I suppose they'll say they were alluding to the "thousand monkeys" thing, or that the joke was it's so terrible it's like it was written by a chimp, but let's face it, The Post's editorial cartoons are kind of more known for taking the cheapest shot they can rather than any insightful political satire. This cartoonist seems to find disabilities hilarious (past cartoons have involved Gov. Patterson, who is blind, walking into a lamp post or Paul Mc. Cartney's ex-wife, I forget her name, hopping after him on one leg, her artificial legs fallen off.) and any celebrity reported to have a bit of weight gain a la Jessica Simpson will predictably be portrayed as a grossly exaggerated behemoth. Lazy, lazy gags that you can see coming from a mile away. I wouldn't put it past them to make a correlation between an African American president and this unfortunate chimpanzee, since this seems to be the era their humor is stuck in.

Alex, this is a *community* post. Feministing staff has no control over what does or does not get posted about in the community.

Second, as a former zookeeper I can tell you that people very frequently conflate monkeys and chimps even though they are different.

Thirdly, African Americans have been caricatured as every type of simian from gorillas on down.

Fourth, "are we really going to get angry over a silly cartoon? There are more pressing concerns with regards to racism in this country" is called minimalizing, and it is a classic technique used to stifle feminist discourse.

As the feminist community on livejournal states well:
While we differ greatly in what we may find "important" within feminism, we should never make another feminist feel as though zir own personal causes/complaints/issues are not important.

Some issues are definitely more important and further reaching than others. (For instance, I think we can all agree that women being murdered is a lot more important than the colors people choose to clothe their babies.) However, this does not mean that smaller issues are not worth discussing! If you genuinely believe that certain issues are so small that focusing on them is a waste of time, posting to say so is a waste of time! A better strategy would be for you to start a new post about what you feel is an important issue, and simply not engage with the posts you feel are time-wasters. If you don't think it's worth talking about, then don't talk about it!

Please don't try to write off things as "too little to matter." While you might not find a particular joke, phrasing, or interaction offensive, if a member posts about something that was bothering zir, chances are zie was posting in order to gain support and encouragement. While you may disagree with the severity/importance of an event, it's important not to duplicate the unsupportiveness the poster is probably receiving elsewhere in zir life. Try to put yourself in zir shoes. If you simply cannot say something supportive, refrain from commenting.

People have different priorities, in terms of which issues to focus on, and it's impossible to get everyone to agree. But we can each focus on the issues that are personally meaningful, relevant, important, etc. to us and strive to maintain an awareness of the issues/activism other people are involved with, supporting each other whenever possible. What's important is recognizing that everything is connected.

If a person is focusing on an issue that you feel is so small as to be irrelevant, instead of criticizing zir, consider the following:
A) Focusing on a "small" issue does not automatically and always mean one is not simultaneously focusing on other ("bigger, more important") issues
B) Engaging in activism in relation to a "small" issue may propel a person to engage in "bigger and better" activism. You never know what a person's niche is going to be.
C) Just because you don't feel something is important, doesn't mean it's not important to anyone.
D) Any action a person takes to create positive change in the world, no matter how seemingly small, is worthy.

I actually believe the racist implications were unintentional (although I'm appalled that the cartoonist and editors couldn't recognize how it would be seen), but saying this couldn't be racist imagery because it's an ape and not a monkey is ridiculous. First of all, there are plenty of historical examples of black people being portrayed as apes. The imagery has been used to suggest that while black people are human-like, they are still uncivilized animals. An ape fits this criteria better than a monkey although I doubt the cartoonist even knows the difference between the two.

Second, there is always a bigger issue. Does that mean fighting for equality in the workforce in my country is wrong when there are plenty of places in the world where men are legally allowed to control women in every aspect, down to their lives? Yes, you have to pick your battles but I don't think a nationally read publication using potentially racist imagery (again, I actually think it was unintentional) is all that small.

Cartoons should be let slide? Like all those Nazi-propaganda cartoons from 1930s Germany, depicting Jews as animals? You're quite right, I'm sure they had no effect on the general populace.

