Sharpton Leads Protest Over Post Editorial Cartoon

About 200 people gathered outside the NY Post's offices in midtown Manhattan to protest the Sean Delonas-drawn editorial cartoon showing a dead chimp, shot by police who say, "They'll have to find someone else to write next stimulus bill." The protesters shouted, "Shut down the Post! Shut down the Post!"

WCBS 2 reports that Reverend Al Sharpton said, "Here, you have someone using race-tinged cartoons to racially offend the president...This inference is something that is divisive, something that is offensive and something that should not be quietly accepted," calling it worse than Don Imus's remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. And NAACP president Hazel Dukes said, "I'm outraged that they'd have the audacity to use this cartoon and not think that it would have an impact for people…how in the world do you have the audacity?"

Post editor in chief Col Allan defended the cartoon yesterday, saying, "It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist." And Delonas spoke to CNN, saying the controversy was "absolutely friggin' ridiculous...Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon." Daily News columnist Michael Daly thinks his rival paper should apologize: "The cartoon's conscious intent may have been to say the stimulus bill as written by Congress is such a mess it could have been penned by a monkey. But say 'stimulus' to readers and they rightly think 'Obama.' He is as much a personification of the package as FDR was of the New Deal."

Sharpton's organization, the National Action Network, says that Sharpton and director Spike Lee will "lead members of the National Action Network in showing their disgust and outrage by dumping papers outside the New York Post' Doorsteps on Friday at 5:00 p.m." Tonight, there's a strategy session at the NAN headquarters (106 West 145th Street at Lenox Avenue).

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on February 19, 2009 4:41 PM

Comments [rss]

redryder420

shut down the NY post? aww man shut up.

snickerdoodle

Race baiters like Sharpton help keep the liberal media in business.

widefive

This cartoon has nothing to do with race. Anyone who says otherwise is an opportunist or is trying to change the subject from the true issue it speaks of.

NannyState

I think the NY Post should apologize to Al Sharpton: for the role their cartoon played in his making a complete ass of himself...again.

Steven

Sharpton is a douche plain and simple. He is always looking for attention.

freddynyc

I just abhor bigotry of any kind - whether someone has a hooked nose or resembles a chimp should be irrelevant....

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

http://uncle-semite.com/menschhealth/images/050829_fw_bloomberg_ex.jpg

Bloomberg is so fugly. blah.

Polite New Yorker

Obama did not write the stimulus bill. The cartoon makes reference to the attack by and subsequent shooting death of the chimpanzee in Connecticut, and if anyone should be offended by making light of that, it is the woman who suffered such horrible injury and her family. Yes, there have been racist comparisons to blacks and monkeys, but that is not the message of the cartoon, which is a critique of the fashioning together of the stimulus bill. Self-appointed racial "leaders" like Al Sharpton deserve to be put in the same media reject pile as David Duke. Shame on those who take him seriously.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Jews were not really stereotype as chimps, mostly as wolves, bankers, big nosed etc. but here is the new Jewish stereotype image

http://www.finfacts.ie/artman/uploads/2/madoff_SEC_dec122008.jpg

GaryK

i feel a little dumber for reading this thread.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

http://www3.allaroundphilly.com/blogs/pottstown/TonyAP/uploaded_images/obama-mad-magazine-cover-751229.jpg

(Obama picture)

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

they should use Alfred E Neuman to depict Obama. Bloomberg defended the NY Post. he stated they have the first amendment right yet Bloomberg turn NYC into a police state where activists are bullied, harassed and arrested. Fuck Bloomberg.

JacqueMehoff

did the mayor really defended the NY post?

now we know. I see he's going after the Staten Island, bensonhurst, and bay ridge vote early.

EmbarkOn

I found this video that has news about the cartoon from a few different sources. It also brings up some background information about it.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/firestorm_over_editorial_cartoon/

EmbarkOn

I found this video that has news about the cartoon from a few different sources. It also brings up some background information about it.

http://www.newsy.com/videos/firestorm_over_editorial_cartoon/

Felix Hoenikker

Damn naggers.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155469

EastRiver

Daily News columnist Michael Daly: But say 'stimulus' to readers and they rightly think 'Obama.' He is as much a personification of the package as FDR was of the New Deal."

The New Deal lasted a decade and has been analyzed by historians for over half a century. Obama has been in office a month and the ink is still wet on this bill. Apple and oranges.

velmonk

It seems pretty clear to me that if the chimp is meant to be Obama then it's racist. I have to say though that when I saw the comic I didn't think that. As has been said, Obama didn't write the stimulus bill. It seems more like a poor attempt to use the 'shot chimp' story to comment on the fact that the cartoonist thinks the stimulus bill was written by a bunch of idiots. Not every monkey reference is a racial one. Ever heard "a monkey could do that job"? It's not referring to black people, it's referring to lack of intelligence and competence. It seems to me far more likely that this was the implication of the cartoon. Now, if the quote was "now they'll have to Biden sign the stimulus bill"....that'd be different.

Gringcorp

I don't remember this big a controversy over Delonas' habit of portraying Muslims with gigantic hook noses, or his homophobic-tinged cartoons. When oh when will bigoted unfunny cartoonists learn to pick their targets more wisely?