TeeHee. I told you, BSG creeps up on you! Whatever problems you have with it, the world is very well developed, realistic, consistent, and therefore easy to borrow from.

Here was the post's response:

"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."

Sorry, I clicked on the link expecting it to be much ado about nothing, but I was kind of surprised by it. I'm not the over sensitive type at all. That being said, the officer in the cartoon is clearly saying that either a) the monkey they just shot wrote the first stimulus bill, or b)he was in line to write the second one. ??? Either way, it's certainly not funny, doesn't make much sense, and is clearly written to cause a fuss. Really, it is so transparent in its provocative intent, that we probably should just laugh it off.

This is what the Post readership finds amusing?

Or maybe he'll let slip a smoking bellweather.

Let the games begin!

On some blogs I frequent, some people are defending the cartoonist/cartoon as a joke. Fine I won't call it racist if someone can give me a reasonable/plausible explanation other than racial intent that links the 2 stories.

http://mypages.blackvoices.com/museum/nss-folder/pictures/monkey-bush-withagun.jpg

Now the cartoon was referencing the incident where a lady who kept a chimp as a pet had to call the police to come and shoot it because it was biting off her friend's face. To me its a horrible attempt at humor but not necessarily racist. Its just not funny.

Also if you look at what most right wingers and even the Republicans in Congress have said they all blame Nancy Pelosi for writing the bill. Go figure.

And I am pretty far from being post racial I might add. Because I am DEFINITELY a lot more pissed about that Michelle Malkin picture of her posing with a dude with a swastika inside the O in Obama's name on a poster which is all over the internet today.

That shows a poor understanding of the nature of racial and ethnic stereotypes. If you call a Jew a "cheap money-grubber," does that stop being anti-Semitic simply because the same description applied to a Gentile wouldn't raise an eyebrow?

And let's face it, Bush does kind of resemble a chimp. Obama, to my eyes, does not.

So I think we should fight back when people try maliciously depict Black people --or any other group-- in a bad light. But if they resort to paint Obama as a chimpance, let them do it.

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/one_spokesperson_to_lead_them_all.php

To me, it's hard to believe that anyone would intentionally create this cartoon to imply that the chimp is Obama. People who are bringing Obama into it to criticize the cartoon *are the ones bringing Obama, and hence race, into it.*

That said, the reactions are completely predictable, so it was 100 percent idiotic of the Post to run the cartoon if they didn't want people to threaten to burn their building down, as Gawker is reporting.

Now did the cartoonist know using a monkey was going to get a bunch of "hyper-pc liberals" to overreacct to a nonissue? Probably. But then you guys are just playing into his hands.

If now's not a good time to make trained monkey jokes, we might as well just retire the expression all together for the next eight years.

I don't know if this claim of racism is bogus or not, but Al Sharpton has a history of making questionable racial charges, so I'm not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And I HATE explaining jokes, but luxurytwist and Green have it right.

C'mon. On one hand you are saying that's its completely innocent. But then the very next paragraph you claim that cartoonist probably drew it to upset liberals. Well, which one is it? I don't really give a shit, but don't ask silly rhetorical questions when you know the artist was trying to make the connection.

"What's the connection? All references to monkeys are secretly deriding obama?"

Seriously?

I agree that that is obviously what the joke is SUPPOSED to be. But it doesn't really make much sense, and it is clearly not funny. But its also clear that the author knew exactly what he was doing when he drew it up, right?

Yeah, seriously.

And i never said it was innocent. I dont even know why it should be. It's a cartoon. It's meant to be funny. Maybe thought provoking, though usually not.

Whether you think it's funny is up to you to decide, but it's not racist. They're not calling Obama a monkey anymore than Obama was calling Palin a pig a few months back. The cartoon's not about Obama. It's not about Black people. It's about the Congress, more specifcally the predominantly white Democratic wing of the congress, and about a drugged up monkey in connecticut that bit some lady's face off yesterday.

But, quite predictably any mention of a primate in the year of Obama will likely lead to Rev Al and his ilk stepping out and reminding everybody that might have forgot that with him everything comes back to race. Kind of reminds me of the PUMAs and their oh so astute eyes for the sexism that was oozing from Obama's campaign. Remembering how I used to laugh at their absurdity, even if I didn't like the original cartoon, I can see how the response, in itself, could be funny to the right.

I'm just saying, chill.

Stop it. You know what people should ginny up outrage and protest for...domestic abuse, the ridiculous amount of money thrown at public schools with no results, the scary STD/HIV rates among Black women, I could go on.

For this, I won't even raise an eyebrow...it doesn't even deserve a second thought.

So thank you for telling me what they were attempting to do, Stacy...But I'd have to say this qualifies as Epic Fail.

Well, yes, you did. You said it was innocent of any racial connotations, which is clearly what we are talking about. But then right after that you claim that the artist knew the reaction it would get. So, I don't care whether or not it is racist. It probably isn't. But the very fact that you said getting upset about it would be "playing into their hands" show that they knew exactly what they were doing? I don't need to chill, because I'm not worked up about it. But let's not pretend that they didn't intend for the reaction they're getting.

