Open Thread: Of Monkeys, Cartoons, and Stimulus Packages

by Latoya Peterson

What’s your first response to this picture?

Over at Gawker, where Hamilton Nolan posted the image and an update, there has been some conjecture as to what the cartoonist meant to convey.

They brought up a news hook where there was a trained/pet monkey shot by the police after attacking a woman in ~~California~~ in Connecticut on Friday.

Others ventured it was a rift on the old monkeys/typewriters/Shakespeare joke.

Now that you’ve seen the comic, with and without some additional context:

1. What was your first thought?

2. Did it change based on the context?

3. Does a cartoonist have a responsibility to clarify failed jokes?

Update: If a cartoonist has a record of using bigoted imagery or racist/sexist/homophobic jokes, does it change the context of these jokes?

(Thanks to Kimberly for the tip; RJG and Baiskeli for the update.)

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Comments

rorysmomma wrote:

It was in bad taste. Truly in bad taste.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:00 pm ¶
Persia wrote:

1. My first thought was that it was being interpreted as racist, because hey! here I am on Racialicious. I don’t know if I would’ve seen it as such if I’d read it ‘cold.’ I might have thought it was the typewriters/Shakespeare thing.

2. But then I read that the cartoonist has been in hot water before, and my ‘benefit of the doubt’ starts fading.

3. Sometimes? I think it depends on the joke and the circumstances. Not helpful, but there it is.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:02 pm ¶
StevenSF wrote:

Whoa! WTF?

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
Angel H. wrote:

1. What the hell?

2. No.

3. If it failed so utterly and completely as this one did, yes.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
gatamala wrote:

Without the backstory it could be “suspect”. I assume that the primate represents the “stupidity” of those who worked on the bill.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
Miles Ellison wrote:

Context is everything.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
Monie wrote:

I think the cartoonist meant for it to walk the fence. This way it would get a lot of publicity for being offensive but he could say no, I didn’t mean it that way.

The (inferred) meaning is obvious.

Isn’t post-racial America grand!

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:06 pm ¶
Baiskeli wrote:

This is a massively failed joke. I can sort of buy the ‘monkeys/typewriter shakespeare’ argument especially after the info about police shooting a pet monkey but the first time I saw the image my first gut reaction was WTF!!

I connected the historical portrayal of black people as monkeys/apes and Obama.

Not to derail the thread, here is another cartoon that has been causing controversy
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/obama/cartoon-compares-obama-to-mugger-racist/
(the actual cartoon has been taken down).

Now in this case (black mugger = Obama), it is totally clear what the cartoonist intended. I don’t believe any of the ‘I didn’t intend it that way’ backpedaling’)

In the instance posted, it could be a totally culturally clueless cartoonist trying to be funny/edgy/esoteric and totally botching it.

So to answer
1: My first thought was the racial/historical angle
2:The clarification changes my initial idea, but I’m still not fully convinced.
3:Yes, a cartoonist does have a responsibility to clarify failed jokes (jokes that came out other than intended). And that clarification better not be a weak assed ‘I’m sorry you were offended..” apology.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:08 pm ¶
Baiskeli wrote:

O.K One addition. My pet peeve is people i.e on gawker, asking ‘How could this possibly be racist or how could someone interpret it that way!!’. I mean, do these clowns live in the same country I do and are they absolutely and totally ignorant of history?

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:11 pm ¶
April wrote:

My first thought was how ugly, immature and reckless the New York Post has become.

I don’t know the true intention of the piece, however it appears to be a call to action for the opponents of the newly signed Stimulus package. The type of action seems pretty obvious and very disturbing.

I find it disgusting how some use our freedom of speech to show their complete lack of human decency. Yet, I was not surprised by this vulgarity.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:13 pm ¶
Ugly Deaf Muslim Punk Gurl! wrote:

Yeah, my first thought was, WTF!!! then when LaToya mentioned that chimp attack incident, my perception changed…

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:14 pm ¶
Baiskeli wrote:

Alrighty then

Benefit of the doubt revoked. The cartoonist is a bigot, a racist, a misogynist and an idiot.

Here are some of his other hits
http://gawker.com/5155855/ten-masterpieces-from-sean-delonas

Gotta love the gays=sheep fuckers and him making fun of Heather Mills only having one leg.

So I would posit that this is exactly what he wanted to say and he can use the monkey being shot as a convenient excuse if things get too hot (but his core constituency knows exactly what he means to say. This is a masterstroke in dog-whistle racism)

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:16 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

@Monie: as an update, Gawker posted past cartoons that give more context to what kind of stuff the guy normally produces. To me it’s not really fence walking as much as “hey a story about a monkey I BET I CAN GET AWAY WITH DOING THIS NOW!”

Anyway, it’s clearly just a direct insult and threat to Obama. All the wink wink nudge nudge whatever do you mean it’s really about some chimp who got shot in Connecticut stuff is an embarrassing excuse I’d expect from a child.

This is a lot different than the fist-bump cartoon, IMO.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:19 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

Nice. :/

Even knowing about the chimp incident, it’s still in poor taste.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶
Tori wrote:

I wrote a piece on this in my blog, because I can’t believe how ANYONE would connect those stories except for through the inherent racism in the cartoon.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:21 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

@Baiskeli: I posted this cartoon over at a political community elsewhere and got the same token “oh it’s just about the chimp article the NY Post loves so much there’s no implications this is just paranoid overly PC people expressing their own hidden racist views” and yaddayaddayadda wank wank wank.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:23 pm ¶
Tom wrote:

I first assumed that it was both a reference to the chimp attack and racist.

I don’t buy that it’s a reference to the monkeys/typewriter/Shakespeare joke.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:26 pm ¶
Campbell wrote:

First thought WTF.
Second thought – The chimp attack was in Stamford Connecticut.
Third thought – There is no way, in my mind that this “cartoon” could be construed as anything other than racist. Come on, it is the oldest sterotype in the book. The NY Post is known for their race-baiting tactics. I live in Stamford. I worked in NYC forever I read the Post. This isn’t the first time this cartoonist has published something like this. And based on past results, it won’t be the last.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:33 pm ¶
Chris Chambers wrote:

Of course they knew it was racist…and insenstive to the woman in CT who was torn up by the animal. But there are other elements here…

http://natturnersrevenge.blogspot.com/2009/02/nigger-ape-ape-nigger.html

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:34 pm ¶
Ayo wrote:

First thing that i sensed was an implicit link between monkeys and obama

and I thought “what a bitter person”

i still think “what a bitter person”

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:34 pm ¶
CEdwards wrote:

In “post-racial America” (supposedly) the new thing is to tear down any arguement that something is inherently racist or discriminatory as being irrelevant, whiny, or overly sensitive.

Go over to NYP.com and listen to blatant ignorance at it’s best. I love the comment, “when we were comparing George W. Bush to a chimp, nobody was crying racism.”

