Alright….time to break out the Gentleman’s Jack.

However, the package was an initiative of President Obama. Given the history of racist views and perceptions, it is not a far fetch to see the racist elements in this cartoon, overtly intended or not.

A couple of months ago a co-worker showed me an image on her cell phone. It was a picture of Obama morphing into a chimpanzee. I was disappointed that she had the image, first, and disappointed she thought I would find it funny, second. I just shook my head and, to embarrass her, I called over a black co-worker and said, “Look, she has a picture of Obama, check it out.”

Because there is a tragic history of viewing black people as less than human, any portrayal of President Obama as an ape or monkey is of greater import and gravity than a simian portrayal of President Bush. (The Bush simian cartoons express a perception of George W. Bush as individually “not too bright”. Such cartoons simply cannot be seen as racist).

On a smaller issue. Why do so many people in the media and just walking around apparently not know the difference between an ape and a monkey? (Jeez, this annoys me!)

We just differ as to why we don’t; and some of us think that there’s a good reason to point out the issue.

This ‘racist’ thing just gets overdone; there are much bigger fish to fry on the issue than parsing another cartoon. (Like for example: why this is the only way we can talk about race.) On the other hand, the American media just seem to LOVE feasting on people’s fresh pain, the fresher the better. It is truly macabre, it is, and really insensitive, and so beyond crass that crass is a kind way of characterizing it; and I think that when we hear about the coarsening of conduct in this country, the media are, bless their little capitalist hearts, leading the way with big red banners.

So I guess I think that a real issue is getting overlooked here, and an old dead horse getting over-beaten. When the former needs to be addressed…and the latter needs to be addressed in a very, very different way.

Comparing a human to an ape is RARELY used in a positive sense. Pres. Bush was not referred to as ‘the chimp’ because he’s so cute and like-able.
When people of color are referred, compared, insinuated, suggested, symbolized, alluded to or foreshadowed as chimps/monkeys, it is NEVER used in a positive sense.
Don’t know what the cartoonists intent was (he is the only person who knows), but it is how it this whole thing is perceived.

If the cartoonist/editors truly are that oblivious to the insult ….they all need remedial education quickly.
But we all know a lil controversy equals $$$$$$.

DWA….I hear you loud and clear and am willing to give them (editors included) the “benefit of the doubt” but I could care less what his intent was.
The cartoon and its implications are…”tasteless”.
Just like the curious george/obama t-shirts printed up by small business owners here in GA last year. Could care less how humorous they intended the “joke” to be……it was tasteless/classless and had serious racist undertones.

Just my opinion…..
Ya’ll have a great Saturday!

HUNH!?!?!?

“You’ve gambled on a faulty interpretation, and that gamble has demonstrably failed.”

And you, um, demonstrated that? How? By the way the eedjits in the media are donning their customary clown suits?

I cannot WAIT for this one. Stand by one. I’m popping some popcorn.

Lumps? Not seeing any on me. In a few heads on this thread, well, heh heh, yes I am.

BTW: You are REALLY good at the racism two-step. But remember, Sharpton likes to lead. And he has baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad (meaning: bad) breath.

Try to hold off on that irresistable urge to touch the burning firebrand to the wood piled under the stake. K? (I used “wood” instead of another applicable word because of how that word would sound to Certain Sensibilities without a dictionary close to hand. Uh oh…let the Inquisition begin!)

And maybe learn something from the process, no?

(Spanish for NO.)

You’ve gambled on a faulty interpretation, and that gamble has demonstrably failed.

Instead of shooting the messenger, you might be wiser to take your lumps and move on. And maybe learn something from the process, nyet?

LOOK AT THE CARTOON. THIS ONE. Judge from that. I don’t care what anyone reads into anything else this guy’s done. If you don’t get that, you don’t give anyone the benefit of the doubt – ever. This guy wasn’t excommunicated, shot on sight, tortured to death by seven ‘interest groups’ with axes to grind, or deported for any of the ones on that link – a few of which were, indeed, blatantly nasty. So I’m not proclaiming him a racist for this one. If there was a racist message in here, he should be fired for ineptitude …unless, hmmmmmmm, he REALLY knows his audience. And maybe he does.

And no one here appreciates being called a racist for shedding some light on stupidity and waving-hands-in-the-air silliness of the sort that recurs, like clockwork, and gets us no closer to talking about this like grownups instead of tossing playground crap back and forth like our kids do before we teach them better. You might want to watch that one, too. (And if Al Sharpton’s on one side, you might want to consider another.)

Try common sense occasionally. Racism, and the attitudes that maintain it, love heat, and shun light.

This cartoonist has a long history of being overtly racist and sexist.

I’m 100% behind the principle of the Benefit of the Doubt, but I honestly don’t think there can be much doubt in this case.

Those who are arguing otherwise here are perhaps saying more about their own moral standards when it comes to finding excuses for racism.

“never ever refer to a person of color as a monkey/gorilla.”

I would agree. I’d hope we all would. I bet the cartoonist would, too, which is why HE DIDN’T DO IT.

The only humans in the cartoon are:

1) the cops;

2) (by implication) the wonderful people who WROTE – that’s explicit – the package.

Tasteless? Yes. Very. It takes fresh and awful wounds, and makes light of them. Many of us might think it funny. But those people didn’t lose their faces. They didn’t stab, and beat with a shovel, and call men with guns in to kill a being they raised as a son. They didn’t shoot an intelligent animal several times at point-blank range.

But to call it racist requires the deliberate (or knee-jerk) reading-in of stuff that ain’t there that yes indeed, keeps race alive as a sore spot in this country.

If I were the cartoonist, I’d defend myself. I wouldn’t do the deep knee-bend that the media seem to demand in cases like this, and people metronomically do whether they mean it or not. I’d say: point it out, and I’ll show you why you are (a) wrong and (b) ignorant of how government works. And then I would apologize to those I did, indeed, hurt. Because this was wrong.

(That the woman above who labels this “racist drivel” is a journalist is, well, it’s inexcusable for a journalist to say that.)

Now of course if he had racist undertones in mind – and you think he’d admit that absent serious pressure to do so? – all bets are off.

But to find racists under every bed…well, it’s one of the things that gives racism its power, the constant game of gotcha! followed by a forced apology, frequently by someone who resents having thoughts put in his head that weren’t there to begin with.

Our new Attorney General said the other day that we are a nation of cowards – his phrase – when it comes to race.

Here’s more evidence that he hit it right on the head. If we weren’t too scared to discuss race intelligently …well, do you think something like this would ever happen?

Again: I knew – instantly – who the cartoon was slamming. And race didn’t enter the picture until people – NOT the cartoonist – put it there.

It’s not okay to call “a person of color” as sub-human, but is perfectly acceptable to call a white person sub-human.

I guess racism is alive and well in America.