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Cartoon, at left, by Sean Delonas/NY Post; photograph, at right, of stimulus legislation by Lauren Victoria Burke/AP
Today, NY Post editorial cartoonist Sean Delonas's offering that ties in the Connecticut chimp incident with the federal stimulus package is raising many eyebrows. The Huffington Post's Sam Stein wrote, "At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Most provocatively, 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."
The Reverend Al Sharpton issued a statement:
"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that 'Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.' Seeing that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"Post editor in chief Col Allan scoffed at Sharpton and defended the cartoon, "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." Or, as Gawker puts it, "There's no editing art, people."
Update: Sharpton tells CityRoom that "he planned to hold a protest outside The Post’s Midtown offices at noon on Thursday." Besides outcry from lawmakers and officials—Senator Gillibrand called the cartoon "offensive and purposefully hurtful," Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said it "appears to be a cheap shot that uses historically violent and racist imagery...It was neither smart, clever, or funny," and City Councilman Leroy Comrie suggested a boycott—some Post employees aren't happy. From CityRoom:
A newsroom employee at The Post, who spoke on condition of anonymity because employees were not permitted to comment on the matter, said its newsroom received many calls of complaints on Wednesday morning after the publication of the cartoon. “Every line was lit up for several hours,” the employee said. “The phones on the city desk have never rung like that before.” Many Post staff members were dismayed by the cartoon, the employee added.Gawker called Page Six (the cartoon appeared in the Post's popular Page Six section) reporter Paula Froelich whose voicemail now says, "Please note, if you are calling about the cartoon today: Page Six, its editor and the reporters at Page Six do not pick the cartoon, we have nothing to do with the cartoon and don't see it until the paper comes out the next day. So if you have a complaint about the cartoon, please call the news desk at (212) 930-8500. Thank you!" (With audio).
And Governor Paterson, who did not see the cartoon and asked for WCBS 2 reporter Marcia Kramer to describe it to him during a press conference, said, "They do feed a kind off a negative and stereotypical way that people think, but I think if it's enough that people are raising this issue, I hope they would clarify it. In a situation like this where an economic downturn has shown in the past that it does lead to a lot of unnecessary and stereotypical characterizations, an explanation is in order. I'm trying to be fair to the New York Post, who has never been very fair to me."
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it's it's not funny it's not fun
Shut up Billy Crystal!! Howard is a Genius!!!
lol! great reference.
lol! great reference.
I love it.
it's just....more delonas. he's not really sure what he's doing, so i wouldn't read too much into it.
I think it's a bit offensive, but how many times did they compare GW Bush to a monkey? They even drew him as one. Why can't african americans take it as a non-racial joke? If all other races take it, they should too.
Also, Al Sharpton is irrelevant. A LEGITIMATE black politician is the President now, so go away Sharpton. No one needs your rhyming ass anymore. There's a black leader who can actually speak like a human being.
Why can't they take is as a non-racist joke? Because it is typical of racists to compare the entire black race to monkeys, not just one person , like, say, Bush. Plus, I was appalled to see stickers on the subway depicting Obama as a monkey during the election campaigne, which I traced to a racist website (and I mean hate-racist, really really hateful, with nooses in their logo, and selling racist propaganda and props). It's not being oversensitive. That artist is an opportunistic creep, who knew this would get lots of attention. He has a nerve accusing Sharpton of opportunism.
George Bush was never caricatured as a monkey RIDDLED WITH BULLETS LYING DEAD INA POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD. I hope this guy gets a visit from the Secret Service. This is definitely an underhanded references to Obama, it is racist, offensive and treasonous.
Obama didn't write the stimulus bill; neither did congress for that matter - the lobbyists and special interests groups did.
If anybody is comparing Obama to a monkey, it's the people getting the most upset over this.
The lady doth protest too much methinks.
And they committed "Treason", right?
That was my first though as well, Ides.
Sharpton is simply trying to reassert himself after his crushing defeat in the November election where he lost his position as the country's most important black person.
The cartoon is racist, purposefully ignorant, and unfunny, which, I think, also describes the editorial stance of the the NY Post and its owners.
But it's just a cartoon people. Let's not start burning down newspaper offices when we don't like what we see in print (or on the screen, as the case may be).
Exactly, what are we? Savages? Muslims?
There's some irony in you pointing out a cartoon's unfunniness while using an avatar from the New Yorker.