Sorry, Mastercard, but I gotta borrow: This is just…Priceless.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:35 pm ¶
OTM wrote:

Yeah, if he wanted to go for the million monkeys at a million typewriters angle, he could have drawn a roomful of dead monkeys at typewriters. When I first saw the comic, the only “punchline” I could puzzle out was seriously racist. Finding out about the woman being attacked by a chimp doesn’t change my opinion, because that makes the comic even more nonsensical.

It’s pretty much Occam’s razor – the only interpretation of the comic that doesn’t require some serious interpretive gymnastics is that it’s straight up racist. Knowing more about that writer’s history just confirms it.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:43 pm ¶
Lola wrote:

given this cartoonist history of bigotry it is definitely racist

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
deb wrote:

I connected the historical portrayal of black people as monkeys/apes and Obama.

So did I.

Now I’m thinking, Obama didn’t actually “write” the bill, he signed it. But, the association with black people and monkeys is still very prevalent in the American psyche that I wouldn’t be surprised if the cartoonist intended it to have racial undertones.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:44 pm ¶
Michelle wrote:

Well,

I just spent all weekend talking about the chimp thing (used to live in the area).

So, my first thought was too chuckle.

Then, I thought well aren’t people mad cause Pres. Obama let the Dem. Congress right the bill, so he actually wasn’t the author. So I thought, no racism here!

But, then of course, I think to myself, this is post racial America so OF COURSE there is no racism here. Right? Right?

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:45 pm ¶
blah wrote:

When the chimp story came out people were already making racist jokes about it. This morning Opie & Anthony (I know) where laughing about how they couldn’t say what their audience was sending them because they were all racist. As result, as soon as I say this image, I felt that it was extremely racist on many levels. First, an African American being equated to a chimp/ape, whatever. Second, the being gunned down by cops image ( extremely insensitive in light of so many black men being killed by cops recently and in the past). Third and not least, the assassination slant. I really don’t understand how someone can’t see how it can be racist. If the ‘artist’ didn’t mean it that way, fine, but I can’t understand how people refuse to see the inappropriate racist side of it.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:47 pm ¶
jaye wrote:

Holy shit.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:52 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

@deb: I agree that Obama didn’t personally write it, but let’s not forget the entire dialogue before the cartoon.

“Obama’s bill supports Obama’s socialist tendencies so Obama can give money to ACORN and express how Obama supports pork projects with Obama’s bill that is all about the Obama administration not having Obama reach across the aisle to people who feel that Obama’s plan for Obama’s bill is nothing more than what Obama wants.”

And now it’s all “wait no Obama didn’t write it! We’re talking about… uh… that… erm… government!”

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

OH… HELLS … NO… HE…DIDN’T!! So wrong on so many levels. The CT chimp story is just a LAME excuse.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 3:58 pm ¶
Eva wrote:

It’s from the NY Post, so to me, it’s racist. The NY Post is only good for bird cage liner.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:06 pm ¶
slowroll wrote:

What possible connection could there be between a monkey attacking a woman and the writing of the stimulus bill?

Fail.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:09 pm ¶
bertie wrote:

Wow. There is just too much going on in this cartoon: history of blacks being compared to monkeys, history of police killing unarmed black males…one of these issues invokes by this carton should have given the editors pause.

But to answer the questions:

1–what does the recent chimp story have to do with the stimulus? this is some racist bullshit;
2–no;
3–no, but they should be willing to take the heat for whatever images they put out.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:12 pm ¶
Lisa J wrote:

Oh and the reason why people used to compare GWB to a chimp is b/c he sort of looks like one. I said that long before I saw a cartoon of him as one and before he made me loathe him for his policies. He has the ears and the weird shaped face, so using that arguement doesn’t work either. O has big ears, but does not look like a chimp at all.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:22 pm ¶
Alyssa wrote:

Political cartoons are ment to have political commentary. And I just don’t see any political commentary in this cartoon other than the racist one.
If this is a reference to the thousand monkeys in a room will write Shakespeare reference, what is the commentary? (Not to mention the lack of multiple monkeys, a room, or typewriters.)
If this is only a connection to the pet monkey being shot the the police story, what is the point that is being made? The cops shot the pet monkey because thought it wrote the stimulus package? That makes no sense.
While I know Obama is not the actualy author of this bill, it is still considered his bill. I think that most people make the connection between the stimulus package and Obama not the stimulus package and congress.
At the very best, this is a very porly written cartoon. More likely, it is incredibly racist, and a death threat.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:23 pm ¶
Codeblaq wrote:

Ok, supposedly a chimp had to be shot this week because it was drugged up on anti depressants…no lie. so the cops shooting the monkey is in relation to that incident. but for the artist to relate shooting the monkey to shooting the president is in very bad taste. not only is it reinforcing the stereotype of black people as monkeys but it is also insensitive to the history of police shootings in this country. its all fucked up and these racists and closet racists are continuously let off the hook.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:33 pm ¶
me wrote:

I knew the context when I read it. I still fail to see the connection between the chimp shooting and the stimulus bill. It’s a crappy comic, racism aside. Since the chimp/stimulus analogy sucks, the only logical connection is the other historically racist analogy.

The cartoonist has a responability to apologize (etc etc) for being a racist ass.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:41 pm ¶
Bobby wrote:

Comedy is based on delivery. We really have stretch our imagination to see how it is NOT a caricature/representation of Obama. Not funny and truly in bad taste.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 4:59 pm ¶
Asada wrote:

My first response:
before I read the thing I saw the animal and thought this was about Obama.

After reading it I’M like,
“Oh, …that was a bad Idea…..”

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 5:04 pm ¶
x0x wrote:

1. The officer is implying the monkey wrote the stimulus bill. IRL, President Obama wrote it. So the officer is saying the monkey is Obama? Racist.

2. Not really, considering all the other monkey allusions over the past few months. Remember the man with the curious george doll at the Palin rallies?

3. Absolutely, and I think he tried too, but only offered a half-assed non-apology. (It’s our fault for reading too much into it)

Update: If a cartoonist has a record of using bigoted imagery or racist/sexist/homophobic jokes, does it change the context of these jokes?

Absolutely not. All the more reason for us to believe that it is in fact a racist cartoon

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 5:05 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

I saw the cartoon on Gawker first and, being a NY-area resident, knew the chimp story and still read it immediately as racially problematic. Even if it weren’t in the (racist) NY Post.

I think the intention was to have a “safe” reading, for the sake of plausible deniability, while sating their racist base with a satisfyingly racist reading.

This really is what “post”-racial America is all about. Continuing to quietly cultivate and support the dominance of white supremacy while shouting down anyone who dares to challenge that with accusations of race-obsessiveness, regression etc. (see: Gawker comments. If you dare)

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 5:07 pm ¶
karak wrote:

I gotta be honest, my first impression was, “I don’t get it.”

