Thursday 19 February 2009

Roll Call Of The Righteous

Here we go ...

Some critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialised a tragedy which left Charla Nash with what police called "life-changing" facial injuries.

Others said the cartoon suggests that Obama should be assassinated, with critics urging a boycott of the Post and the companies advertising in it.

Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, said: "How could the Post let this cartoon pass as satire? To compare the nation's first African-American commander in chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel."

State Senator Eric Adams called it a "throwback" to the days when black men were lynched.

The Reverend Al Sharpton, an influential civil rights leader, called the cartoon "troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys".

Phones at the Post's Manhattan office rang all day with angry callers, while protesters also picketed outside - demanding an apology and a boycott and chanting: "Shut the Post down."

Col Allan, the paper's editor-in-chief, defended the work... "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."

Here's the cartoon, for what it's worth:

8 comments:

Nick von Mises said...

Should we start a checklist on how many UK organisations will try to put their oar in. Perhaps the Scottish assembley should debate a motion of support for the protestors and perhaps the BBC carry an appeal for donations?

JuliaM said...

The problem is, the people howling about this cartoon are obviously totally ignorant of their country's legislative apparatus (or cynically hope their followers are).

The POTUS doesn't write bills, Congress does.

Good grief, I don't even live there, and I know that!

gordon-bennett said...

If the cartoonist had wanted the chimp to be obama he would have put Alfred E Neuman ears on it.

It's not a very witty effort either way.

Snafu said...

As a nasally challenged individual, I'm offended by the size of those noses...

Anonymous said...

Surely the cartoonist was referring to the pet chimpanzee who the police had to shoot after it tried to tear a visitor's face off rather than the 43rd president.

After all the chimps ears are far too small for it to be meant to be Obama...

Mark Wadsworth said...

Those ears are a Godsend for caricaturists

Letters From A Tory said...

"To compare the nation's first African-American commander in chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel."

But that's the point - they made no such comparison. It was a play on the recent story about the chimpanzee being shot dead.

Bloody PC brigade.

And while we're on the subject, can we have a National Union of White Journalists?

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or do I remember thousands of cartoons, columns, and even some leading articles, that portrayed President Bush as a monkey?

Where were the anti-racist cheerleaders then?