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40 comments:
I don't see how people could think the chimpanzee was supposed to be Obama. Too many people looking for a chance to scream, "Racist!"
Ummm, Skye? I can see it. Clearly, unfortunately.
Yeah, Skye, you'd have to be the chimpanzee that was shot not to get that this cartoon is a pretty racist one. I agree that people are too sensitive about race and in 90% of cases it's an overreaction, but, I mean, seriously.
And why am I not surprised that it struck such a chord with Malott?
I actually didn't even think of the racism angle either until I read Skye's post.
I was thinking that the cartoonist was just making the point that even a dumb chimp should have been able to come up with something better than the "stimulus" plan.
Hmmm...
Honestly, racism didn't cross my mind. Congress wrote the stimulus bill, not Obama.
I honestly thought it was a cartoon using a current event to slam the bill and congress.
Tsofah, get a grip! The New York Post does not deal racism.
I thought they were drawing a line between the chimp, Travis, that had to be put down and the porkulas bill that also needs to be killed.
I'm color blind....
Janice,
Yes, that's exactly what the Post was saying. But it was Al Sharpton who declared it was about Obama and that the Post was a bunch of racists.
The Post has since had to apologize for offending people with its racist cartoon.
Funny, you can call a GOP president a chimp for 8 years and that's just fine. But put a cartoon of a chimp in the paper, make it clear it's about Congress and their POS stimulus bill, and you're a racist for insulting the President.
Sorry, I didn't realize you folks weren't familiar with the aftermath of this cartoon when I made my first comment.
Jacob,
The writers of the stimulus bill were Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Definitely NOT President Obama.
I guess you skipped your US Government class...
Skye, I was completely aware of the hoopla Rev Al was making.
I'm just saying I don't see what Al, Jacob and Tsofah see.
I'm on your side Skye....
And, really, I'm color blind....
This whole racist thing is so bogus. But it's what we have come to expect from those guys. I don't recall any cries of racism when President Bush was drawn to resemble a monkey. I don't recall cries of racism when we are told that monkeys throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal can make better stock selections than mutual fund managers. In other words, how many references are made about folks "monkeying" something up without it having to be racists?
So for those determined that this is racist: what makes it so?
... but it's essentially Barack Obama's stimulus package.
But while we're on the subject, what's the deal with all the anti-Obama feeling re the stimulus package? Former President Bush in his last few weeks conceived the idea of a stimulus package in the first place. If it was wrong for Obama, then it should have been wrong for Bush too. Consistency, people!
Also - Bush looks more like a monkey than Obama. That isn't where the comparisons with a monkey ends with Bush, either.
Racists looking for racists will find them around every corner. Just ask Al.
Malott,
I have a very good grip on reality, thank you. :-D Unlike other people in other countries, I'm not advocating riots in the streets over a depiction in a cartoon in a newspaper. :-S
I do not look for racism, ok?
Obama was the first one to write the stimulus package bill. He then sent it to Reid and Polosi to present it to both branches of congress.
That alone made me think of Obama.
Then add to it that for years that racists (and others) have referred to blacks as "monkeys", and it adds to the problem.
While some look for racism, there are other things that you cannot dismiss as easily as one would wish too. (me included). A person with a yellow star on their shirt in a cartoon is going to be thought of as a Jewish person in a European ghetto or a Nazi war camp. We know that Christians, blacks, gypsies, and even gays were victims of the Third Reich. Some of these groups wore triangles instead of stars. But, the yellow star was universally worn by Jews by order of the Nazi's.
The same is true for the symbolism of "monkey" used for years as a way of referring to a black person.
The cartoonist for the New York Post probably did not mean anything of the kind in this cartoon. It was just poor judgement at the time.
Well reasoned opinion, Tsofah. And I can see your point.
I think the fact that the race-mongers, ala Rev Al, jump so quickly to point it out as a racist act concerns me. How are we as a nation going to get beyond race if non-blacks are scrutinized for every, abeit stupid, act?
How does the next generation get past this if Jesse and Al continue to make money off this search and destroy mission they're on?
