Comments on: NY Post Racist Chimp Comic Strip Targeted Obama, Sharpton Says

By: SJC

SJC — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:11:34 +0000

SImply stated, it’s the history behind the imagery that sparked the controversy. For those not yet born, there was an organized, systemic champaign in this country, which was put in place to demean and denigrate people of African Ancestry. “Jim Crow” depicted Blacks as monkeys, apes, gorillas, etc., Their objective was to destroy the soul, and spirit of a group of people so severely that they (Blacks) would struggle thorugh generations with their own identity as human beings. The objective was to always remind Black people in this country that they were not equal to the White people. Please remember Rev Sharpton’s age, he’s speaking from a time when that was the norm, and believe it or not – that attitude is still alive and living across this great land. I don’t agree with everything that Rev Sharpton says, but he also has the same right to freedom of expression, and freedom of speech as does the Post cartoonist. If we are going to truly be one human race of people – then surely we owe it to ourselves to see all sides of the story. Even rumors have some truth to them, or there would be no reason to articulate what one has seen, perceived, thought they heard, witnessed, or thought may have occurred. We are talking about a comic strip visible for all the world to view. And I”m not buying that the cartoonist did not understand the racism implications. We all just celebrated the very first African American man being elected to the White House. RACE was on everyone’s mind. America’s shame will always be tied to slavery and racism, and to just say the scares have all healed and gone away is not facing the truth , but living in denial. Folks go to prisons and jails everyday in this country either with, or without a reasonable doubt being presented, so to say Rev Al had no reason for protesting is without merit. It’s just like any other form of discrimination – if the individual feels they have been mistreated – then to that individual – they have been mistreated. It will always be difficult for whites to understand the sting of racism – it will always be difficult to understand any form of mistreatment until you walk in another person’s shoes. If we are to truly move beyond the issue of race – let’s at least be honest enough to have a real conversation with truth.
PEACE and always keep an open mind.

By: Cyn

Cyn — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:05:09 +0000

I know it is a little late to comment on this but I’m going to anyway.

This comic was about “STUPIDITY”! That is all it is about! Not race. Even my African American boyfriend thought this comic was funny and he has enough intelligence to know it was about “STUPIDITY”. He doesn’t think of himself or other African Americans as chimps so he would never think of think as racist. If it was a tiger that was shot this comic would not even be an issue. But I guess some African Americans see themselves as chimps so they threw the race card out there. That is sad…

It is stupid to write a stimulus bill that WILL NOT bring change.

And it is very stupid to own an old 200 pound male chimpanzee that is stronger than the average man and has anger issues.

STUPIDITY!

By: desi

desi — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:08:51 +0000

I do understand that most people would see it like this. And for that reason I think it was wrong for the company to publish this. There are several opinions to this cartoon. Even if I think that the cartoonist did not have bad intentions, most of America still attributes everything to race. I believe that the cartoon should have been less vague to satisfy people who didn’t know about the chimp occurrence in Connecticut. But my stance on Al Sharpton still stands.

By: desi

desi — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 06:42:35 +0000

I think that Al Sharpton is a publicity whore and puts the racist card on everything he sees. Sooo annoying. I really do think that he’s letting MLK down. I don’t think that MLK would have wanted this; he wanted equality among all humans, regardless of race, not retribution. To this day, we shouldn’t be thinking about race, we should be thinking of humanity in general, how to unite and create a peaceful world. Sharpton is just digging the racism hole even deeper. I’m a minority and I don’t believe that this was racist. If one thinks with a mindset of choosing to believe that it’s racist given historical contexts, then I think that he/she is not looking into the future and only in the past.

By: Jato Diop

Jato Diop — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:12:29 +0000

I tried to ignore this because I’m not surprised
that this gross disrespect is being blown off by the press and the arrogant racist portion of the White population.
First, freedom of speech dose not protect “harmful” acts of expression- this would include racist remarks.

Second, it is a historical fact that White cultures would parallel Africans to apes. Rather it was the Belgiums, Confederate news post or a black and white flick from the forties, when making jest against Africans the ape (or monkey mocking) was the favorite image used by White.

Third, during Lincoln’s term he was mocked as an ape because he became a proponent of freeing the slaves. He was drawn as an ape because Whites in the South (and North) revered African Americans as apes and monkeys.

