Cartoon Shows Appalling Racism at the NY Post – Or Just Sick Humor – or Both?

In today’s New York Post, a cartoon appears which seems to compare President Barack Obama to the violent chimpanzee that mauled a woman and which had to be shot this past week. The cartoon, by Sean Delonas - which I won’t show here but you can access it here - shows a dead chimp on the ground, with two police officers, one with a smoking gun. The caption reads, “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.'' It is widely viewed that the chimp is supposed to represent Barack Obama, who just signed the stimulus bill the day before.

One can interpret that the cartoon implied that the bill is so terrible that it could have been written by a monkey, but Al Sharpton, who I just cannot stand mind you, commented the cartoon is “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.'' This is one of those rare cases that I agree with Sharpton. In fact, I find it doubly troubling that not only does the cartoonist compare Obama to a monkey, the monkey also happens to have been shot dead. I would expect the secret service should investigate that cartoon as a death threat, if not an excuse for someone else to do the same.

In my opinion, there is NO excuse to link the stimulus bill to the chimpanzee story except to compare President Obama to a monkey. Frankly, it’s just plain disgusting.

Over the years, not many things shock me, but this cartoon seemed to clearly cross not only the line of good taste, but crossed into encouraging hate and violence. Freedom of speech is sacred, but not at the expense of fostering hatred or harm to another. Americans also have the freedom to chose to turn away from the Post or any Rupert Murdoch/News Corporation Companies, which includes Fox, The Wall Street Journal, Barrons, and other print and television media and movies. People can take it a step farther and also complain to, or boycott, advertisers who were featured that issue - or any issue - of The Post. Money speaks louder than words sometimes, and this is one of those cases where people can send Murdock and The Post a message by speaking with their wallets.

Here’s a full list of the current Murdoch/News Corporation owned media. There are plenty of products and companies you can choose to cross of your list of business or services that you patronize. (Partial list below.)

FILM
Twentieth Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Español
Twentieth Century Fox International
Twentieth Century Fox Television
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Fox Studios Australia
Fox Studios Baja
Fox Studios Los Angeles
Fox Television Studios

TELEVISION
20th Century Fox Television
bTV
BSkyB
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Sports Australia
Fox Television Stations
Foxtel
Premiere (19,9%)
Star Group Limited
Sky Latin America
SKY Network Television New Zealand
SKY Italia
Fox International Channels Italy
STAR TV
Latvijas Neatkarīgā Televīzija
TV5 Rīga
Fox Kids

CABLE
Big Ten Network (49%)
Fox Business Network
Fox Movie Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox Soccer Channel
Fox Sports Channel
Fox Sports Enterprises
Fox Sports en Español
Fox Sports Net
FUEL TV
FX Networks
Fox Reality
National Geographic Channel
SPEED Channel
SportSouth
LAPTV (Latin America - co-owned with Paramount Pictures/Viacom, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/MGM Holdings and Universal Studios/NBC Universal)
Telecine (Brazil - co-owned with Globosat Canais, Paramount Pictures, MGM, Universal Studios and DreamWorks);

INTERNET
Fox Interactive Media
AmericanIdol.com
AskMen.com
Fox.com
Foxsports.com
GameSpy
Hulu.com
kSolo
IGN
Drownedinsound.com
MySpace
MyNetworktv.com
NewRoo.com
Strategicdatacorp.com
Photobucket.com
Rotten Tomatoes
Scout.com
SpringWidgets
WhatIfSports


NEWSPAPERS
News International
United Kingdom
The Sun
News of the World
The Times
Sunday Times
News Corporation Ltd.
Australia
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney)
The Australian (national)
The Advertiser and Sunday Mail (Adelaide)
The Sunday Times (Perth)
Herald Sun (Melbourne)
Sunday Herald Sun (Melbourne)
mX (Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane)
The Courier-Mail (Brisbane)
Geelong Advertiser
Gold Coast Bulletin
The Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian (Hobart)
Northern Territory News (Darwin)
The Sunday Territorian (Darwin)
New Zealand
Sunday Star-Times
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea Post-Courier
Fiji
The Fiji Times
United States
New York Post
The Wall Street Journal
Times Herald Record





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