Like, I see all the things he COULD be saying… but I have no idea which one is correct, and a good political cartoon should never have ambivalent or confusing messages.

Posted 18 Feb 2009 at 9:33 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

I missed the reference to the chimp attack completely. The racial overtones are there, and the cartoonist has no way out of it. None. This is a case where for me, we have the following:

– a history of pretty bigoted cartoons and immature jokes
– the historical relation between monkeys/black people stereotypes

And third, something more disturbing, which is eliminationist rhetoric from the Right. This has been going on a long time, and the connection between shooting the chimp and the President is a little too close to ignore.

If he wanted the monkeys and typewriters thing, I’d have had a typewriter in the picture — the chimp slumped over one would have been cool, actually, especially if you had the cops walking in on a suicide. That would be funny. I think the chimp attack may have been a little obscure because it was such a flash-in-the pan story, I mean I’d forgotten about it after a day, you know?

Yes, it racist, though in a little more oblique way than it might otherwise be. Not much, tho.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:57 am ¶
Kai wrote:

My first thought was that this is a rather shocking piece of Naziesque pro-lynching propaganda. Yeah yeah I get the allusions and I couldn’t care less about intentions. If you crack a joke about bombs and hijackings at an airport check-in counter, nobody asks you about intentions before you get taken into custody.

My second thought was, I have never before in my life seen any publication of any sort run a visual representation, even through oblique symbolism, of a sitting US president shot dead. This goes far beyond tepid condemnations of tastelessness.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:59 am ¶
Daomadan wrote:

First thought: WTF?!

Second thought: “I connected the historical portrayal of black people as monkeys/apes and Obama.”

Me too. I didn’t even know about the chimpanzee being shot until someone randomly brought it up in conversation yesterday.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:03 pm ¶
thebiblophile wrote:

I didn’t see the post – I first heard about it on NPR. And just the description, made me gasp. The implied meaning is clearly directed toward President Obama.
It is:
1.) Racist because of the implied connection between Obama and a historic connection between apes/chimps/lower-level primates and Black people

2.) If I recall correctly, the womyn in CT who was attacked, was a white womyn. To me, this adds an additional layer of racist imagery and violence. The chimpanzee had to be killed because it attacked a womyn (who happened to be white). The U.S. is often imagined/drawn symbolically as a white womyn – Statue of Liberty, the white womyn in King Kong. The trope of white womynhood – and the protection at all costs, and through violence, of white womynhood, often stands in for the protection of U.S. honor.

So, at a time when the U.S. is amidst a major economic meltdown, when “yellow peril,” and anti-immigration sentiment is reaching new heights, the meaning of shooting a chimp, that has attacked a white womyn – in one of the bastions of whiteness (Stamford, CT – which is also home to many financial institutions) smacks to me of a deeply racist ideology. In other words, Obama has attacked the systems and ideologies of our “grand old” mindset, and has to be punished.

As many have already said, “post-racial America” is determined to suppress and re-interpret racist ideology. It’s a dangerous time to me – it’s a time when folks (and particularly folks of color) can become deeply entangled in internalized oppression – and not even realize the implicit messages. I’m so glad that racialicious, and great bloggers are not letting that happen!

3.) So soon after the slaying of Oscar Grant, it makes me think this is a conflation of racist imagery and threats.

4.) I think this could this be intrepreted as a (very public, implicit, and thoughtless) threat on the life of the President. I believe that is a Federal crime…he’s on somebody’s list for this one….

I definitely agree with Tori: “I wrote a piece on this in my blog, because I can’t believe how ANYONE would connect those stories except for through the inherent racism in the cartoon.” I don’t know how the cartoon even makes sense without the racist implications.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:05 pm ¶
bdsista wrote:

I wonder what the response would be if it was a cartoon with someone shooting former President Bush? I imagine FBI and CIA would be all over it as a threat to national security. When did it start being ok to actually visually posit the idea of assassination? This would NEVER have flown with Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 or even Clinton. Now we have a Black President and its ok to show the police shooting him? Generally its in poor taste to show a cartoon shooting ANY Head of State, so why is it journalistic license and free speech to show the killing of our own?

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:09 pm ¶
Alex wrote:

The cartoon is blatantly racist–violently so on the President. Sickening–when will we stop buying this, literally, when will we stop buying publications that put this out? It is not funny in any shape or form. Of course, no white privilege and racism from the folks at the New York Post who defended this trash! Just white police officers attacking an animal historically used to de-humanize many peoples of color! Absolutely pathetic!

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:11 pm ¶
Yvette wrote:

Troubling, in these situations, that so quickly the conversation turns to “intent.” The paper states what the cartoon “clearly meant” to convey–at once painting anyone who got another meaning as somehow less than clear-headed or clear-thinking and excusing any hurt or offense because of the (claimed) lack of intending to hurt or offend.

I hope that an apology from the paper or cartoonist will not be forthcoming. There would be nothing genuine about such a statement, as it would mean that

1) the apology was a social nicety (like apologizing when you inadvertently step on someone’s foot)–likely that they felt forced to offer, and/or

2) they were sorry for the bad results they suffer from publishing the cartoon (canceled subscriptions, threat of being fired, boycotts of their advertisers, etc.).

Or, we could get the old “non-apology apology”: “sorry if it offended anyone…”

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:12 pm ¶
rob wrote:

When I saw the cartoon, with no back story, the first thing i thought was that now the monkey was dead another monkey would be required. In the uk it is very common to dismissively describe tasks as being possible for a trained monkey to do or the expression ‘pay peanuts…. ….get monkeys’ to refer to bad workers being bad because the money is rubbish.

As regards the cartoon it seemed to me that the fact they would require another monkey was a reflection that the previous bill was no good and so may have been written by a trained monkey.

I dont see how it really relates to the chimp being shot. But if its a big news story i suppose it could be a reference to that.

Ordinarily i suppose i would also say that racialicious readers should just stop finding offence where none was meant but seeing as how this artist has got a lot of previous form for dubious views it seems you may all have a point.

But it is a strange situation. Lets assume he drew the cartoon WITH racist intent. However i saw the cartoon and no ‘dog whistles’ sounded and i completely miss his subtext. I am now viewing the cartoon purely on a political satire basis and find it mildly amusing, i can imagine a similar thing in a uk paper just about a different piece of law.

but…

Now i have seen that there may well be an unpleasant message behind the drawing it still seems mildly amusing. However the subtext spoils it.

But what if YOU saw a very similar cartoon on a british paper you happened to find. Two policemen had shot a monkey and someone else would have to be found to write the new thingummy bill. Im assuming you first reaction would be similar to those expressed through out the thread.

But imagine if you did a little research and found out that the artist was black and had made his reputation on monkeys-typewriters-shakespeare gags., and the monkey thing was a direct reference to something you found completely inoffensive, would you then be able to see the cartoon and find it mildly amusing? Or would it stay spoilt?

