hardbodysub
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Joined: 8/7/2005
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quote:
ORIGINAL: domiguy
quote:
ORIGINAL: hardbodysub
The difference is that this cartoon was not directed at "a group of black guys", or even one black man. It was directed at the stimulus package. Most references to monkeys, apes, and the like, have absolutely nothing to do with race, yet because a very small number of them do, people try to infer race into all such references. With this kind of thinking, the only way to be "sensitive" enough is to never mention monkeys or apes anywhere. Nooses, too, obviously. We'll have to go back and edit all the hanging scenes out of Clint Eastwood's movies, not to mention zillions of other westerns; we'll have to release all monkeys and apes from zoos and circuses, and any roles in movies (I guess Bedtime for Bonzo, Every Which Way But Loose, Monkey Business, and lots of other movies will have to be banned).
If people can't see the difference between calling a piece of legislation stupid and calling a person a monkey (or a group of people monkeys), then the problem is with THEM. I didn't like the cartoon or what it implied. I thought it was crude, unimaginative, and simply wrong economically. But it wasn't racist.
It is a rather ridiculous notion to say that it could not be interpreted to be directed at Obama....I have seen way too many posters come out here and refer to the stimulus package as being "his."
So it can easily be interpretated that Obama is the "one black man" responsible for the stimulus bill. If you do not have the capability to reach this as a possible conclusion then I don't know what else to say.
Either way, it is not effective or particularily well executed. Are we too sensitive? Possibly.
Howard Cossell got fired from Monday Night Football after referring to Art Monk as a "little monkey." Howard Cossell was not a rascist. That was years ago and I would like to think that we have advanced in our thinking and relationships when it comes to matters of race. However, one should be wise enough to realize that there is history and a dire and severely negative connotation when comparing blacks to monkeys.
Is it really that difficult to understand?
Of course it's not hard to understand. Believe me, I had it drilled into me ad nauseum in college and post graduate programs. I was thinking about the Howard Cosell incident also, but was reluctant to mention it. He was actually paying Monk a compliment, referring to him as a monkey because of the way he was scampering all over the field, and nobody could catch him. That's exactly the kind of hypersensitivity I'm talking about. The assumption of racism (or sexism) is made whenever possible, no matter how remotely, no matter how hard one has to stretch to make it fit, and people get all riled up. We ought to be doing the opposite; assume that racism/sexism wasn't intended unless it's obvious that it was.
Getting back to the cartoon, I didn't say that it couldn't be interpreted as directed at Obama personally. But anyone who knows anything at all knows that Obama didn't write the bill, and the obvious motivation of the cartoonist was political. The clear intent was to insult the bill and the intelligence of its authors, not to make a racist comment. I think the cartoonist is pretty much an idiot, is completely wrong, and used a poor vehicle. But he had no incentive to make a racial comment, and I think it's pretty clear he didn't mean it that way.
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RE: New York Post Cartoon: Is Obama the chimp... - 
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