Jacob,
Actually you are absolutely correct about Bush proposing a stimulus package. He actually did send out stimulus checks last year. At least the money went directly to the people and then back into the economy.
That being said, I was not in favor of that either. I did not want to see it passed, but it was and it was at least somewhat effective because it was a much better plan than all the wasteful spending that Obama passed.
Still, a stimulus plan devoid of tax cuts (the only true and proven economic stimulator) is a bad idea no matter what party proposes it.
Tsofah - I apologize if I sounded dissmissive. I can see how you would have taken my comment that way. You're clearly anything but a racist. But we do live in a hypersensitive time of looking for and charging racism. I just think that, while it might have been insensitive, no one at the Post meant to make a racial slur. It was all about Travis. I could be wrong.
A yellow star on a sleeve has a very specific historical meaning, but monkeys are going to be around as nothing but monkeys for a long time. I'd like to see the synapse firing that links monkeys and blacks go away. When a big deal is made of an incident like this it just strengthens the link. Ignoring it without comment would have served to weaken it.
Tsofah,
I respect your opinion, as always, but I just think the complaint by Sharpton is laughable... And he should be roundly criticized for making it. Like Jesse Jackson, Sharpton is in the race card business and we simply can't go on taking anything they say seriously.
I never have understood the monkey thing. Maybe it is like calling a white guy with a lantern jaw and big forehead a Neanderthal, or calling Patrick Ewing the missing link... because they are butt-ugly.
Oh! Was that insensitive?
Actually the yellow star was first used by the muslims of the Ottoman Empire to identify and humiate Jews into paying the required dhimmi jizya tax.
Hitler then used it 40 plus years later. Pink triangles were used to identify gays ect.
What the heck is a "lantern jaw"? Do I have one???
You know, a thought occurred to me just now. Those who believe that God created each human being as an unique individual have no room to be racist.
However, those who believe that we all descended from apes would actually perhaps have some reason to be more racist because if they reason that apes have dark skin, then black people (in their line of reasoning) must not be as highly evolved as the fairer skinned races.
To me, evolution is completely idiodic, but if I say that I believe that God created each human is his image, and I don't know exactly what God looks like, then that leaves no room for racism.
I don't know if that makes sense, but it was just a thought that occurred to me. Of course, it's getting late here....
Christina,
That's a great point! Godless liberals would be more likely to think that certain races that evolved differently, were inferior and would need to be protected... Would need special allowances.
Color-blind Christians would have higher expectations, and tend to treat all races as equals.
And Grammy,
You do have a lantern jaw, but your tennis butt makes up for it.
I'm sorry, I really have to interject here:
Godless liberals would be more likely to think that certain races that evolved differently, were inferior and would need to be protected... Would need special allowances.
Color-blind Christians would have higher expectations, and tend to treat all races as equals.
This might be true if you could convince the laws of reality to invert themselves somehow.
I guess you colour blind Authentic Christians would be miraculously cured of your vision impairment in, say, an airport when a couple of Arabs walk by?
As they say on the internet: EPIC FAIL.
Jacob,
Actually, the fact that an Arab person dating my daughter or being on a flight with me might bother me has nothing to do with his skin color and everything to do with his religious preferences.
I know you don't/won't believe me when I say that I truly don't care at all what color skin someone has, but I don't. I care A LOT more about someone's intentions and beliefs because that is truly what sets each person apart.
Nice try...
It's entirely possible to make judgements based on profiling without being racist, sexist or any other "ist". You're only an "ist" if you think people, as individuals, are inferior because of their "category". Some practical things just get down to odds-playing because you play the odds based on...well...odds. Insurance companies do it all the time. Young men play higher insurance rates, not because every young man is a crazy driver, but because a young man is statistically more likely to be a crazy driver. We often pay a price for the behavior our peers. I can believe that, as individuals, young men have every bit as much potential to drive sanely as anyone else. At the same time, I'll need some extra familiarity with him as an individual before I'll entrust myself or a loved one to his driving.
The pattern of this discussion over racism is tending to be familiar to those who engage in such online discussions. It dissolves into a matter of whose favorite group is less racist than the others.