I dont think artists really have a responsibilty to clear up misunderstandings but equally the public has the absolute right to be a critical as they like about published works. If the artist wishes to respond they can but i think artistic expression requires no explanations. Perhaps they wish to cultivate a certain mystique.

A last thought. If it was meant to be the old monkeystypewriter gag why not give the monkey a typewriter, just to spell it out?

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:12 pm ¶
sb wrote:

It depends on the what your definition of “someone” is. If by “someone” the NY Post meant Congress, it isn’t, necessarily, racially loaded. Somehow, I don’t think that’s what they meant.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:14 pm ¶
brdnbutta wrote:

Blantant racism disguised as satire… How sad.

side note: the Root has an interesting article by johnathan pitts-wiley supporting the ocscar nod for robert downey, jr. in blackface which sort of aligns with this topic of satire that goes too far.

http://theroot.com/views/best-actor-blackface

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:15 pm ¶
JD/ formerly J wrote:

I just thought of it as the stupidity of those who wrote the bill and a play on the chimp who had to be shot. Knowing that the guy has a history of douchebaggery makes it a little less inoffensive but meh….

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:17 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

@Nix’s “I think the intention was to have a “safe” reading, for the sake of plausible deniability, while sating their racist base with a satisfyingly racist reading.”

That’s how I felt about it, too.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:21 pm ¶
Mary wrote:

When even my white middle-aged mom is like “Oh no, they did NOT just go there” the minute she hears about this story… it’s racist.

As for Gawker, I think that site is bloody hilarious EXCEPT when they try to handle a story even touching on race. Then it explodes into a hotbed of hipster racism. So disappointing.

I also feel the need to mention this piece of unintentional, legitimate hilarity that resulted from the chimp cartoon.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:31 pm ¶
allheavens wrote:

Come on people, the NY Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Need I say more?

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:36 pm ¶
Thea wrote:

When I first saw this I was shocked. I also said, “this cartoon doesn’t make sense.” And then someone explained that it was probably a reference to the monkey in California. I was still shocked, and the comic made slightly more sense, but not really.

I mean, even if the cartoonist didn’t have a history of bigotry, the comic is shocking simply on the grounds that NO ONE on the New York Post thought it was a bad idea to run this (at least no one powerful).

Kinda reminds me of the New Yorker Obamas cover. Makes me curious as to the ethnic/political make up of the New York Post.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:36 pm ¶
Kavita wrote:

Cosign with AD Nix. Except that their “plausible deniability” is, for me, completely implausible. How could you look at this cartoon and not see the racist implications? Seriously. How?

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 12:54 pm ¶
Thea Lim wrote:

@Kai

The whole “bombs at the check-in counter” thing is a really good analogy. No one cares about “what your intention was” in that situation.

Knowing the little that I do about American culture and history and how revered the POTUS is supposed to be, it is a bit shocking that the NYP isn’t being taken to task by that law that makes it illegal to threaten the pres’ life.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 1:03 pm ¶
RJG wrote:

@rob that’s a whole lot “what ifs” you’re asking people to consider which don’t actually relate to the cartoon or topic at hand.

Thankfully, I can skip past the “what ifs” you’re asking and recognize that in this particular situation, the cartoonist is not black, the publication is not in the UK, and both the publication and cartoonist have a history for publishing bigoted and socially insensitive things.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 1:19 pm ¶
Sharon wrote:

Actually what makes it hard to look at for me is that it as as African America it reminds me that our basic humanity is always at question in the minds of some people. I often worry about how black children process these images and ideas. It worries me that they might doubt their own humanity. NYP and others don’t know and probably don’t care about the psychological damage that these images have on us as a group. We’ve battled against this images and ideas since we arrived on these shores and have not overcome the damage they’ve caused us.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 1:41 pm ¶
gail wrote:

thebiblophile @ 45: You said it all. Bravo. Even if the cartoonist didn’t consciously make all those connections and associations, which is most likely the case, or made some of them and thought that the implied racist imagery made the cartoon somehow hip and edgy (a la the New Yorker “fist-bump” cartoon) the cartoon is deeply offensive because:
1. Police killing animals isn’t funny.
2. Police killing Black people isn’t funny.
3. People of color living under the trheat of being killed by police isn’t funny.
4. People living under the threat of losing their homes or their jobs due to political and big business dishonesty, incompetence, and greed isn’t funny.
5. All of us living with the lurking fear that some self-righteous, racist, political hater will assassinate our president isn’t funny.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 1:58 pm ¶
Joseph wrote:

I am a New Yorker and although I don’t read the Post (because I don’t have a bird or small dog) I am familiar with the publication. Here’s the thing: the Post is ALWAYS full of racist garbage. Every single day. Today they are in the national spotlight because of this stupid (tacky, racist, unfunny) cartoon but make no mistake– “racist” is part of their brand. While it is true that there are a lot of self-identified liberals in New York City there is also a significant conservative minority (not to mention the conservative currents that run through liberal circles here, like those around immigration issues or Israel for e.g.)– these are the people who read the Post.

I am not surprised the Post editor is defending this cartoon. But I am actually heartened by the overwhelming negative response it has inspired. It will be interesting to see what happens. Whatever the outcome I predict a woe-is-me response from the Right with a heavy emphasis on freedom of expression. Lets see them say that with a straight face…

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:01 pm ¶
Ejunco wrote:

1.Racist

2. Depends how you look at it

3. No as long as they can take the heat

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:09 pm ¶
Ms. Danielle wrote:

Perhaps if the police didn’t have a reputation for killing blacks, I wouldn’t be so quick to make a race-based correlation.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:09 pm ¶
Amused0472 wrote:

When I saw it, my first thought was that it was racist and I still believe it is. But a part of me is glad it’s out there because the more right-wing hate mongers act out in this manner, the less legitimate they become.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:13 pm ¶
Jamma Mamma wrote:

The clincher was that the cartoon ran the page DIRECTLY after an image of Obama and the bill. . . As a reader it’s like “hmmm la-dee-da our president signed a bill, let me turn the page. Oh look! a monkey is shot and there is a reference to the bill”

:straight face:

NY Post makes me sick.

I just came back from the protest in front of their offices in midtown Manhattan but I want to do more. . . . The little kid in me wants to pour coffee on all the Post papers I see waiting for pick-up in the morning. . . But the grown as woman in me knows with my skin tone and my mini afro I’ll be arrested. . .

smh

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:37 pm ¶
Jamma Mamma wrote:

* grown azz woman

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:40 pm ¶
Paz wrote:

I didn’t understand it at first glance. I mean, obviously I read the racist tones, and the violence was disturbing, but I didn’t understand the cartoonist’s intent until I read about the chimp incident. Ooohhh. Still, definitely not cool at all. But it’s the NY Post. And the cartoonist’s past cartoons have a history of extremely bad taste.
And as for the Gawker comments, unfortunately I have seen there will always be narrow minded assholes. Sigh.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:44 pm ¶
Gregory A. Butler wrote:

The New York Post’s demographic (working class White people in New York City’s White enclaves and the suburbs) probably aren’t familiar with that old college joke about “10,000 monkeys typing for 10,000 years”.

