The New York Post’s Racist Cartoon
In Stamford Connecticut Sandra Herold has lost her soul mate. There shall be no more bubble baths together, nor restless nights in bed with him. Just like 92 year old Kathryn Johnston who in 2006 lost her life in a hail of gunfire on Neal Street, Travis, Sandra’s chimpanzee was also shot dead by the police. As bizarre as it may seem, this incident was immediately linked to President Obama and the signing of the landmark Economic Stimulus Bill; the first major piece of legislation of his new administration. On one page, there was a huge picture of the President signing the bill; and on the next page the New York Post newspaper ran a violent cartoon depicting the bill’s author as a dead monkey; awash in blood after being shot by the police.
The drawing by cartoonist Sean Delonas, who by the way is no stranger to accusations of racial bias, carries the following caption “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”. When suddenly criticized for publishing such a cartoon, which has been so widely considered to be blatantly offensive, comparing President Barack Obama with a chimpanzee, and expressing outright racism, the New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan immediately went on the offensive calling the Reverend Al Sharpton’s protest of the cartoon as “nothing more than publicity opportuni[sm]”. Many others defended it as well, demonstrating that there remains a vast number of Americans who are still in acute denial of the prevalence of a deep racist psychopathology extant within the United States.
However, try as I might to keep up with it all, I have simply lost count of just how many times over the last two years that some racist idiot has simply come out of woodwork in order to make a crude comparison of Barack Obama to a chimpanzee. Truth be told, the profuse array of racist innuendo so shamelessly on display during the 2008 Campaign, featuring an alarming number of death threats against the future President, untoward insults hurled at the future First Lady, and a startling rise in hate crimes all across the country, betray the true nature of a nation that is currently regurgitating some of the most vile aspects of its very own soul. Nevertheless, even as the New York Post adds its voice to the chorus of violent racist innuendo against the President of the United States, a vast number of Americans still find it more appropriate to scorn the new Attorney General for daring to confront the issue of racism head on. In their rush to judgment of him, they actually demonstrate the lack courage to deal with this stain upon American freedom that the Attorney General was really talking about in the first place.
Traditionally, the characterization of Black people as sub-primates is what ostensibly made it much more acceptable for wild lawless mobs to indiscriminately kidnap, rape, murder, mutilate, and actually roast Black men, women, and even children over an open fire, for decades in this country. It was actually a time not so long ago. This widespread denial is a continuing effort to mask the inconceivably savage nature of thousands of unsolved crimes. It is the horrid residue of the legacy of the unspeakable, extant today as a symbol of an entire century of inhumane abuse left unchecked long after slavery had come to an end. Nevertheless, let it be known throughout the world, Americans Black and White who even today still attempt to hide their faces away from the legacy of such a horribly inhumane past, these are the actual enablers of racism; it is they who help to perpetuate its lingering expression. Human rights remain in peril within the United States, while it is the enablers who are truly monkeying around with the American Dream.
However, at its core, we must remember that racism functions essentially through the psychopathology of projection. In other words, it is simply a cunning effort to project one’s own inadequacies on to a convenient target. After slavery, even as one million families scrambled to re-establish their lives, the myth of the fiendish Black male rapist suddenly on the murderous prowl for the chastity of White women, became a wildly popular lurid tale which was rather convenient for those who were already bent upon an endless season of racist terror. During the vicious one-hundred-year reign of Jim Crow Apart-Hate, this single lurid tale had a truly murderous effect upon the lives of thousands of Black people and their independent communities.
Yet, perhaps nowhere else is psychological projection more often on brilliant display than when it functions as a necessary residue of narrative production. Of course, one must simply invert the reality.
It was Tarzan you may remember, who just couldn’t seem to get along with the community that he happened to come upon. What I mean to say here, is that he socialized himself swinging through the trees. And, he kept groaning at people; and crying out in agony! The African, with his eyes so characteristically bulging as if in surprise, he was really looking at him in horror, as if he was crazy, or some kind of freak! “With all of these beautiful sistas, what the Hell is wrong with him?” If he was really such a higher form of life, then why the Hell was he hanging out with the animals; and kissing on them? It was only until Tarzan encountered a woman who appeared to be his own natural mate (Jane) that he really did calm down. Nonetheless, what did he do? He took her with him back to the animals, and she started kissing on them too!
On a serious note, Color of Change dot org is asking people of conscious from all around the world, to hold the New York Post newspaper and its owner Rupert Murdock accountable and show them that comparing the United States President Barack Obama to a monkey is not a joke at all.
Go right here: http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/ and add your voice now! BlackPlanet.com has started a petition as well at: http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/bpstands