Even if we remove all past evidence of African ape parallels, anyone reading the comic would attribute the chimp to the person most related to the stimulus bill- the president. Ms. Pelosi is only known by political buffs and isn’t the sole author of the bill anyhow. But, the average citizen (and the cartoonist) thinks of Barack Obama when they see this filth.

By: Mia

Mia — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:35:43 +0000

Sue–my , you sound angry–even in writing. Obviously you didn’t read my last response carefully or you wouldn’t have responded the way that you did. I’m glad that you feel that people of color are adequately represented on every channel and every radio station, but yours isn’t the only opinion that matters. Having people of color as friends doesn’t make you an authority on how everyone feels. Obama is half-white and he has addressed the fact that racism still exists. He didn’t allow it to stop him, but he didn’t deny its existence.
Unless you have experienced the daily indignities that come along with being non-white in America, you really cannot speak from an informed position on the topic. So racism doesn’t exist anymore, because you say it doesn’t? I wish that were the case, but sadly, it isn’t.

In fact , yours is the type of attitude that discourages reasonable /productive discussions on race and class, because you are obviously very defensive. Nobody’s blaming you for anything personally, so why don’t you get over that? You sound like the addict who hasn’t admitted his/her addiction and therefore cannot move toward healing. Stop it. Racism is REAL.

Ignoring offensive media won’t help us become “colorblind” as a society. Whether it makes you uncomfortable or not, people are going to object to racially offensive material. And that’s as it should be.

P.S. All of the predominantly white media outlets don’t need to call themselves WHITE–everyone already knows that’s what they are–wake up please. Racism is about POWER. BET is not excluding white people or denying them rights or privileges. That’s the difference.

By: Chivalry

Chivalry — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 02:15:05 +0000

Okay, i’m not American, I’m British and as such I believe i can provide an objective approach to this debate.

Firstly, the cartoon’s alleged racist undertones (or overtones in the opinion of Sharpton) did not actually occur to me until I saw the complaint of the NAACP. I went through several other news references such as the chimp shooting and the planned stimulus bill. I’m personally of the opinion that Sharpton is using this as publicity and if anything he’s not advancing the rights of the people he represents by appearing a petty ambulance chaser (lawyer joke but i hope you’ll forgive me that) just jumping at anything.

The entire thing is blown out of proportion. I don’t think that with all the importance on being “politically correct” nowadays that an editor would allow it to go to print if it did contain racist material and it certainly isn’t the case here. Perfectly normal cartoon referencing two earlier news events and its a ape not a monkey for the record as someone pointed out.

By: sue

sue — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 01:13:19 +0000

to the writer who thinks my statement meant that “all things black were racist” that is NOT what I said but you proved my point that just the mere MENTION of something “all black” is automatically seen as a racist comment. I am not in the least bit racist but I do feel that as long as people continue to have things “all black”, all white, all Indian, all etc., we are continuing the racism of the PAST.
It seems that people who are SO CONCERNED with racism are the ones who segregate themselves the most, are the biggest hypocrits, and have the most double standards. Get over it, it was in the past, most people do not treat anyone differently anymore for that reason SOLELY unless they are ignorant themselves so move on. Our President is half black, and thousands of people I know are half something and I don’t care – I just know they’re all the same as me – and that’s human.
And I feel there is an abundance of black famous people on EVERY channel of TV and every radio station for that matter.
And, like I said before, a channel named “white entertainment channel” would NEVER be allowed on TV because it would be considered “racist”. But allowing a channel to be named BET is not considered racist? NEXT….

By: American

American — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:20:32 +0000

First off freedom of speech means anyone can say anything, racist or not. I don’t believe it was the intention of the cartoonist to make a racist cartoon.
Just like the ink blot test, people see what they want to see. Rev. Sharp along with millons of others who have nothing better to do than complain will have a field day on this cartoon because instead of seeing the political metamessage, they will analyze this and disect it until it becomes racist.
Instead of looking for something new to complain about, why don’t we all laught it off as a CARTOON and move on with our already stressful lifes.

By: Mia

Mia — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:16:25 +0000

To the writer who claims that all things Black are racist: newsflash–BET, Miss Black America, etc. were created because black people were excluded from participating in these institutions within the larger American culture. The term racism refers to one’s ability to deny rights or privileges based upon race, and is tied to POWER. Please stop confusing the filling of cultural voids with racism–it ’s incorrect to do so. The chimp reference in the Post cartoon is bigotry–plain and simple. This isn’t the first racially insensitive thing the Post has printed and I doubt it will be the last.