And they don’t know all the technical details of who exactly wrote the Stimulus bill.

Nor do they know all of the precise biology of “chimps are not monkeys”.

But those readers ARE familiar with the old “Black people = apes” racist stereotype!

And I’m sure the New York Post’s editors know that.

Remember also that a large proportion of the New York Post’s management, including owner Rupert Murdoch and editor in chief Col Allen, are White Australians – and that country’s White community have a long history of racism against Australia’s Black community, the Aborigines.

So yes, it’s a putridly racist cartoon, and they intended it to be.

It’s also a federal crime, since they are advocating the assassination of the President.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 2:45 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ Kavita
I don’t find it the least bit plausible either, you know? But I’m not the one that they’re interested in convincing. And the ones they are trying to convince, those who would like to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to racism (both enjoy and decry it), are just looking for some reasonable doubt.

It’s all pretty redicckulus.

@ rob
If this were referring to a piece of legislation associated with a black lawmaker in the UK, I would not read it any differently. It’s not just about a “piece of law” – but the person associated with that piece of law (whether they were the actual author or not).

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 3:13 pm ¶
Roseanna wrote:

1. My first thought was more along the Shakespeare-typewriter line. I guess I mainly saw it as saying that a monkey COULD have written the bill (cause it’s so dumb, harhar) rather than that a “monkey” DID write the bill. For me, any Obama connection really didn’t jump out.

2. In the context of the artist’s history, I’m sort of thinking he KNEW what connotations might be drawn from the cartoon but thought they were subtle enough that he could label any offense taken as over-sensitivity. I don’t know that I necessarily would conclude that they were intended from the outset…

3. Yes. Even if he wants to argue that there’s nothing in the cartoon that makes an obama link THAT obvious (the chimp is pretty chimp-like rather than humanoid or anything – god forbid…), it’s not hard to see how some one COULD come to that conclusion. Just, y’know, a little sensitivity never goes amiss…

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 3:32 pm ¶
island girl wrote:

i am saddened by this cartoon and by many of the thinly-veiled racist responses to it posted on gawker and NYP. i think that we in the US have missed an opportunity, in the days leading up to the inauguration, to have a broad, inclusive, national discussion on race. i guess it’s easier for MSM to assert that now the US is “post-racial” and obsess about what tie obama is wearing than to do the serious work of sparking such a discussion.

this is what i wish for: that a critical mass of white people would initiate a white discourse on racism and then take this discourse to the institutional level. if this were really a “post-racial” society (that is, not some supposedly feel-good, “color-blind” multi-culti circle jerk with kumbaya and smores as promulgated on MSM), i think that a white discourse on racism would be emergent, and as a nation, we might be able to take the discussion of race and inequality beyond issues of representation (which, IMHO, is the crux of discourse surrounding this insipid cartoon) and into explorations of apologies, reparations, reconciliation and parity.

– an island girl in a land without sea

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:

If you want to add your voice to an ongoing petition about the cartoon, here’s one from Color of Change:

http://colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=2292-791465

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 4:57 pm ¶
Orville wrote:

Wow I think the cartoon is so racist. I am wondering does America have like a journalist or media organization that overlooks the USA media? In Canada and the UK there are organizations that look over what the newspapers publish. I think the NY Post cartoon is just disgusting.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 5:00 pm ¶
Michelle_2 wrote:

I agree with thebiblophile. The cartoon is only “funny” if you look at it from the black (Obama) = ape angle; otherwise it makes no sense. IMO the chimp-on-the-rampage story was the catalyst for the idea, and then served as plausible deniability (for a given definition of plausible).

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 5:55 pm ¶
TeakLipstickFiend wrote:

Everyone here has said it: this cartoon is racist – no doubt. Yes, it refers to the incident with the chimp (which I had read about prior to seeing this), but without the racist link it doesn’t make sense. It is offensive and frightening, as well as being totally insensitive to those involved in the chimp attack. Yuck.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 5:57 pm ¶
Elayne Riggs wrote:

My coworker came over to my desk FUMING about this as soon as he saw it. He was really offended. (Full disclosure: he and I are both white.) My first thought was also the “monkeys typing Shakespeare” riff, and my second thought was “well, they compared Bush to a chimp enough times, there was even that website The Smirking Chimp.” I didn’t know about the CT monkey. My opinion is, I don’t necessarily blame the cartoonist, just in case he did have one of these things in mind, but the editor ought to have known better and said, “No matter your intent, this cartoon can very easily be read as racist; what else you got?” Totally the editor’s responsibility here.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 6:00 pm ¶
jen* wrote:

I knew about the chimp incident when I saw the cartoon last night. So while I understood that reference, my first thought was – “Wow, way to dig for an unrelated story so you have an excuse to caricature a black man as a monkey”

Seems pretty cut and dried to me. I wasn’t surprised or outraged, because this seems like a ssdd* sitch. On this one, I’m just moving on.

*ssdd = same ish, different day

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 6:03 pm ¶
NancyP wrote:

1. F—! Call the FBI…. oh, it’s the Post dog-training aid.

2. No.
I didn’t know about the cops shooting the pet chimpanzee, but when I heard that was “an explanation”, it only made it worse, since the deceased pet was mauling a white woman.
For anyone over the age of 12 with an IQ over 85, this “chimp” image should be recognized as a common racial slur against blacks. It’s not one of the more esoteric references (eg, “golliwog’s cakewalk” title of Debussy’s musical composition – most white musicians don’t have a clue about either the g. or the c.).
Frankly, the first thing that flashed through my mind after the WTF moment was the Oakland murder.

3. It’s a nicety.
Better would be some pre-publication self-editing or an editorial page editor with some basic common sense and decency.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
RainaWeather wrote:

My first thought was Black people being protrayed as monkeys which we have historically been. Then the monkey being Obama who was shot by the police because he is Black.

The connection to the woman being attacked is nonexistent. Where the hell does the stimilus bill come in?

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 8:19 pm ¶
Titanis walleri wrote:

There’s also that saying “A monkey could do a better job (of ___)”, which I think is supposed to be part of the joke here (but I’m probably giving the artist too much credit, given his past work)…

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 9:32 pm ¶
Joyce wrote:

1. My first thought was, “Wow, that’s a pretty damn racist cartoon. Someone’s obviously bitter about the stimulus package, but wtf that’s a bit much, isn’t it?”

2. I can sort of buy the Shakespeare/apes theory, or at least see it as a possibility (if a bit of a reach). I didn’t know about the cops shooting the monkey story, but don’t think it has a strong enough tie to the cartoon to make sense.