I know it sounds Rumsfeldian, but there's "funny unfunny" and "not funny unfunny." Delonas is the latter. Here's a photo of him, in which he looks a little funny:
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/2264/3880/1600/426288/100_2488.jpg
Looks like Ricky from Better Off Dead
Typical NYC Liberal "We don't like what you say so we are going to 'burn your office down'"??? WHAT IS THAT Mr. Peace and Love? Do you hear yourself? I am sure you are just kidding, but why is it OK for Libs to voice your opinion but not OK for anyone else?
@qwert1454
I am not sure who you are replying to, but if you're replying to my comment, you seem to be a bit off the mark. Please re-read it below. I capitalized the important words to make it easier for you.
After noting that I think the cartoon is stupid and offensive, I wrote the following:
"But it's JUST a cartoon people. Let's NOT start burning down newspaper offices when we don't like what we see in print (or on the screen, as the case may be)."
Well, no, but this is exactly why I NEVER BUY THE POST. Never. I was forced to grow up with it always being on my parents kitchen table. I know all about it. This is not beneath them at all.
Gotta side with the Post on this one. I know where Sharpton's coming from, but you have to make too many assumptions to get to his conclusion.
To be clear.. I don't think the cartoon is good, and if I were the Post I wouldn't have ran it. But I don't think its purposefully racist.
gee, another monkey = obama reference.
you know what to do mr. President.
Say whatever you want
Al has been quiet as of late-he must have been scouring through the ashes of his office looking for his tax returns
Meh, it's just not amusing anyway. ha ha monkeys run the country GET IT? Take that, government! Now where's my copy of The Family Circus Collection?
hey - who fucked up the economy?!
"not me"!!
hahaha - that's so cute!!!
Oooo shit. That is bad. It very well may be unintentional, but the effect is vile and disgusting on two levels- 1. comparing a black president to a monkey 2. intimating violence against said president.
Wow. Bad.
"Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial"
Why is the incorporation of race into politics somehow "darker" than the incorporation of violence?
Anyway, I'm sure this cartoonist will be having a visit from the Obama SS any minute now.
Why was there no outrage when Jesse Jackson was overheard saying he wanted to cut off Obama's nuts? It's not what gets said, it's the color of the person saying it that matters.
Were you asleep for those two weeks during the summer? There was plenty of outrage at Jackson's comments. Even his son called him out on it. So did Al. Jackson also got heat for saying Obama was "acting white" in 2007.
You either have a selective memory or you don't pay very close attention to the news.
Both?
Since Obama is half white (or has everyone forgotten that?), why isn't the porcine "Rev" Sharpton complaining that the cartoon is claiming a white person is a monkey? After all, a lot of people called Monkeyman Bush a lot worse than a simian.
Gee, I wonder is calling Fat Al 'porcine' is racist?
Please, do us all a favor and don't make any more public comments on race until you bother to educate yourself a bit and make an effort to come off less juvenile.
Many, many "black" or "African American" people in the United States are "half white" or "part white" in the sense that you use here. There is a reason why the skin color of present-day and recently-immigrated Africans is generally much darker, and it is bound up in the history of slavery in America. Don't make me spell it out for you further.
Gee, are you really telling us something we did not know? Are you being pedantic or are you generally just obnoxiously overweening?
The point is, my uptight friend: lighten up and loosen your sphincter muscles a bit.
To paraphrase Freud: Sometimes a chimp is just a chimp.
It is insulting to chimps, since members of congress are lower life forms than chimps.
Beyond all the racist implications, am I the only one who finds it upsetting that Delonas poked fun at this VERY tragic story about the chimpanzee? Not exactly tasteful. Or funny.
I totally agree. Also, this is offensive because it's just not funny.
The cops have large noses. Make sure all you Politcally Correctoids note the latent anti-Semitism.
click on "The Monkey Speaks His Mind"
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=154228434
wrong, jewish caricatures have hook noses. e.g.
http://img.waffleimages.com/ca173856a818be6c97a96f621e9b7614a37efa07/jews_image13.jpg
I think that's his drawing style.
then the cartoon network's grim adventure's of billy and mandy would be antisemitic.
when will this shitte end? I'm tired of this ship.
I'm not sure what offends me more... The ignorance of those who think Obama wrote the Stimulus, or the arrogance of those who feel he is above criticism.
I don't think the artist was trying to insinuate obama was a chimpanzee as racist. I think he was trying to insinuate that obama was a chimpanzee to illicit a racist dialogue to promote himself as not being racist when there was clearly a racist undertone but he could camouflage it as being broad government.
Bush looks more like a monkey than Obama. In fact, Obama looks more like a Dodge Challenger than an animal at all.
No way. He looks a whole lot more like a dodge charger.