I still don't think this cartoon was meant as a conscious racist attack but the "it's just a cartoon!" argument is hogwash. Media shapes people's thinking, whether you want to believe it or not.

So, you're saying that art plays no part in public discourse nor is it representative of public opinion or society at all, be it general or specific?

So why only dismiss cartoons? Let's also dismiss movies, TV, music, poetry, literature, journalism, advertising, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography & anything else I may have forgotten while we're at it.

Alex,

You're hairsplitting, and you know it.

A chimp is a type of ape - and Blacks have been compared to all sorts of apes over the years; monkeys, chimps, gorillas, orangutans - you name it, we've been called it.

And you know this.

So why can't you have the common human decency to admit that this is a racist cartoon that advocates the murder of the 44th President of the United States?

Or do you think that Barack Obama is an ape too?

I also thought that *on one level* it's about the chimpanzee shooting. But on another level, it's pure racism. Whether or not the cartoonist is clueless enough not to know the racial implications of comparing a black man to a [insert other type of primate] doesn't make it any less racist.

Yes, it is a "Boneheaded White Guy Thing" - to be specific, it's White supremacism, and rage that a Black man is now the most powerful man on Earth, reflected in this disgusting, ku klux klannish, terroristic cartoon.

My whole thing with this is, maybe, just maybe, I can see the cartoonist not knowing about the black people = monkey/ape/chimp/gorilla-because-apes-are-stupid-too thing.

But every single person who sees the thing before it goes to press?

And this is the New York Post we're talking about. There's no way in hell they didn't know what was going on here.

"Anyone who sees anything racist in this cartoon is deluded and grasping at straws"

Eighty, people have been comparing blacks to apes since at least 1867. Let me quote a text called “The Negro: What Is His Ethnological Status?” It was published in 1867 under the pseudonym “Ariel.” In fact, the author was a Southern clergyman, the Rev. Buckner H. Payne of Nashville, Tenn.

Rev. Payne argued that Negroes weren’t descended from Adam and Eve.

“... Adam and Eve being white, ... they could never be the father or mother of the kinky-headed, low forehead, flat nose, thick lip and black-skinned negro...”

The minister continued: “It follows, beyond all the reasonings of men on earth to controvert, that the negro was created before Adam, that, like all beasts and cattle, they have no souls.”

“We take up the monkey, and trace him ... through his upward and advancing orders – baboon, ourang-outang and gorilla, up to the negro, another noble animal, the noblest of the beast creation. The difference between these higher orders of the monkey and the negro is very slight, and consists mainly in this one thing: the negro can utter sounds that can be imitated; hence he could talk with Adam and Eve, for they could imitate his sounds.”

So no, I don't think anyone's deluded in seeing racism here.

And I, of course, can't wrap my head around how you couldn't see it. I promise you though that I am not "deluded," nor do I have my "panties in a bundle" over this -- the racist stuff is simply what I see when I look at this picture, in a perfectly calm and rational manner. The invocation of police violence combined with the fact that the cartoonist forces the reader to infer who the monkey is, wink-wink-nudge-nudge style (clearly, I think, meaning for readers to think of Obama in particular, but able to blame the readers for making the inference if anyone complains) comes across as repugnantly threatening to me, and in all honesty, I think everyone probably ought to be freaked out by it. I don't really think this is THE BIGGEST DEAL EVER, but I don't have to in order to call it like I see it.

"THIS CARTOON IS BY NO MEANS RACIST. It's not calling Barack a monkey. It's not calling African-Americans monkeys. It's not saying we should assassinate Barack, and it's not saying we should assassinate African-Americans. It's simply calling the authors of the stimulus (plus Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and 435 white, black, Latino, and Asian women and dudes) idiots."