3. In a case like this, where it can be very easily misconstrued (ASSUMING that isn’t what the guy meant, although based on what I’ve read, I think he did), yes, I do think it should have been clarified, especially now that it’s attracted so much negative attention (and rightly so).

I’m leaning towards agreement with jen* (#78), that they were just looking for an excuse to put up something like this, especially now that I have a better understanding of the layout of the New York Post around this cartoon.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 9:46 pm ¶
amory wrote:

1. my first thought was, “Holy shit. the Post actually printed this. This is SO RACIST.”

2. Did it change based on the context? No.

3. Does a cartoonist have a responsibility to clarify failed jokes? Yes, but “clarification” needs to be done AFTER a very public apology for the IMPACT of a cartoon such as this, so as not to focus on INTENT over actual real-life CONSEQUENCES. and whoever prints a cartoon such as this has a responsibility to hold the cartoonist and editor(s) accountable beyond public apologies. Public apologies are important but what is much more important, in my opinion, is to send a strong message to anyone considering behavior like this in the future, that it is intolerable and that they will be held accountable. It’s my personal feeling that apologies are worthless without accountability and action for change.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 9:55 pm ¶
Brad wrote:

1) First thought: OMG! What idiotic editor didn’t see that this was going to offend everyone?
2) Meh. If you work hard enough you can convince yourself that it meant something different – and I now think it probably did – but what idiotic editor didn’t see that this was going to offend everyone? It’s SO obvious that its going to be seen as racist (and treasonous?)
3) I think this is an editor failure more than a cartoonist failure. The paper should apologize profusely and give a very detailed explanation of what they thought it meant. The cartoonist can apologize if he wants, but whatever – he’s not the idiotic editor who printed it.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 10:07 pm ¶
Haley wrote:

Yeah, this is totally fucked. And I’m getting sick of listening to white “progressive” talk radio hosts talking about how THEY didn’t initially see it as racist. Well no shit.

I also think that the artist’s/editor’s denials are BS because if nothing else, look at the text of the cartoon: “They’ll have to find someone ELSE to write the next stimulus bill.” Why would they have to find someone else? Oh because the individual who wrote it is now shot dead. It’s not even like he said, “They’ll have to draft a new bill.” There is no ambiguity to me.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 10:54 pm ¶
Starlet Harlot wrote:

It is my belief that a racist sentiment was communicated knowing a disclaimer could be attached if necessary – looking at the image, two thoughts came to mind:
1) they’re playing on the whole “a monkey could’ve written this crap”; and
2) they’re being freaking racist

And they’re hoping the first association will outweigh the second.

PROBLEM: It’s an American cartoon in an American paper, a country with a history of likening Black people to apes and monkeys – with a Black president who just signed the bill the cartoon is referencing!
The very notion they were genuinely unaware of the associations is so unbelievable it is ludicrous.

They’re being highly disingenuous, but I’m not fooled. They took advantage of the shot-chimp story and the ‘chimps with typewriters’ trope to send a covert and revoltingly racist message.

They don’t just have a responsibility to clarify – they have a responsibility to fire the artist and editor responsible.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:06 pm ¶
Princess wrote:

@RainaWeather–

Exactly! How does one correlate a pet monkey attack on the woman in CT with the stimulus bill? Whether one holds a G.E.D. or PhD most agree there is clearly no correlation whatsoever.

The illustration coupled with the caption is a published and mass distributed blatant racial stereotype, plain and simple. And there is no excuse for it.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:12 pm ¶
Starlet Harlot wrote:

Oh yes and agreed the two issues have NO relation to each other whatsoever, so remove the disgusting racism and it STILL FAILS AS SATIRE.

This is what makes it so obviously to me opportunistic racism. I can just imagine Delonas rubbing his hands with glee when the chimp was shot.

It’s a violent message and a very disturbing one.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:17 pm ¶
Afro-chan wrote:

1. What was your first thought?

I thought this was a lot of things. I thought this was both a play on the news story about the chimpanzee that was shot by police after is escaped from some lady’s home. At the exact same time I knew that the imagery was not lost on the cartoonist and in this day and age shock value sells. I thought it was a typical and unimaginative play on racist imagery.

2. Did it change based on the context?

Not really. After hearing that the particular cartoonist has a history of racism/homophobic tendencies I want to explore those accusations before drawing any conclusions.

3. Does a cartoonist have a responsibility to clarify failed jokes?

That depends on the artist if they feel responsible for what they put out. If your work is consistently and widely being misinterpreted then you are not doing a good job conveying your point.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:22 pm ¶
The Cruel Secretary wrote:

Just picked this up….New York Post tries to apologize for the cartoon.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_re_us/ny_post_cartoon

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:34 pm ¶
CVT wrote:

Sure, it’s about the monkey in Connecticut. AND Obama.

Which makes it racist. This is one of those threads that I kind of wish I never read because it just pisses me off (especially knowing what kind of B.S. “post-racial” folks are probably throwing around in defense of this).

Damn.

Posted 19 Feb 2009 at 11:47 pm ¶
beata wrote:

Given the cartoonist’s previous work, there is no doubt in my mind that there is racist intent to this picture. He probably wet himself with excitement following the Connecticut incident because he recognised it as a perfect excuse to draw the Obama-chimp comparison. Even if there was no racist intent, it’s clear the animal is meant to be Obama, and portraying someone *who happens* to be African-American as a chimp requires a pretty good (clever, subversive) punchline. This is clearly just feeding into racist, White supremacist bullshit.
@Gregory A. Butler-
Australia’s white community certainly has a history of racism against Indigenous people and also immigrants of colour, but do you regard it as more prevalent/egregious than white American racism? Your comment reads as though you’re suggesting Murdoch and co.’s being Australian (rather than American) makes them more likely to be condoning or perpetuating racism. As an Australian who observes a great deal of U.S media, I have trouble believing this. (I would suggest both cultures are on par in the racist stakes.)

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 12:31 am ¶
lowderra wrote:

Sounds like the cartoonist has a history of writing racist stuff and being cruel to other minorities. So, no benefit of the doubt here.

It’s not only in very poor taste in my opinion, whoever is approving his cartoons before they go to print needs to be a little more careful. No, actually a lot more careful.

No, actually he probably needs to be fired.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 12:41 am ¶
Cathy wrote:

It’s racist. Period.

If the cartoonist claims that he was unaware of what the imagery of police officers and primates mean to black people, then he should be fired for his ignorance alone, especially since he is supposed to be educated. It’s 2009 and I’m tired of the sorry excuses of people who claim to not know what they’re depicting.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 3:19 am ¶
jaye wrote:

Kai: “I have never before in my life seen any publication of any sort run a visual representation, even through oblique symbolism, of a sitting US president shot dead. This goes far beyond tepid condemnations of tastelessness.”

That’s what I meant to say!

