I’m doing a live chat at 1:15 pm East Coast time today about Sean Delonas’ controversial cartoon in yesterday’s New York Post. Details about the story and the chat are here.
Live Chat Re: Controversial Editorial Cartoon Today
Comments are closed.
I’m doing a live chat at 1:15 pm East Coast time today about Sean Delonas’ controversial cartoon in yesterday’s New York Post. Details about the story and the chat are here.
Comments are closed.
15 Comments.
The cartoon is not meant to be racist. It's implying that the stimulus bill is so foolish that it was most likely written by a chimp.
Scott Adams has many Dilbert cartoons where drunken monkeys come up with idiotic decisions. Are those all supposed to be examples of "racist symbolism?" No, they're supposed to be funny. Monkeys are humorous, especially drunken monkeys: it's a basic rule of comedy.
Delonas really should have known better.
Maybe my racial sensitivity meter is busted, or maybe I'm just dense, but I agree with Josh's comment. I looked to me as a straight criticism of the stimulus. My understanding is that the Obama administration was incidental in drafting the language of the bill.
It seems pretty unlikely that an established cartoonist, even for the lamentable NY Post, would intentionally suggest this tired racial slur.
Here's a question I have for all the people crying "racism" over this cartoon: where were their protests three years ago when Iranian newspapers had their contest for cartoons mocking the Holocaust?
Josh, when Iran runs the show in the US, get back to me. Dorme bene…
the only reason there's any kind of controversy at all is because al "publicity whore" sharpton saw a chance to whip some up.
Great commentary, Ted. This is a "cheap form of editorial cartooning."
I tend to find this tripe offensive not because the editor missed the potentially racist interpretation, but because its concept is so lame and devoid of substance…
It's funny because this approach is usually so easy and safe–until something stupid like this blows up in their face.
Just like that Obama illustration on the cover of the New Yorker was misconstrued, so is this chimp illustration. If it's got to be explained the it might be taken out of context. This is why the soundtrack to the film "Bob Roberts" was never issued. Dorme bene…
Much like the Danish cartoons, the only thing this one is guilty of is being unfunny. Let's see a show of hands of anybody who thought the race pimps like Al Sharpton were going to fade into the background after "his people" reached "the mountaintop".
Some of the people screaming the loudest about the supposed racism of the cartoon may be those who just spent the last 8 years comparing ex-president Bush to a chimp, so now any reference to our primate cousins is automatically code for black and therefore racist. I've heard similar rants about King Kong. The cartoon specifically refers to the "writers" of the stimulus package, while Obama signed the legislation into law here in Denver earlier this week the bill was written by our congresscritters in Washington, not Obama.
Thanks for the discussion on Poynter yesterday, Ted. I've already seen two political cartoons that have alluded to the Post's editorial board as monkeys.
I concur with the Reverend. The cartoon is not too funny, and it is probably offensive to the family of the lady that got mauled by the offed chimp.
Plus, Sharpton is a has-been and publicity whore.
That said, isn't the NYT trying to divert attention with this piece of news from its filching a story from the Daily News?
To think that Rall still has romantic notions about the heroic press…
This cartoon isn't racist, but people obsessively hating on local New York politician Al Sharpton from thousands of miles away certainly are.
Anon, maybe some of the people "hating" Sharpton from afar used to live in NYC…
Yeah, and maybe they're regurgitating racist propaganda fed to them by Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.
Sharpton is a "pimp" and MLK's Biblical metaphors about "his people" are stupid. Ha ha ha ha.