I really don't see any nuances in this cartoon that indicate it's making fun of the AUTHORS of the stimulus. There is one animal being shot. There is one person primarily associated with the stimulus bill. That animal is a monkey, and Barack Obama is the first black president of the United States - even if this is parodying the real life shooting of a chimpanzee (a connection that is tenuous at BEST) it shows an incredible amount of insensitivity and the complete incapability of reading your own work objectively to consider this an inoffensive cartoon.

"Anyone who sees anything racist in this cartoon is deluded and grasping at straws; to the same effect, I can look at the Barack Obama for Senate yard sign hanging on my wall and find a Nazi recruitment message if I really try. But I don't, because that would be stupid."

You don't have to "really try" to find a racist message in this cartoon, and if there are enough people offended, I'd feel safe saying that there is something offensive about it. I really don't understand how you can turn to a group of people upset about a cartoon that - if it is not purposefully racist is at LEAST criminally insensitive - and tell them not to be upset, that they are "deluded".

And this is why feminists of color often find mainstream feminism so alienating. No one has the right to tell me what is, or is not racist, and following this, no one gets to tell me what I can and cannot be offended by. Just because you don't see it, doesn't me that someone else can't. Furthermore, it is within your rights to express you opinion about a particular piece, but when that opinion is framed in such a way as to imply that those who disagree with you are somehow ignorant, uptight, or too sensitive you are not contributing anything useful and frankly, to be crass, need to shut the fuck up.

Eighty, I tend to share your interpretation of this cartoon, but I'm put off by your insistance that seeing the racism is "deluded". Yes, I disagree with that opinion, but its important to recognize where it comes from and that it is real and valid, even if we don't feel that racism.

There are people who read this cartoon and rationally believe it is racist, and others that very rationally believe it is not racist. This whole discussion would be better served if we recognized that both of those opinions come from VERY GENUINE PLACES that should not be casually dismissed.

Eighty,

Perhaps because your not from America, you don't understand American racial culture.

We've been getting called "monkeys" and "apes" since we got off the damned slaveships!

So yes, it is racist to call a Black man a chimp!

And you need to learn that about America before you defend racist cartoonists like the creep that drew this one.

Also, just so you know, in our country, it's A FEDERAL CRIME to call for the assassination of the President.

So that jerk, and the newspaper he works for, committed a federal crime by the very act of putting that cartoon in their paper.

You need to learn about the true history of you adopted country and it's longstanding tradition of anti Black racism.

I find that right-wingers generally prefer to stay away from such blatant racism. Blatant racism isn't so good for keeping racism alive in this day and age, since it's too easily called out.

And for many readers, the "stimulus package is so badly written it must have been done by a monkey," makes perfect sense and is the immediate, intuitive interpretation of this comic. I'm one of them. It's probably dependent on personal experience (I make similar jokes about badly written stuff all the time), but just because you didn't come to that conclusion reading it doesn't mean those of us who did are somehow vastly more ignorant of racist realities or trying to deny their general existence.

I completely agree. That irritates me as well. I can't take someone seriously when they so misuse the language (unless, of course, it's not their first language).

I hear you. It drives me crazy when people don't know the difference between apes and monkeys.

I agree that the tone of eighty's message wasn't helpful to the discussion. But eighty is entitled to disagree with the majority opinion on this blog and not be told to go away. Dissenting opinions are really important, and eighty, as a member of this community is entitlted to input about the actions and credibility of this community. We can't let accusations of racism be off limits to reproach or skepticism. yes, its messy, but it is the best way to the truth.

As an example of this kind of thinking, I cite McCain's presposterous implication that "lipstick on a pig" was a sexist smear against sarah palin. Sarah Palin said she was a victim of sexism for that, but I think most of us would agree that she wasn't.

I don't mean to dismiss the apparent racism here, but dissenting opinions should be encouraged and addressed. It makes us a stronger, more intelligent community.

