NY Post cartoon of Obama-chimp

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Chandos, this is exactly the wrong attitude. You've now assumed it was targeted at a black person, when the very idea that it targeted any black person at all is what was in question.

Well said, and I agree with you. Insulting someone on anything that isn't deserved (be it race, eye color, intelligence, or even political persuasion, if it has nothing to do with the insult) is the same.

Lol. I think this is worth remembering, though. Newspapers and news on TV get readers/viewers primarily through the shock value and pseudo-entertainment. If they don't push buttons, if they don't push the envelope a little, they loose their audience.

 

This might be the best arguement I've considered thus far for the cartoon. There actually were police officers who had recently shot a monkey in a national news story. It would have been worse - much worse - if the artist had drawn that cartoon out of the blue. While I do not think that fact provides much in the way of vindication for the author, it does allow additional consideration for the viewpoint that he didn't intend for this to be a racial insult.

 

I'm not really in favor of the cartoon so much as disturbed by the double standard displayed by some people out there. As I said before all such trashy, insulting crap should be hounded out of the society not by laws, but by people refusing to buy it. THAT's never gonna happen, though, and I admit that sometimes I myself partake of the trash.

It brings to mind a situation that I think is similar. I can't remember the name of the guy who played Chef on South Park, but he was in on shows that insulted just about every race, religion, and school of thought out there. But when an episode was scheduled to mock HIS religion, he got all defensive and quit the show to protest the insensitivity of the writers. Puh-LEEZE! I can see him opting out of the episode because he felt uncomfortable slagging his own beliefs, but getting all holy after slagging everyone else? This is the sort of mentality I'm seeing in the response to this cartoon.

 

Blackthorne, you are reading your own bias into the cartoon.
Nowhere in the cartoon does it imply that the monkey is either a)the president or b)a black person.
On the police comment, people deal with tragedy/death in different ways, lots of people crack inappropriate jokes(ironically called "black humor")
at these times.
I've seen deputies/police officers puke at crime scenes & then joke "Corn? i don't remember eating corn?" while looking at their own puke.
Hell, a bunch of people get horny after a shooting or assault, sorta like a way of fighting back against the tragedy/violence.

 

Good sarcasm, BTA.

 

Only because you are willfully ignoring the fact that the complaint regarding Obama is that a racial epithet is being directed his way. The complaint isn't as simple as you make it out to be by a long shot. It isn't about insults or derision being directed at Obama or his policies. Insults and derision were directed at Bush, too, and no one really has a problem with that. The complaint, here, is about a racial slur being directed at Obama. No racial slurs have been directed at Bush during his time in office, but many feel that a racial slur was directed at Obama here.

If you wanted to argue that no racial slur was intended by the cartoonist or the Post, I'd accept the argument but respectfully disagree with it... but that isn't what you are arguing. You are arguing that calling bush a liar or an idiot is somehow equal to calling Obama a monkey. You argue that the fact that Bush, himself, was compared to a chimp means that Obama can similarly be compared to a chimp...and that the comparisons would mean the same thing. The problem, which you refuse to see, is that we haven't been making primate comparisons to white men for hundreds of years in an effort to demean and oppress all white people. We have been doing exactly that to Black Americans, and even today it still happens. Comparing Obama to a chimp doesn't just insult Obama, but insults all black Americans, and it doesn't merely insult their intelligence, either. The same cannot be said for comparing Bush to a chimp. If you really can't see this, I don't know what to say.

 

Umm, no drew, he is saying calling obama a monkey(which the cartoon doesn't due BTW) is just the same as calling bush a monkey.
If you really can't see this, i just don't know what to say.

 

I quite clearly stated that this was what he was saying. The difference, though, is that calling Obama a monkey employs a racial epithet. Calling Bush a monkey implies that he's an idiot. There's a difference.

Whether the cartoon does indeed draw that comparison, however, is subject to interpretation. I have acknowledged both interpretations, so I don't really see your point in bringing your own personal interpretation of the Cartoon back into the picture -- and then acting as if it were the only possible interpretation. Seriously, if you really believe your argument that the cartoon didn't compare Obama to a Chimp, why would you feel the need to continually bring up the fact that Bush has also been compared to the aforementioned primate in political cartoons?

 

We can call Bush a chimp because he was a CHUMP! But we can't call Obama a chimp because he's a BLACK MAN!

Now, while I agree with the whole racial epithet thing you're saying Drew, you gotta admit the entire argument sounds a bit silly.

 

Perhaps, T2, but I have yet to argue that no one should be allowed to call Obama a chimp, merely that doing so would be in exceptionally bad taste...and that calling Obama a chimp and calling Bush a chimp are not equal. It may well be because he is a black man, but we both know there's far more involved than skin color. Race relations in our country have never been simple, but this problem has far more to do with the epithet than the color of Obama's skin. If we were discussing an anti-semitic epithet targeting, say, Eric Cantor instead, we'd be having the exact same tempest in a teapot that we have right now (assuming of course, that our opinions on this matter have nothing to do with the partisan affiliation of the target).