in the same media that reports Barack Obama in the same sentence as the stimulus bill.
There’s no trying to get another chance at playing the race card. You can’t truly control the first thing that pops into your head when you read something. And race was what popped into the head of many people…we didn’t have to sit there and think about it. And that’s what the cartoonist was fully aware of.
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Slim Jackson Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I’m actually riding with Cheekz (pause) on this one. Multiple people that were enraged or appalled emailed me about this and I didn’t even think of Barack Obama when I first looked at it. People had to point that out to me. I’m all about wholesome Black Goodness, but I think this one got a little out of control because of the snowball effect that comes with anything relating to race.The New York Post is still good with me. The New Yorker is a completely different story.
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When I first saw the cartoon, I was highly offended for President Obama, I thought it was absurd, and how could they allow this to be published. But after speaking with other people and looking at this again, I can believe that it wasn’t meant to be racist. It was just poor judgement on behalf of the illustrator. We are still in a sensitive time, we have a black President now and everything that is said and done about him/ or to him, will be scrutinized. We as Americans, based on American history will default and think that monkey was meant to symbolize use of racism towards blacks. Its bad but its true. But had it been President Bush, the cartoon would have been taken for what it was. That even a monkey could write the horribly thought out stimulus bill. Things like this are going to continue to happen, people just have to triple thinking before they do anything.
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This cartoon is just another example of why we need more Black (and other under represented populations) in the newsroom. I did not initially think the cartoon was racist because I assumed (and I think I was correct) that they were making light of that chimp from the Pepsi commercials that went crazy over the weekend and attacked it’s own and had to be shot by the cops.
I do however think that if the cartoonist (or an editor for that matter) stepped back and thought for a moment about what the implications of the cartoon might mean to some people they would have revised and gone w/ another metaphor.
I think the Post’s reaction/piss-poor apology is a piece of chimp crap. If you offend someone, intentional or not, you should apologize and take a moment to check yourself.
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Cheekie Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
“But had it been President Bush, the cartoon would have been taken for what it was. That even a monkey could write the horribly thought out stimulus bill.”
And it would’ve been funnier because he’s called a monkey all the time, but not for something he can’t control (the color of his skin), but because he’s a moron.
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Cheekie,
In order to make your point you have to believe that the. Post would assume that everyone would get the joke wrong. They somehow knew that no one in America. Knows who writes legislation. Despite the fact that it is a political joke, and thos that read political jokes tend to know politics. You guys are like Bill Orielly commented on Hip Hop
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Cheekie Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
“In order to make your point you have to believe that the. Post would assume that everyone would get the joke wrong. They somehow knew that no one in America. Knows who writes legislation.”
Not necessarily. Obviously, this cartoon can take on different meanings in people’s minds. Also, obviously, a lot of people saw the racial connection AT FIRST, then later saw the other connection. And vice versa. I knew who writes legislation, but it’s not the first thing I thought of. If this political cartoonist is smart enough to know that Presidents don’t write legislation, they are also smart enough to know that even alluding to a monkey in regards to something so closely related to a Black president would be taken as racist. Again, the writer of the bill isn’t plastered all over the news with the stimulus bill, the president is.
Now, I do want to make clear that I’m not calling them big fat liars in regards to what the cartoon really means, I’m just calling BS on them not knowing what reactions they would get from it.
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As a political dude who is very serious in the advancement of his people, I’m not rocking with Al or jesse. I don’t believe their tactics are bringing the amount of change that Obama’s “put your head down and prove them wrong” approach. We beat Jim Crow by protesting, this is a new age.
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I just think the cartoon was in poor taste. But then again, satirical cartoons are intended to elicit such reactions. True, Bush was consistently referred to as a chimp. But he’s white. When you allude to the black president using an image of a primate, you know what the association will be. Freedom of speech, press and expression come at price.
Do I think people should burn down the NY Post building? No. Will I continue to talk against its publication because the paper as a whole sucks? Yes.
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Cheekie Reply:
February 20th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
“Freedom of speech, press and expression come at price. ”
Exactly! No one is taking ol dude’s freedom of speech away by expressing outrage on it. Freedom of speech does not save you from people’s opinions, just government interference.
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I, as usual, feel the opposite. It was a satire; a cartoon; a joke. Even if it was about Obama, which I don’t believe it was, it would still be funny. Black folks always want equality, well here it is. If he is gonna be president, he is gonna get clowned. If black comedians etc. can make stereotypical jokes about him being the 1st black president (See Katt Willliams, Chris Rock, etc.) why can’t the Post?
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and1grad Reply:
February 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 am
That might be plausible if being a monkey were a stereotype of being black. Its not. Another thing that we may be unintentionally overlooking is that the cartoon gives a feel of an accidental shooting. I’m under the impression that this happens more to blacks than to whites.
The President might be fair game for jokes but can you imagine the type of bullshit that people would come up with if we were to allow them to make THESE kinds of jokes at our first black President’s expense?
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{S.T.U.F.F.} Reply:
February 25th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
FINALLY!!!
…SOMEONE ELSE WHO ‘GETS’ IT!!!
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…or are we just too d**ned sensitive?
In order to be offended by an object…one has to first identify with the offending object.
No Identity to the offending object = No offense taken!!!
…when we find the POWER that exists in self-validation?!!!!
WAKE UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
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When I saw that cartoon, what went through my mind was something along the lines of: if you put a million monkeys at a million typewriters for a million years, one of them will write a Shakespeare play. The rest of them will write something more coherent than the typical example of federal budget legislation.
The cartoon came out when a story about a chimp getting shot after going ape-shit (so to speak) was at the top of the CNN rotation, making it topical. I don’t see any attempt to make the monkey in the cartoon resemble BHO.
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