Good counter-point. I am not inclined to see racism in this cartoon, and I think "so easy a monkey could do it" is just as valid an interpretation as "Obama is a monkey." I mean, there were plenty of cartoons depicting Bush as a monkey (not that that excuses any racism), so now because the president is a person of colour everyone is ignorant if they don't see racism in cartoons? The press uses ape/monkey gags to signify gaucheness, incompetence and foolishness all the time--if the stimulus package is nonsense or garbage then yes, a monkey could do it, and yes people might laugh at the piece without ever considering it racist.

Please, people, please help this Black woman understand, because I am COMPLETELY missing the "not intentionally racist" angle. "...having things in common with a racist joke doesn't make it a racist joke." So if something walks like a duck (or chimp/monkey/ape, as the case may be) or talks like a duck, it's a ...grasshopper?

The "beauty" of covert racism is that it can often be misconstrued as other things. Is context not at all important? How many times do Black folks (who I'm only focusing on because that is where the tension in this cartoon lies) have to explain that we've been compared to animals throughout our history here and in other Westernized nations? How many Black people in this country have been assassinated, simply because they were Black? How many times have threats against our President been reported? The paper that ran this is owned by Rupert Murdoch -- the same guy who owns...drumroll...Faux News. The "artist" in question has made other cartoons attacking, well, pretty much everyone. Even if he meant to be only just a little racist, should it be dismissed, because it hasn't passed some ridiculous threshold of what non-Blacks consider to be racist?

I know that this country has a lot of social segregation, something that I hope so-called liberals and progressives work to remove in their own lives. Do any of you who are not Black actually sit down with Black friends/co-workers/lovers/family members and talk to them about the intricacies of race, racism and power? Because I can't understand how, if this is done, there is any question about WHY people are up in arms over this cartoon.

If Sean Delonas was so concerned about his job security, future income, bad press, etc., he should have thought of that before putting pen to paper.

Lastly, there are comments here and elsewhere about concentrating on "important things." As feminists, I assume we are concerned about the things that affect women -- all women. Maybe you feel inhumane racial stereotypes don't affect you. But they do me. They affect my family and my loved ones. We have lived and continue to live with the fallout of inconsiderate thoughts, remarks, and actions every. single. day. Fallout that ranges from something as small (but still hurtful) as a sideways worried glance, to yes, actual freakin' violence. As feminists, as people who supposedly give a shit about other people, I thought this kind of stuff made a difference. I guess not.

I'm unwilling to call the cartoonist out for a full racist joke, but even at best, I'd consider this dangerous insensitivity and privilege. It's true he PROBABLY was thinking of the cliche of the trained monkey, and maybe he wasn't even thinking of Obama as the writer of the stimulus bill.

But the fact that he didn't make the unintended racial connection and - the truly mind boggling thing - no other editor at the New York Post looked at the cartoon and saw something that someone somewhere could POSSIBLY find even SLIGHTLY racist amazes me. I'm a middle class white girl in an affluent city who is still sadly relatively uneducated when it comes to racial history, something I'm working on, and I was immediately disturbed. No, he probably didn't intend for this to be a racist joke, but there are undeniable no matter how unintended racial overtones that everyone missed. I think this cartoon says more about us as a society than it does about this cartoonist.

"More importantly, our credibility is at stake."

This is a scary argument. It sounds like you mean we (read: white feminists) shouldn't get our hands dirty with this racial issue because it doesn't affect us and might dilute our focus or our ability to be heard or some such nonsense. "We can't help you because then we'll lose all credibility" is an argument that has kept women of color out of feminism for...ever... and needs to stop.

You interpretation of the cartoon is the only possible reasonable one? That's incredibly insulting to the rest of us. Are you implying that we're stupid, crazy, or, as you say, interested in "making excuses" for racism?

I completely agree with your second paragraph. Several other people have said similar things. What I don't get is, if the second paragraph is true, who the hell cares about the first paragraph? Why are so many people eager to get this clarification on the record if you agree that regardless of intention, this cartoon is wildly inappropriate?