Let's face it; Christians have practiced racism, other religions have practiced racism, atheists have practiced racism, secularists of all stripes have practiced racism.
My son works for a major corporation that is always having sensitivity indoctrination sessions. Yet, he has some wild tales to tell between the comments made between Indian & Pakistani employees.
Racism is just an unavoidable, sad fact of history. Does not mean that each of those faith groups/organizations support racism; just means that people are, or can be, racist, and that racism can be institutionalized.
That said, the point of the post is that accusations of racism are being stated and overstated where they probably did not exist. The author and editor of the subject cartoon proclaim that there was no racist intent. Is it impossible to believe them? After all,if it was meant to be racist, why not just say so?
Not everyone equates the image of a monkey to be the equivalent of an African-American racial slur. Enough for this post... more to follow.
What is a tennis butt?
Last week, the VA Med Center in Indianapolis removed a framed newspaper article that has been there for decades. The headline? "Japs Surrender!" It was hung next to the framed headline that Germany surrendered. Why the removal? Someone submitted a claim that "Japs" is an offensive racial term.
Honestly, I did not know that. With regard to the subject cartoon, Tsofah indicated that he/she saw the racial implication clearly. Like SkyePuppy, I did not. So is it racist when one does not recognize it as such? Or is it racist because one does recognize a particular symbology as racist? Hmmm...
Interestingly, I caught part of a documentary last week titled "Hitler's Bodyguards." As the Nazi party formed in Germany, the brown shirts (SA) and then the black shirts (SS) formed as Hitler's protection and strong arm. Eventually, the SS became the notorious, fanatical group headed by Himmler that was responsible for a LOT of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis. One of the official symbols utilize by the SS was the skull and crossbones. It was an official part of their uniform. It was a symbol of terror.
Look around you today. Skull, crossbones, and other bizarre skeletal art has, for some reason, made a comeback in teen/young adult culture. All kinds of clothing and trinkets sport skulls and bones. Some are "cute" and others are quite bizarre.
Now then, having been reminded that skulls and crossbones were officially part of Nazi SS symbology, can I not legitimately declare that the use of such symbols is offensive and racist? With this connection in place, is not someone sporting skulls and crossbones declaring support for Nazi terrorism just as much as if they were wearing a swastika? If not, why not?
Sadly, ChuckL, you might be right about racism being a fact of life. My dog Buzzy was a racist. He got along with all kinds of dogs except boxers. He never explained it, he just always got into it with them. And buzzy was just a mutt of unillustrious heritage.
Malott and all: I really know nothing, totally clueless, about Sharpton or other comments on the cartoon. I just was shocked to see the cartoon depiction.
Janice:
Before Muslims used the yellow star as a way of labeling Jews, Christians in 480 BC were using it for far worse things than the dhimi tax. (A good book on this subject is "Our Hands Are Stained With Blood" by Michael Brown).
ChuckL:
Your posting on symbolic meanings, etc., was interesting. However, there are issues in our history that no matter how we may remove such things; they really need to stay in place with understanding of why.
There is a reason that the theme of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel,is "Zakor!"
"Zakor!" means "remember!"
We never want anyone to forget what happened in the Shoah. Despite all the evidence that people were murdered in thousands of camps (concentration and in death camps), there are people who will still insist it never happened. I'm not talking about Ahmahdinejad, here. There are people who call themselves Christian who deny it happened right here in the U.S.
I do not think the confederate flag should no longer be displayed (in a museum at least) for the same reason I feel it is important to preserve homes from the Civil War period. It's one thing to read about it. It's another to have an understanding of what it was like to be owned and to be an owner of a human being in the old South. The insanity of owning another person is more real if you put yourself in those shoes.
About the monkey issue: just recently there have been "hate crime" investigations over people hanging monkey's in other people's workplace lockers.
No one misunderstands the meaning of seeing a cross burning on a lawn. (No matter what your race or religion).
Skull and crossbones have a larger cultural meaning referring to various things from "I'm a macho person, to poisons to pirates. It's gotten more popular since the "Pirates/Caribbean" movies.
