That Cartoon
February 21, 2009
New York Post cartoon from 02/18/2009
If you follow the news, you’ve probably seen this image plastered all over creation. Gods know… that media whore Al Sharpton certainly has.
Now, I’m no fan of Mr. Sharpton — his less than pure motives are about as subtle as a freight train rumbling through at 2 a.m. That said, ignoring for the moment the man’s unique way of pointing out things that simply don’t exist, I have a hard time finding fault with his position over this. The Guardian has a fairly decent, unbiased article on the situation, including a history of complaints about this particular artist. It would seem that this isn’t his first cartoon which reeks of bigotry, with blogs such as Gawker handing him titles like “the Picasso of prejudice”.
Yeah, I know Obama didn’t physically write the stimulus bill as it currently stands; and, yeah, I know that it’s a play on a recent well-circulated news article. I also know that racism and bigotry are alive and well in America today, and have the not-uncommon ability to smell bullshit when it’s being served as an apology.
Shame on you, NYP. Not for printing the article — not everyone is sensitive to racism today; a credit to how far we’ve come as a society — but because you refuse to admit that there could even be a hidden meaning in that cartoon. You think if you close your eyes, cover your ears, and scream about your own persecution loud enough, you won’t have to admit that an artist who has received more than his fair share of criticism over his bigotted drawings might have had ulterior motives in portraying the author of the stimulus bill as a chimp, alive or otherwise. Al may be whoring it up yet again with his declaration that this is a call for violence against the President, but you’re no better by denying what is perfectly obvious to anyone with an IQ above room-temperature, after a careful examination of the facts.
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