Feb 18 2009
Old Habits Die Hard
This was posted in today’s edition of the New York Post. When you read and see the cartoon think about what first comes to your mind.
Is it:
A: A parody of the chimpanzee that made headlines when it went burzirk on Monday in Connecticut.
or
B: A racist statement, comparing the president to a chimp.
If you chose A, you would be correct. Well in a sense you would be right. According to the New York Post that’s what it was supposed to mean and they are standing by it. However, I’m pretty sure most people would have went with B. Black people have a history of being compared to monkeys. Not just in the good old USA but all over the world. Might I add, a long history at that. Most of us are conditioned to think of this as a racist stab in the back to the black race.
Well known civil rights activist Al Sharpton called the cartoon, “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.”This is inappropriate and should not be looked at as a joke. There are better ways of making fun of someone other than associating the person with something so negative.