I respectfully disagree. ;)
'65 Ford Fairlane. End of fucking story.
I always thought Barack resembled the Batmobile.
White cops shooting a monkey? Hello?
This so dumb.
I used the Post to train my puppy.
Bush or Chimp
http://www.bushorchimp.com/
Imus made them do it with his NHH.
You'd think that with you baboons running around the globe invading other nations, torturing people, kidnapping people, exporting mortgage fraud and raping 11 year-old children WOULD BE CONTROVERSIAL ENOUGH.
If you minimize the "invading other nations" part you've pretty much described the entire Middle East.
Wait. Why does the monkey represent Obama?
Maybe it should have been a clown. I think that would have more aptly described the scenario.
I think it's the whole shooting an effigy of the president that's troubling. Racism aside, you run into legal issues when you get into killing the pres.
Hate to be delonas's account come tax time.
Who said anything about killing the pres?
So you're saying the president is a chimp?
This cartoon is the exact type of sneaky racist humor that on one hand pretends to be "just a joke" yet on the other hand subtly panders to a certain crowd. It's well known that blacks are constantly insulted and put down as being monkeys or apelike; I think Delonas knew exactly what he was doing when he drew this cartoon, playing to the type of people who use the term "black" and "ape, simian, gorilla, and monkey" interchangeably.
The world is flat too, y'know.
Personally, I think it obviously has racial undertones. The fact that the President penned the bill, is black, and racist 'chimp' slurs are well-known is all too close.
As for connecting the two events based on chimps being dumb enough to write the stimulus bill is at best farfetched. Why would this guy have chosen the chimp story, and not something else in the news that day? Are they really that close?
That said, political cartooning is kind of hard to censor, unless very blatant. I'm all for free speech, and pushing uncomfortable buttons. But this is just a case of the cartoonist being able to get away with the unsaid. Bad taste, either way.
Only one thing to do........Deport Murdoch!
This is why I never buy the post much less take it when they are handing it free. After that sick Andrea Peyser stated the declawed cat deserved every blow of it death beating. It doesn't surprise me at all that the Post that promotes animal cruelty is also racist.
I don't think this is racist. They're saying that the stimulus is so bad it must have been written by that crazy chimp that was just in the news -- as in a "monkey throwing darts." If you try to make Obama the chimp in the cartoon, it just doesn't add up...ok, let's say Obama's the chimp, but then why was he shot? Or is it the economy that's dead? Or Congress? It just doesn't make sense.
Of course, that doesn't make it funny...and it's not funny, it's stupid. Racist or not, it's a pretty worthless cartoon.
Still, there ARE funny monkey jokes out there -- and they have zero to do with race. (Monkey butlers? Hi-larious.) I'd hate to spend the next 4-8 years having every political joke that happens to involve monkeys micro-analyzed for racist intentions or implications. I hope we're above that.
Oh come on! Seriously? This is just stupid.
Not understanding basic semiotics in this country's racial history is just extremely ignorant an totally unacceptable, specially when coming from people in power of "media" outlets.
Very shallow thinking NYP.
"And Governor Paterson, who did not see the cartoon..."
Not to add to the controversy, but I don't think Governor Paterson would have been able to "see" the cartoon under any circumstances...
Paterson is legally blind, not totally blind. He is able to read, and would be able to see the cartoon.
lol i read that awkwardly as well
I don't think it's racist at all.
I think it rather clever. These stimulus / bail out bills are being written so quickly and rash that it could be considered a rabid almost frenzy reaction. It also plays on the issues that the stimulus/ bail out bills aren't being written with much intelligence because they are so rushed.
I think it's clever. The racial thing everyone is commenting on is a easy mark. Come on... he's going to be president for 4 years or more. There is going to be a LOT of parodies, and people should get used to it, and stop screaming racism everytime Obama is going to get slammed.
These 'stimulus' bills are horrible, and I oppose every single one of them. Bush started the Stimulus train, and now Obama is riding it too. Any one who is signing these stimulus bills is a monkey / idiot to me. Short sighted. Let business' fail, and let the natural course of bad management take it's course.
The only reason why Obama is signing the stimulus bill in the first place is that he needs to fix the economy in the short term, while he's still in office. The effects of which will drag on, long after he's gone.
"Let business' fail, and let the natural course of bad management take it's course."
We'll get right on that, President Hoover.
They should have the cops shooting a Marxist asshole. Then Obama would have every right to be offended.
Funny, Want's GREENSPAN the republican sacred cow, who just said some time ago to Nationalize the bank system? Educate your self about who is promoting your s called "Marxism".
