Al Sharpton, racial warrior extraordinaire, has a new cause, and it is a recent NY Post cartoon which Sharpton views as dredging up racial stereotypes.
Take a look at the cartoon. Both the cartoonist and the NY Post claim that it parodies the recent story of the flesh-eating, wine drinking, Xanax popping, night-time snuggling chimp. I gotta tell you, I don't see it the way the Post does...I guess I don't make a logical leap between the dead chimp and the stimulus. Sharpton might have something to bitch about here.
But then so do I. For eight years the press portrayed George Bush as a chimp in political cartoons. Not a PEEP our of Sharpton or anyone else on the left for that matter. It was all in fun don't you know.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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5 comments:
An African-American co-worker of mine sent me this very cartoon this morning and asked my thoughts. I honestly took it as 'the stimulus bill was so stupid a monkey could have written it' and told him so. I received in response a lengthy diatribe telling me how truly racist it was (he's a reasonable guy, but goes out of his way to find racial slights).
So I pondered a moment. And realized we see things through our own ideological, ethnic, gender-related, you name it, prisms. When Gov Kaine said the day after the election 'Old Virginny is finally dead' I found it mildly offensive, as though a vote for McCain could only be rooted in racism. I posed that thought to my co-worker and he thought I'd lost my mind.
So there you have it. I'm sure it's racist to say so, but I believe African-Americans are conditioned to look for racism in everything. But if there's a valid case to be made against this particular cartoon, or anything, Al Sharpton is probably not the best spokesperson for it.
Maybe if the cartoon showed 1 million chimpanzees at 1 million typewriters.
The cartoonist made the error of omitting a pearl necklace and lipstick on the chimp. But then I'm sure we would have offended some affilitation of cross dressers, as well as Mme Pelosi. BTW, is not the NYP, embarrassing step child of the NYT, a flamingly liberal rag?
I'm surprised to find myself disagreeing with you, B. I interpret the cartoon exactly as the cartoonist described it. The pet chimpanzee was frenzied, dangerous, and destructive. That sounds alarmingly like a description of the way the bill came together.
We seem to have lost sight of the fact that this cartoon was inspired by a REAL LIFE event. If a pet wolf or puma or other no-business-being-a-pet wild animal had been in the headlines, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Except, of course, if said animal were indigenous to Africa.
I appreciate your point that GWB was portrayed in the same way for 8 years. The blatant hypocrisy makes me want to pop a Xanax.
- PK
Mudge - I think you may be referring to the NY Daily News. The Post is and has been a fairly right-leaning newspaper since Murdoch.
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