Yet more from Gawker, including actual pictures of the pages in question... Just to make it clear to people, what this means is that a reader going through the newspaper in the normal front-to-back style who doesn't skip any pages would be looking at that picture of Obama, reading the story, whatever, and then flip the page onto this cartoon, which -- intentionally or not -- frames it as a direct and immediate response to Obama's signing of the bill. Yow.

And even more from Gawker -- this time, some of the cartoonist's other cartoons in order to put his "artistic vision" here into context...

THAT is exactly why I can't buy the excuse that the cartoonist was making fun of a group of writers as opposed to Barack Obama. No matter who wrote it, the stimulus is being presented high and low as HIS STIMULUS. He's the one associated with it, and that's something you can't escape.

Especially when you have a picture of him signing it on the page before.

I cannot BELIEVE that an editor didn't catch this!

Or, everybody who noticed the implications didn't care, or didn't think it was inappropriate. I'm sure that the cartoonist isn't the only idiot in this story.

The cartoon appearing across from the stimulus bill signing doesn't signify anything to me - they're both talking about the same news event, and signing isn't writing.

You have 1) the layout of the pages in the link idolect posted, 2) the examples of the cartoonist's past bigoted drawings in another link idolect posted, and 3) statements from people who have been on the receiving end of racist comments and actions saying that this is racist.

Yeah, I can see why you need more evidence...

Urg. That was a comment intended as a reply to Alralei's post from 9:30.

Because it is "covert" racism as someone else suggested? The cartoonist can hide behind his metaphors and say that he was misunderstood in this way.

I connected the cartoon to racism at once. However, I can understand why some fo the readers didn't get the connection. Some time ago, I read an article which talked about how King Kong was racist. Until I read it in that article, I never made the connection. However, this cartoon is a lot more direct in its insinuation.

And a simple question to those using the Obama didn't write the stimulus bill arguement, if the cartoonist is referring to the writers and not to Obama, why does he have a lone chimp? Why not a group of them?

Also, do those who did not see racism in this see the other cartoons this guy drew? Do you still think his cartoon wasn't racist after seeing those?

-anin

I mean, even aside from this guy being a political cartoonist, presumably he is an adult who occasionally leaves his house on occasion in New York City. Honestly, you'd have to be trying really hard to stay firmly beneath your rock in order not to be aware of basic media analysis stuff here, even if you don't work in media yourself.

This, this, a hundred times this.

THIS

as an african-american i think its important to distinguish between unintentional racisim & intentional racisim. The former is a teachable moment, the latter is a fight.

...and as as an activist in civil rights struggles let me be a bit more clear for those who think that to miss the cartoon's connection to Obama is to be 'blinded by privilege'. After seeing the cartoon the very 1st thing that popped into my mind was the crazy rampaged chimp thing. It didn't occur to me to tie it to Obama until I read about the outcry...And I dare anyone to tell me that I'm blinded by my black, working class privilege...

geez, the friggin audacity of some posters...how friggin condecending...

Christ. They should have stopped before the shit in the last three paragraphs.

The proper response to being told you hurt someone is remorse, not defensiveness and anger.

Which part is mindboggling, the ridiculousness of playing I'm More Oppressed Than You?

That's funny. When Palin was in the running I remember pages and pages of this site dedicated to calling out the sexism against her. I guess you weren't here for those. Actually, since this is a feminist site, calling out sexist stuff happens 99% of the time. Commercials, print ads, TV shows...did you miss all of those? Are you really that pissed off that a single sexist comic wasn't commented on? Or just pissed off that we're discussing racism at all? Or is it that it's racism that's pointed towards a male? Does your feminism not have room for anti-racism?

I assume you must have e-mailed this & other sexist comics to the bloggers here, or else you'd have no reason to be so mad, since they can't discover everything on their own. It's great that other blogs can catch the other sexism that falls through the cracks. Because there really is too much for all of us to see all of it all the time. But to get mad that we're discussing something that made headlines is absurd. Is this just too topical? Or to be mad that one blog mentioned something and another didn't. This site isn't the be all end all of feminism. You should be glad that different blogs have different topics and that you have so many sources.

Jeez...