They should have shot an anti-American asswad so both of you would be up in arms.
Too bad you shut down Gitmo Mr. Pres. I;s time to start throwing conservative traitors in there! Hoo Rah!
I'm not even going to vote right now and be the tie breaker. Someone else do it.
Now if you really want to see a funny cartoon, let' see Sharpton's face on that monkey with two bullet holes in him.
Question - If you were in a room with Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and had a gun with two bullets, what would you do?
Answer - Put two bullets in Sharpton. Just to make sure!
Same ole stuffy/classless/Racist Americans...
If Al Sharpton doesn't defend us then who will..
If this happened overseas there would be a huge protest.
Americans are sooo afraid to protest for their rights.
Police kill blacks in this country and the get away with it.
We would burn the country down!
You're SO right #72. The American people are so scared to stand up for what's right that we kicked the pansy imperialist British out of our country even though they had the numbers and better training. We also seem to stick our nose in everywhere around the globe when we think something is amiss. Yeah, we're afraid. Now go sit in a hole somewhere before we bomb you back to the stone age. Jerk!
Oh did I forgot to mention War Mongers as well :)
Just because Bush dragged the name of the US through the mud, it doesn't mean the entire country smells as shitty as Dubya. If you truly don't like the US, as cliche as this sounds, don't live here. There are millions around the globe who would kill for a chance to become citizens.
Of Zombie Markets and a Marxist Greenspan:
"Alan Greenspan, long seen as the adherent of free market economics says nationalization of weak banks could be the least bad option left for US policymakers. "It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring,” he said. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do.”
Lindsey Graham echoed Greenspan's sentiment “We should be focusing on what works. We cannot keep pouring good money after bad.” He added, “If nationalization is what works, then we should do it. It doesn’t matter what you call it, but we can’t keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That’s what the Japanese did. In limited circumstances the Swedish model makes sense for the US.”
It's attention whoring. No one reads the Post.
It's attention whoring. No one reads the Post.
Why is it that anything that can by any stretch of the imagination, possibly, or maybe even be construed as racist be off-limits. It's not a racist cartoon-- people read too much into things, esp. when they are making their overly loud protestations about race. People look for any excuse to cry racism. Obama is president now, and people will make fun of him and compare him to distasteful things. It's part of the territory. Why should it be different for a black man that for any other person. STop belly-aching-- why do we have to censor anything that relates to African Americans? GET OVER IT!
LOL gotta love the Gothamists's poll where they offer only two options to answer: "What do you think of the Post's dead chimp stimulus bill? 1) It's racist and 2) It's not racist, but it's not funny either."
Where are the other options? You know, ones like:
3) It's not racist
4) It's racist but still funny
5) It's funny and not racist
6) It's only racist to racists
7) The dead chimp represents Pelosi not Obama, therefore it's not racist
Gothamist's bias showing again.
I think you have to be racist (or looking for racism) to draw that conclusion from looking at the cartoon.
I didn't really see that connection at all. Our society is way over-sensitive about some things and then it ignores huge problems on the other hand.
Could we use this time, talent and energy towards something constructive for the community? I don't really see Sharpton's approach as helping representation either.
without the semiological knowledge there is no understanding.
Is anyone pointing fingers at the editors for the NY post? The cartoon had to go through more then one editor...Didn't one have the balls to speak up and say this cartoon might be portrayed as offensive? Or are they all ignorant and/or racists?
The official rebuttal comment given wasn't much of an apology (if it was one) and didn't seem to exactly explain the cartoon in a specific way. Giving a vague explanation of the cartoon doesn't seem to to satisfy me or other readers of what MANY people's first thought was offensive.
What the fuck!!!
I read the NY Post almost every day, and it would take WAY more than this cartoon — by a cartoonist who has never really impressed me with any insights that seem deep — for me to stop reading the Post. FREDRIC U. DICKER (The U is for Uberall) is my favorite writer, and that's where he is. He more tha makes up for the crappy cartooning and even Peyser when she misjudges her positioning -
Whenever Delonas draws grafitti (sometimes in cityscapes) it's always so badly done I can't help thinking that he just can't see too much - he has poor observation skills. Making such a big deal out what really are b-grade efforts, (and I hate saying that about another "artist") seems wrong to me, I think what makes me so angry is the fact that Delonas is so bad this is the kindof stuff we have to deal with. I mean I don't think it is a stretch to say that his drawings look like those of a relatively enthusiastic, moderately talented High School student. I've never seen anything to indicate his mind is any more developed than that.