Is This Cartoon Racist?

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Part of having a free country
is that everyone is FREE
to have any opinion about anything and he is FREE to express that opinion.
These r natural rights that existed b4
the Constitution and its First Amendment were enacted.
U.S. Supreme Court. United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875).

Sharpton is (essentially) saying that if his groups (liberals n blacks)
do not like your opinion, then: SHUT THE HELL UP.

Sometimes that is called the "heckler 's veto."

Being as defiantly libertarian and politically rong as I am,
I refuse to knuckle under.

David

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

Is it racist? Likely.

But ... what's the big deal about it? Western political humour has a tradition of being brutal. This is namby-pamby by comparison with many political cartoons of the past 200 years that I've looked at.

Politicians choose to be in public life. If they don't realize that the political cartoonists/satirists/comedians et al are going to go after them in any way possible through their art, there's no place for them in politics IMNSHO. Someplace under a rock might be better for them.

Absolutely Agree

People misconstrue things all the time...

I think being clear and concise is important - but you can't hold back because you think someone is going to take it the wrong way either - and putting in a bunch of clarifying notes takes away from the punch sometimes. It's kind of a "damned if you do damned if you don't" kind of thing isn't it?

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@aidan,

I don't see a monkey?

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@Linkat,

it changed - it must be a link that updates itself..

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

I don't see a monkey?

This is what I see when I look at that cartoon. I must be missing something too.

http://www.nypost.com/delonas/delonas.jpg

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@mismi,

Whew I thought I was an idiot or something.

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http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/02/18/chimpcartoon460.jpg

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@kickycan,

kickycan wrote:

Of course it's racist. Even Ticomaya knows it's racist, though he'll never admit it. He's just playing devil's advocate because it's a chance for him to rile up some lefties.

No, I don't know it's racist. But I do admit I do enjoy riling up you leftists.

dlowan wrote:

I think it highly possible that he is pretending not to see the racism so as to annoy those he considers left.

Wrong. If I am annoying you, rabbit, it is merely a happy by-product.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

Farmerman wrote:
I think that the proper question is, IS THIS CARTOON EVEN FUNNY?

The answer is: no.

And that, not the racism, is the cartoon's fatal flaw. As long as a joke is funny, I will forgive it almost everything -- including racism. This cartoon is just not funny.

1 Reply

OK before some one was kind enough to repost the cartoon, I went and looked it up and what I found that was more funny than the cartoon was this quote:
"Chimps have enough problems without being compared to ANY politicians " Republicans or Democrats. "

1 Reply

@Thomas,

All depends on one's perspective. If the intent was to insult the President by depicting his color as a chimpanzee, then yes it is racist. There is absolutely nothing in the cartoon to draw that correlation, however, and to make that assumption could in itself be....well....racist.

If the intent was to insult the author of the stimulus package--the authors who were the President and members of Congress--by insinuating that it must have been written by a monkey, then there is an element of humor.

What makes the cartoon unfunny to me is the correlation with the truly tragic incident, unrelated to the stimulus package, that led to the shooting of the chimpanzee. That puts it in the really REALLY insensitive and bad taste category rather than the racist category.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I agree at best it is in bad taste and insensitive (ie the chimp attack incident) and at worst it is both racist and insensitive/hurtful.

I read that where the post is located NY and the incident with the chimp being in CT that this report was all over the news and therefore a huge deal in the area thus seeming to be more of the bad taste variety.

Either way the author should have realized (if he has any intelligence and common sense) that it would be considered racist even if that wasn't his intent.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

Either way the author should have realized (if he has any intelligence and common sense) that it would be considered racist even if that wasn't his intent.

Not sure I agree with that as I did not connect it to the President or his race when I first saw it on another site nor did anybody else when it was first posted. The emphasis was on the really cruel poor taste of it.

When both President Reagan and President Bush were portrayed with chimpanzee faces or as monkey-like charicatures, nobody thought 'racist'. So even if the cartoon was intended to target President Obama, which I see no evidence that it was, why should it automatically be assumed that it is a ridicule of his race rather than criticism of his actions? Is it not racist to demand that President Obama be treated differently than any other President simply because he has some extra pigment in his skin that the others lacked?

But then I am fighting what appears to be a losing battle objecting to the popular propensity of labeling anything that appears the least bit critical of the President or anybody else of color or particular ethnicity being labeled racist in intent or motive.

1 Reply

@Ticomaya,

You don't annoy me.

I find you pathetic in such matters.

All that silly equivocation and verbiage to attempt to distract yourself or others from the bleeding obvious.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Linkat wrote:

OK before some one was kind enough to repost the cartoon, I went and looked it up and what I found that was more funny than the cartoon was this quote:
"Chimps have enough problems without being compared to ANY politicians " Republicans or Democrats. "

True...they are an endangered species.

But it STILL ISN'T A GODDAM CHIMP!

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Is it racist? Likely.

But ... what's the big deal about it? Western political humour has a tradition of being brutal. This is namby-pamby by comparison with many political cartoons of the past 200 years that I've looked at.

Politicians choose to be in public life. If they don't realize that the political cartoonists/satirists/comedians et al are going to go after them in any way possible through their art, there's no place for them in politics IMNSHO. Someplace under a rock might be better for them.

As far as I know Obama isn't complaining or hiding under a rock.

People here were asked whether the cartoon is racist, not whether it should have been censored or whether Obama was offended or anything else.

It is clearly racist.

My objection is to the sophistical wriggling and writhing by a few on the right to attempt to avoid that reality.

I am sure Obama does not need you or anyone else to tell him that he will be the target for racist vilification, as well as all the other various slings and arrows to which public figures are exposed.

He appears to have coped with other racist attacks. I have no doubt he is not crying over this one.

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@dlowan,

Deb --

What you may be missing in the nether parts of the Earth is that here in America, the networks are all over the cartoon and its successor. This thread is likely an extension of this network TV brouhaha. I suspect that's what ehBeth has in mind when she wonders "what's the big deal about it."

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

It is clearly racist.

No....it's not clearly that at all.

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@Foxfyre,

Because as some one else noted here - historically being compared to a monkey/ape/etc. has been a racist thing in the past. Especially someone working in a journalist field would know that. There was a huge deal when some idiot on radio or on the news or something compared a gorilla escaping from a local zoo as being a student waiting for the school bus - this was in a predominately africian american neighborhood.

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@Thomas,

Yep the cartoonist is loving the attention.

1 Reply

Is This Cartoon Racist?

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