Wednesday, February 18, 2009

NY Post Cartoon: My Thoughts


Image from NY Post

Ok. I get how everyone wants to react to this as a racist cartoon. I fully understand that sentiment. However, I feel that that is an overreaction. Why you ask? Because of this chimp actually being shot (in the news yesterday), my first reason. But the deeper issue is that the cop is referring to those that wrote and passed the stimulus bill, not President Obama. In my mind, they are saying Congress is a bunch of monkeys (or at least those that wrote the bill).

Having said that, I fully understand that historically (and currently) blacks are referred to as monkeys in hate speech. I get that. But I don't think the cartoon is using the chimp to equal President Obama. This means that no one is saying "kill our monkey president". Thus, we should be outraged by this. What should piss us off are the actual racist policies that continue to bring down this nation. We keep getting angry over what others put in cartoons or say on the radio instead of addressing the fact that the black family's decay is responsible (to a great degree at least) for the large number of blacks in prison or the poor house. Now, I agree that the criminal justice system holds a great responsibility in this as well, but let's stop getting in an uproar of these little things and really address the big problems. Please.

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