This isn't necessarily Asian American-related, but it's certainly what everyone's talking about this week, raising a lot of familiar questions about political cartoons and racist imagery... This week, the New York Post ran a cartoon comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police, drawing outrage from those who say it invokes racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys: NY Post cartoon of dead chimpanzee stirs outrage.
If you haven't seen it, the cartoon shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." The illustration, of course, refers to the mad chimpanzee that was killed b police earlier this week in Connecticut, after it turned violent and mauled a friend of its owner.
The cartoon has set off an intense response and reaction against the Post. Many are calling the it racist and say it trivializes the violent tragedy that left a woman disfigured and a chimpanzee killed. Other say the cartoon suggests that President Obama should be assassinated. Whatever the case, the cartoon is offensive, disturbing and in serious bad taste. Someone at the paper had a serious lapse in judgment, on multiple levels. But here's the Post's response: THAT CARTOON.
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