But I also like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ non-reaction. If you go forward with the idea of this cartoonist depicting a threat on Obama’s life…then that means we are agreeing that the monkey in the cartoon is Obama, which further serves to dehumanize African-Americans…it hardens the connection and image in people’s minds subversively, even in protest, which I believe was the cartoonist’s intent. He’s probably thrilled with the backlash…because we all agree, the monkey is Obama. On the one hand, I’m disgusted beyond belief…on the other, I feel like Ta-Nehisi’s non-reaction is the best reaction, by not taking this guy seriously, not giving him the publicity and outrage he so desperately wants, that’s the best way to shut him down. But if you let it go, does that only make these guys feel more emboldened to take it even further in the future? God, what the hell happened to these people when they were kids that they grew up to be such big pricks?

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 5:51 am ¶
swan wrote:

It may be tasteless and tacky but how could the chimp portray Obabma–he did not write the bill.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 7:46 am ¶
Marcus Kwame wrote:

the intent was racist 100%

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 9:21 am ¶
Lxy wrote:

As many have already said, “post-racial America” is determined to suppress and re-interpret racist ideology. It’s a dangerous time to me – it’s a time when folks (and particularly folks of color) can become deeply entangled in internalized oppression – and not even realize the implicit messages.

Yes. The very idea of “post-raciality” itself is merely the newest incarnation of American racism and White Supremacy–and not a political break from these traditions.

To me, it’s disturbing that even some politically conscious minorities do not question the desirability of The Post-Racial as a political objective to begin with.

Their criticism is usually framed along the lines that “America is not post-racial yet”–as if post-racialism should be an intended political goal to begin with.

Like its older political cousin Colorblindness, Post-Racialism in practice is about being blind to the consequences of color/race in the USA, to paraphrase Julian Bond.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 9:56 am ¶
Yvette wrote:

It may be tasteless and tacky but how could the chimp portray Obabma–he did not write the bill.

The bill was widely recognized as “Obama’s stimulus package.” Not “Congress’s,” not anyone elses. This defense of the cartoon, widely voiced, is disingenuous at best.

But let’s say for a moment that the chimp was meant to portray someone else other than the President. How is it appropriate to depict those hypothetical someone’s as bleeding out dead on the ground after being shot by police officers?

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 10:07 am ¶
swan wrote:

I don’t think it was depicting “anyone” other than the monkey on our backs that this bill is becoming. Have you heard the story of the chimp who attacked the woman? This bill is outlandish and will turn on all of us

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 1:53 pm ¶
Yvette wrote:

I don’t think it was depicting “anyone” other than the monkey on our backs that this bill is becoming.

The police officer did not say something like “There goes that stimulus package.” He said “someone else” would have to write the next one–more than implying that the dead chimp was the writer of the current one.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 3:03 pm ¶
Marcus Kwame wrote:

Swan, I have to respectfully disagree. I think it’s cool for people to have varying political views and opinions about the stimulus bill. That being said, as Yvette pointed out, the bill is widely recognized as “Obama’s stimulus package.” And when you take into account the cartoonist’s past bigoted, homophobic and sexist strips, in conjunction with the longstanding racist American tradition of calling black people monkeys, it is very hard to believe that this was not meant to depict the president.

A political cartoon is supposed to be obvious. That’s why often times a cartoonist will write the name of a person being depicted, just to avoid confusion about the intent. The idea of the monkey representing the stimulus package as a monkey on our backs is pretty abstract.

I think that this guy, who clearly has some bigoted opinions from his past work, was just using the chimp story in the news as a thinly veiled piece of racist propaganda.

Google Obama’s image. Ever since he announced his candidacy there have been tons of hateful stereotype driven images, many of them using monkey imagery.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 3:13 pm ¶
swan wrote:

the dead chimp was the writer of the current one.
If that is the intent then its Nancy Pelosi and Henry Reed, not Obama.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 5:14 pm ¶
Tracey wrote:

1. WTF. I thought first of Oscar Grant, then(not in order)of the chimp attack, of black people=monkeys, this being thought of as Obama’s stimulus, of two apparently white officer shooting a chimp with all the connotations that implies.

2. No. Especially given the cartoonist past and that I feel many people if not most are aware of the historic representation of black people as monkeys/apes and that the cartoonist was well aware of how the picture would be taken.

3.Yes, but I don’t think that applies here. I don’t think it was a joke gone wrong and believe the cartoonist was well aware of the conotations of the drawing were, especially given his past drawings. If a cartoonist honestly does something that seems insensitive then they should clarify by all means, but I seriously doubt this person didn’t know what the implications were and how the toon would be recieved.

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 6:32 pm ¶
krikri wrote:

I think the protestors do not understand the sentence “ They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”.
Obama did not write the stimulus bill. He signed it. So why do the protestors keep linking the chimpanzee to Obama.
What happened to American English?
The race of the democrat economists that wrote that bill is unknown. Why assume that they are black?

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 7:25 pm ¶
kerrita k wrote:

here is a link to some of his other cartoons. they suck too!
http://gawker.com/5155855/ten-masterpieces-from-sean-delonas

Posted 20 Feb 2009 at 8:29 pm ¶
Kara wrote:

1) “Oh my GOD, who is THIS stupid?!”

2) It got worse with knowing the supposed context. To draw similarity between a chimp that’s been shot dead (by White law enforcement, no less) and policy enacted by Obama, all in a supposed-attempt at humorous criticism REALLY shows how this guy thinks.

3) If the cartoonist wants her/his work to have any integrity in light of such a failed joke they should do so. Delonas’ clarity merely distilled his bigotry into being crystal clear.

Update: If a cartoonist has a record of using bigoted imagery or racist/sexist/homophobic jokes, does it change the context of these jokes?

Nope — it solidifies it to me.

Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 1:08 am ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ swan and krikri
You should really read the comments on a post before you start responding. The questions you’ve both raised have been addressed dozens of times already.

Even those outside of NY metro area are well aware of the chimp story, Swan and, Krikri, if you think people are concerned about the race of the “democrat”(-ic!) economists you are say wrote the bill, it makes your non sequitur about American English suddenly seem apt. In short: that’s not what this about. (See: Any 10 of the comments before yours)

I also recommend you investigate how the Post has been referring to the bill over the last two months for a bit more context. That would also address your respective questions about actual authorship vs. association.

Playing the naive literalist isn’t the best way to get to the bottom of anything especially when reading visual language. You both seem determined to dismiss those you don’t agree with without even bothering to examine what they’re saying. Which is telling.

Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 4:40 pm ¶
A.D. Nix wrote:

@ A.D.Nix
” you say wrote the bill”. No “are” necessary.

Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 4:41 pm ¶
Lonny wrote:

The defense that Obama isn’t the writer of the bill and therefore you can’t link him to this comic is weak. It’s Obama’s bill. This will be his legacy for better or worse. It dosen’t matter if he penned it or not. The public obviously sees this bill as Obama’s. Believe that if it doesn’t stimulate the economy, people won’t hesitate to blame Obama for “the downfall of America” and “stolen generations” as well. And can someone please explain to me how that it’s referencing a current event makes it any less racist? “Har har, hey, it’s that monkey that got shot! How referential and ironic!” Sorry, but linking Obama to a chimp that’s in the news doesn’t make it any more okay than linking him to any other chimp.

Posted 21 Feb 2009 at 5:49 pm ¶
MomTFH wrote:

1. My first impression? Not only did I see it as blatantly racist, but I think it actually is a thinly veiled reference to assassinating the president.

2. I hadn’t heard the monkey in Connecticut story before seeing the cartoon. Did it change my impression? Not one bit, because that story has nothing to do with the caption or the racist application of the story. It just explains the background of the original idea behind the setting of the cartoon.

3. The cartoonist should clarify cartoons that are horribly offensive, and should be fired if they can’t be explained away sufficiently.

To the people who are sickeningly defending this cartoon by nitpicking about who literally authored the stimulus package, I have a few things to say. (I have yet to read all the replies, so sorry if I repeat someone else’s points, but I think it’s more forgivable if I am not an apologist for racists when being repetitive.)

It doesn’t matter if there is some way of parsing the context to rationalize away a blatantly racist symbol. It is ridiculously, blatantly racist. It shouldn’t take analysis of the intricacies of who authored a bill that is referred to as Obama’s stimulus package widely in the media to try to defend it. The end result is racist, regardless of the intent.

And, more importantly, this cartoonist has drawn other cartoons about the stimulus package with Obama as the author of the bill, who presents it to other democrats to support. If you go to this site: http://www.nypost.com/delonas/delonas.htm and select Feb. 8th, 2009, you have a good example of one. So, the intent was there, too.

Posted 22 Feb 2009 at 2:58 am ¶
Robespierre wrote:

1. Why does anyone buy the New York Post?

2. People at the Post routinely justify racism with the excuse of postmodernism and the posturing of provocateurs. They fail to realize that postmodernism demands a keen understanding of context and provocateurs are by definition never cliché-ridden reactionaries. (Unexamined stereotypes are, among other things, undigested clichés.)

3. An unpublished cartoonist (like Henry Darger) is not obligated to explain anything. A newspaper cartoonist is an extension of the editorial policies of his paper and, as such, is obligated *to be explained*, even if not by himself. Free speech is often like bad fashion: technically legal but potentially damning to anyone’s career.

4. A history of bigotry like this cartoonist’s is relevant insofar as it diminishes the likelihood their professed unawareness of race is sincere. The context is changed when the intended context is placed in doubt.

Interested parties should look up Michael Wolff’s comments on newser: Wolff, who has written a biography of Rupert Murdoch, claims the notorious media polluter is now embarrassed by the Post and will likely sell it in the future. He adds that Murdoch probably intended to send the editor back to Australia whether or not the NAACP had intervened.

Why is Murdoch now changing with regard to being a conservative? According to Wolff, because Murdoch divorced his former Catholic conservative wife who blamed liberals for the decline of civilization. Murdoch’s current wife is 40 years younger than he and a liberal who travels in Hollywood circles. Reportedly, Murdoch’s nights are now spent with Hollywood liberals who question him regularly as to why he inflicts Fox News on the rest of the world.

Posted 22 Feb 2009 at 8:58 pm ¶
al oof wrote:

the person who drew that is lying. it’s possible someone somewhere in the chain of command that got this thing printed didn’t realize what it meant, but there is just no way he didn’t mean it was obama. and if he didn’t mean that, than he’s an idiot for thinking anyone would come away from it thinking anything else. i mean, who wrote the bill? well, doens’t the monkey then represent whoever wrote it? that’s pretty basic. what could that possibly have to do with someone’s pet monkey being accidentally shot? i mean, are we supposed to make the leap from cops shot a monkey to that’s the monkey who wrote the bill and by the way i don’t mean whoever really wrote it is a monkey, i mean that there is that saying about a bunch of monkey’s writing shakespeare, except those hypothetical monkeys in the saying really write shakespeare, and he totally doesn’t mean to say that the bill is as good as shakespeare.

Posted 22 Feb 2009 at 11:57 pm ¶
Marcus Kwame wrote:

@ A.D. Nix

Thank you. That was well so well put. Racism is racism. Sometimes you have to call something what it is.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 1:18 am ¶
Elizabeth wrote:

My first thought was “Why is he calling Congress a monkey?”

My second thought was “Oh my God, he just called the POTUS a rabid gorilla.”

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 9:41 am ¶
Andrea wrote:

I can recall our past president being made fun of for looking like a monkey because of his ears and face expressions in the media. No one seemed to care about that. I think of the phrase…”any monkey can do it” That is what I think about who wrote the stimulus bill.

Posted 23 Feb 2009 at 6:16 pm ¶
al oof wrote:

unfortunately, andrea, there is a contextual difference between equating a white man with a monkey and equating a black man with a monkey. we live in a culture with a (recent) history of saying black men are primitive and simian, that black people are closer to ‘our primate ancestors’ than white people.

it is not the same because we don’t live in a fair world.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 1:12 am ¶
JJ wrote:

At first it looks like superbad taste and intent, but then upon hearing the comment issued from the artist where he makes it clear he certainly meant to portray or imply Obama, and that what he drew was the best way to do that. He said something to the effect of “how else was I supposed to do it?”
Which makes the whole thing much worse. I cannot believe the Post printed it. Seriously, between them and Fox it’s like we live in a brain vacuum.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 1:40 pm ¶
Ron wrote:

As a black conservative, I do not really care what the NYP has to say about black people. I say we just ignore them and deal with real issues in our community. White people have been calling blacks monkeys for years so what is new. We will be considered and regarded as monkeys a 100 years from now so I say lets just get over it.

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 4:18 pm ¶
cocolamala wrote:

yeah ron, but when are they going to get over it?

when is the Post going to get over it?

Posted 24 Feb 2009 at 6:11 pm ¶
Free wrote:

To Mrs. Murdoch and Carlucci,

It seems to me that your cartoonist used the recent incident of the shooting of a chimpanzee as cover for this racist statement. Is your cartoonist (and by extension the New York Post) suggesting the assassination of the President of the United States? Perhaps the FBI and the Secret Service should investigate.

Posted 26 Feb 2009 at 8:33 pm ¶
Spinster wrote:

1. Racist, offensive.

2. Nope.

3. Yep.

Posted 28 Feb 2009 at 7:13 pm ¶
Maha wrote:

alot of people would say that Bush was always incorporated with this image, so why the fuss about Obama? yes, because of the racial connotation behind it.

i hate the so-called artist anyways. all his strips are offensive and not even funny-offensive. you could pull off being offensive but funny, something that is generally accepted; this guy is just a pure ass

Posted 03 Mar 2009 at 2:49 am ¶