A swastika has one meaning and one meaning only, almost universally. Just as the cross burning does.
Speaking of symbolism: the original symbol of Christianity was the fish. That changed over the centuries as the Gentiles incorporated and then took over "Christianity" and used it as a tool against Jews. This is why a person wearing a cross is offensive to many Jews - because of how many have misused it.
Yet, for many Christians, they do not see the cross as an execution chamber for molesters and murderers and enemies of Rome. They see it as the place of redemption.
(I prefer the empty tomb, myself. smile)
So, some symbols have meanings that differ and some have meanings that are more universal.
A monkey is a monkey. With a history of blacks being targeted by police and being shot because of being targeted: A cartoon of a police officer shooting a monkey and commenting on a stimulus bill that is connected to the first bi-racial POTUS really is a problem.
(racial profiling from police officers is still a problem)
We need to remember our history. It isn't pretty, it isn't neat. But it's the truth. And that is what will hopefully keep us from finding ourselves in such a place ever again.
Tsofah you wrote;
"Christians in 480 BC"
Are you sure about that?
Janice:
Ooops, you are right. I was thinking of the Edict of Milan in 315 AD when the Jews lost all rights and then 325 when the Nicean Council met.
The first time a badge/patch was ordered worn was at the 4th Lateran Church Council in 1215. (It wasn't a star)
You suggest, then, that only a symbol that has reached universal, or near universal, meaning can be considered offensive and, hence, indicative of racism.
Yes, skull & crossbones have the uses you say, but does that make it any less insiduous? After all, pirates were and are murderous beings. Is it really necessary to idolize such nefarious characters who practiced their own brands of racism?
It is a common euphemism to ascribe a complicated, unworkable plan to the work of a bunch of monkeys. The so-called stimulus plan certainly meets that criteria. One current event was the chimp that went wild and was subsequently shot by police. Put the two together, and one has a political cartoon. So some see it as a commentary on current events and some see it as a racial slur. Conveniently, those who see it as a racial slur have access to public forums and plenty of practice recognizing some forms of racism while ignoring others.
ChuckL:
Whoa, back up a bit here. I didn't say that and had no intention of intimating that. I was saying that when you know something tends to have at least a semi-universal meaning - it's best to not delve into it without the CYA policy. (CYA stands for Cover Your A__.)
You are right about the barrel of monkey's thing. That's about the (ahem! smile) CONTEXT. Again, when I see a monkey shot by a policeman and commentary about stimulus bills and am aware of POTUS submitting such to Congress...then I understand the offense.
Oh, yeah, you are right about something else: there is another group which was referred to as "monkeys" but not to the extent in the U.S. as black were/are. That group is the Jews.
And on THAT, I could choose to take a lot of offense if I was looking for a reason to be offended. But, I'm not.
This is becoming a weary subject. If you don't understand, then you don't understand. You apparently want to argue about it. I don't.
I just shared the reasons I understood it.
Bye, ChuckL (ELVIS has left the building!) "Thank you, thank you very much!"
Are you, like, his cheerleading squad? All of you take turns defending his ridiculous ideas?
Give me an M! A! L! O! T! T!
Jacob,
Yes... And they wear uniforms and arm themselves with pom poms.
It is not so much a matter of whether or not the political cartoon is racist. The one who penned it from his observations and thoughts says that it is not. However, like jokes, once he has to explain it, then it loses much of its punch.
The true hypocrisy lies with the mouthpieces who are charging racism; to wit, Sharpton, et. al. Because THEY see & declare racism, then that makes it racist. However, in the recent past, more apparent racial comments have been spoken and cartoons published with nary a peep from the world's racial slur watchers:
(1) Ms. Clinton's references to the "plantation." Nary a peep.
(2) Many cartoons lampooning Ms. Rice's facial features and unveiled comments about her relationship with her "mastuh." Nary a peep.
(3) David Ehrenstein in an LA Times op-ed called Barack Obama "the magic Negro." Nary a peep.
How convenient that racism abounds in criticism directed at who Sharpton et al want to defend but never appears concerning those they do not want to defend.
Groupies was my other comparison.
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