Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon — caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut — has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp’s body: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” one officer says.
It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Period.
But it has been taken as something else — as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.
This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.
However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past — and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.
To them, no apology is due.
Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon — even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.
Well let me make this final statement on the subject. Those of us in the NYC area know full well that the Post hates Rev. Al Sharpton. But lets be clear here: Rev. Al is simply voicing the opinions of a great deal of people not only in NY but across the country. The Post can continue to issue back handed apologies, but the fact is Rev. Al. has put them on economic notice. I've seen Rev. Al. Cartoons in the past in the post (through other means since I don't give The Post my money) and while most of them have been completely tasteless but clearly within the bounds of political parody, only a priviledge white man or woman, priviledged enough to claim some sort of ignorance of the history of comparing African-Americans to Monkeys and other animals, along with other "jungle" references. And only such a person would then claim to "not understand" the problem with making a clear reference to Obama. I say clear because even though it is clear that the stimulus bill is the product of a number of writers, the cartoon clearly makes a SINGULAR statement in regards to the author of said bill. Since the Monkey in reference was male (and so is the president) and supposedly the buck stops at the President and the Stimulus is referred to as the Obama stimulus, the reference is clear, Obama is the Monkey who "wrote" the bill.
White people do racist stuff all the time, most times without so much as a raised eyebrow in response (see Thatcher) With the election of Obama there are a great deal of black people who are coming to be far less tolerant of the bullshit and the NY Post is going to realize that NYC is mostly "minority" and that stuff is not going to fly if they wish to stay in business. Most of these "minorities" also have a favorable opinion of Rev. Al. so continuing to pick on him is also going to become an economic liability. I have never heard of stores in Harlem refusing to sell the Post before. And if they have, it's the first time they've made the news with it.
So take note, Post, News, Record, just like you're not going to publish a cartoon that shows Nazi SS shooting Einstein and complain about the national IQ, I suggest a bit of editorial discretion in reference to black folk.
And in terms of that apology: Rev. Al wasn't looking for a personal apology (not that Al. I know) So that whole line was unnecessary.