Its a good thing most of us don't have to rely on some of you comedians to know the difference between a bad joke, a bad joke with racist overtones and some repugnant, loathsome shit.

Now I'm ready to move on.

I think this is the important part - clearly it's very unfunny, and very stupid.

Still, I at least, don't think it's TNC's job to have to pontificate on any stupid racist cartoons like this, unless something grabs him - especially when the response is so obvious. TNC tends to want to weigh in on things that are at least A BIT more interesting.

So the Post is not going to lose any ad revenue over this... there will be no apology.

If you go to right-wing, white supremest sites, you'll see the same type of cartoons with down to the crude drawing style.

You racists fool no one.

Of course.

Political cartoonists work with symbols all the time, more so than most cartoonists. This clown is an experienced political cartoonist. To think that he didn't know exactly what associations the images would conjure up strains credulity, especially after the long campaign months during which nitwits on the right used the Obama/monkey/chimp/Curious George crap over and over again.

But I'm not upset over it. I look at nonsense like this a little differently now. These are the impotent jokes of the dying racist right. Sharpton's very restrained statement shows that he gets it. He knows that his side has the advantage now. Good for Al. And fuck the Post.

Black folk have been compared to apes/chimps/gorillas/monkeys for forever and a day in America. There is NO misinterpretation.

And, then, there's the visual of the PO-Lice executing said monkey - Oscar Grant anyone?

Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's Kool-Aid.

This was racist, and yes, I reserve the right to be angry about it.

Does someone have to wear a SHEET for folks to step up and say ' this **** is racist'?

Your president is black but you don't have 3 more years to say that: you have 3 11/12 years to say that. More like 4 years, really.

Al Sharpton is an hack, quoting him doesn't make you any good.

When political cartoonists use a strained metaphor, they tend to do things like right "CONGRESS" on the metaphorical object doing the work in the cartoon. This is an old technique known to any teen who has been forced to read the paper for a week for civics class. Writing "CONGRESS" on the monkey would have been easy and cleared up any confusion.

And one more thing. Let's pretend that there was no history of racism in America, that black men and women have never been compared to apes, etc. Would the cartoon make any sense? Nope.

Good point. If you look at cartoons from the nineteenth century, the elephants have "GOP" written on them, because the metaphor hadn't become as well-established as it is today.

I've read a couple of biographies of Dr. Seuss and seen the early stuff he drew in the 1930s and 1940s. It was standard back then for political cartoonists to draw blatantly racist caricatures, and Seuss did depict blacks as monkeys in some of his early cartoons. Although he moved away from that kind of thing in the '40s and became increasingly critical of bigotry against blacks and Jews, he continued to draw racist depictions of Japanese throughout WWII.

One can, of course, dispute that perception of the stimulus bill.

What a wonderful reflection of the typical outer-borough Post (rag) reader. Rudy, is that you?

Like I said, I don't think anyone in the right mind would connect the monkey as Congress metaphor.

Who's talking about Congress? The obvious metaphor was about the killing chimp! And FYI I don't buy the NT Post, but see its cover at grocery stores and such.

Just my two cents.

In that way it reminds me of the violent reaction of many Muslims to the Dutch cartoonist, or the recent killings by a self-described conservative who shot liberal church members in Tennessee who literally claimed he went in there to kill liberals and Democrats, and was an avid listener of O'Reilly and Hannity, who by the way, are also connected to Murdoch. So Murdoch endorses views of Hannity and O'Reilly. One wonders if he endorses the even worse message that this NY Post cartoon promotes so humorously.... Murdoch owns the NY Post. I would say yes.

You only needed to hear the response of the NY Post artist to the critique that the cartoon might be, even inadvertently, racist. The cartoonist, may have denied the racist charge, but he endorsed political violence.

It's not even about whether the cartoon is, in fact, racist. It's the fact that something whose racial meaning is entirely implicit can stir up such controversy. The baggage is all still there is people's minds, or else no one would perceive any problem.

There. I said it.

What’s even worse is that rather than run a well thought out retraction, the newspaper’s PR department unleashed a torrent of rebuke for Rev. Al Sharpton and anyone else who would find the cartoon objectionable. Now, I’ve had my own beefs with the Right Reverend. But on this one, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

The next time someone tells me that now I ”have my Black president” so I can “just shut up about racism in this country”, I will invite them to take a look at this cartoon published by one of the most widely read newspaper in the country.

Once upon a time, I enjoyed the New York Post. Page Six was a morning festish. Breaking news? I used to go there. I say “used to” because I am finished. I’ve spent the day listening to apologists like Ron Christie (the only one of three Black men in America who didn’t support President Obama– Steele and Blackwell) and I’m dayum tired.

Sorry folks. I don’t find a dayum thing funny about it. Not as long as men like Sean Bell as being murdered on the street.