Opinion: Column
Black leaders won’t let America’s racist heritage go
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Also by Gerald Cox:
- AIG sparks Congress' ignorance (March 22, 2009)
- Same old strategies won't save republicanism (March 2, 2009)
- Black leaders won't let America's racist heritage go (February 23, 2009)
- ASM constitution will not succeed without students (February 19, 2009)
- Early missteps mar new administration (February 16, 2009)
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Not since the outsized reaction to the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons has such an innocuous cartoon elicited such an incommensurate response.
A week ago, you’d have a hard time convincing me that the story of Travis the Chimp would somehow be linked with President Obama. Travis, as you may have heard, was a chimpanzee who had starred in Coca-Cola and Old Navy commercials. Unfortunately, for Travis — and an innocent woman — Travis was also the star in a tragedy last week that ended in his seriously injuring his owner’s friend. The incident ended with police officers shooting Travis dead.
And now, Al Sharpton and his coterie of race-baiting pals are making a laughing stock out of themselves and the causes they represent by dragging Travis the chimpanzee and a president into this week’s Race Card Issue of the Week.
Travis’ story is a bizarre one. Eerie details are emerging of an almost romantic relationship between the chimp and the woman who owned him. Further, why not get a dog, versus an animal that, in the wild, eats the young and dismembers rivals? I know what you’re thinking. Travis sounds no worse than Mike Tyson. But no one has tried to make Tyson into a pet since Don King attempted it years ago.
But what is most surprising about Travis’ story — or legacy, if you will — is how it has somehow come to involve the always outspoken Al Sharpton, the NAACP, a fairly innocuous if untactful editorial cartoon, President Barack Obama, a not so reputable publication and the race card.
The New York Post, known more for its sensationalism and gossip columns than hard-hitting journalism, published the offending editorial cartoon which depicts two police officers standing over a now dead and bloodied Travis. One of the officers states: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
If you, like me, found such a sentiment — the stimulus bill, ill-advised as much of it seems, could have only been written by a monkey — to be hilarious, the NAACP would like me to tell you that you might be a racist.
That makes two of us.
Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, has called for a boycott of the New York Post as a result of what he and his organization consider “an invitation to assassination.” Not of other rampaging, murderous chimpanzees, mind you, but of our nation’s first black president.
Singer John Legend has called for his fellow musicians to refuse interviews with the Post. Al Sharpton has called the cartoon racially charged and troubling. According to reports from MSNBC, director Spike Lee and judge Greg Mathis have joined with other supposed black leaders in voicing their displeasure at the cartoon.
By now you’ve made the connection: Since the stimulus bill was one of the first major legislative accomplishments of our nation’s first black president, saying a monkey wrote it is evocative of our nation’s shameful racist past. Such is sound logic to the knee jerk, race card-waving groups desperate to keep their fading roles and organizations relevant. However, their protests are far removed from reality. It takes little more than a passing knowledge of politics and policy to know President Obama did not write the stimulus bill.
Is this what we must endure? Our first black president has hardly been in office a month, and we are already being subjected to race baiting of Sharptonian proportions?
The comparisons and lampoons of black people as monkeys is an egregious historical testimony to the institutionalized racism that in the past has plagued our nation. Yet this is not one of those comparisons. In fact, it wasn’t until Jealous and Sharpton — who are both black — decided to make the comparison between President Obama and Travis the chimp as depicted by the Post that such a comparison was even considered.
As Jealous and the NAACP contend, police officers and departments in the past often had violent and even murderous relationships with black communities. Every column I write on race also demands I state the following: Racism in America is by no means dead, nor do we live in a colorblind society.
But this is a clear obfuscation of the racial issues America still faces. Further, it lessens what little moral high ground our self-proclaimed black leaders have in the battles still remaining for the civil rights vanguard. It is reminiscent of the much aligned outrage thousands in Pakistan and Muslims evinced when Danish newspapers published a series of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
It is revealing and pathetic, also, that it was black minds, and not white, that made the comparison between our first black president and a dead chimpanzee. Way to go, team.
Gerald Cox (gcox@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in economics.
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I think Al Sharpton knows he’s irrelevant now, and he’s trying to take one last gasp of racist air. This cartoon was clearly not racist. Moreover, Obama didn’t write the stimulus bill, Pelosi did. Where are the outraged women?
Nothing funnier then a kid who takes the “race bait” and runs with it. Al Sharpton is gonna be Al Sharpton, if there is attention, he’ll be there. The real issue is The New York Post who initially refused to issue an apology for the cartoon. All they had to say was “Although the cartoon had no racial implications, it is understandable that some people may have been offended by the imagery” This issue could have and would have ended with that, but the Post was defiant. This has caused a minor spark to become a full-blown forest fire. Keep in mind, Sharpton and Jealous are not the only people who felt this was offensive. I saw it and thought “how dumb” you would think that a paper as large as The New York Post would realize the history of racism in America and stopped it from being printed.
Let me fix that for you.
“…THEIR prophet, Muhammad.”
There, that’s better.
Leftists spent the past eight years lampooning President Bush as ChimpyMcHitler. Hardly a month past without their gutter riots (masquerading as “peace” protests) ad hominem abusive depictions of Bush as a chimp.
And Bush assasination chic was considered high art in many Leftist circles from the stage and literature to film.
Leftist complaints are hypocrisy on stilts after their deafening silence toward the serial racist cartoons of Condoleeza Rice.
Physicians, heal thyselves.
I don’t want this article to be taken into a racists tirade against African Americans or Arabs. I personally can’t stand Al Sharpton, yes he is a race baiter, who is only in the spot light as long as it shines on him. But there are also white people who do the same thing. They use Sharpton to play on their own racist agenda, so putting the blame on one isn’t fair. When I first say the cartoon I didn’t find anything racist (I am African American), but then I can see how someone could take it the wrong way. What people need to understand is that what is not offensive to you can be to other people. Comparing the writing of the bill to a dead monkey to a black man is going to piss some people off. Still this is American and we do have freedom of speech.
There is so much more people can be doing with their time right now. Like trying to find a job.
This “Danish Muhammad” sounds interesting. Tell me more.
“Comparing the writing of the bill to a dead monkey to a black man is going to piss some people off.”
Except Obama didn’t write the bill. He left it up to all of the Congressional Democrats. Any potential racial misunderstanding can be cleared up with a simple clarification of what actually happened.
It was offensive to me. “Monkey” is a known racial epithet. Besides, the joke is stupid and unfunny any way you look at it. It was probably approved for publication for publicity purposes.
Well how many people know about Obama NOT Writing the bill? Not a lot! So that argument doesn’t actually works because those who didn’t know that would still compare Obama to a monkey.
Really nice article, Gerald.
Your article is as tactless as the cartoon, both are undeniably shameful.
The cartoon by itself was hardly innocuous. Even if you do claim there is no Obama “race issue” (which I can definitely how that argument can be made), violence to animals is a touchy subjectand a big no-no for cartoonists.
7:59 pm: And those who did not know that Obama did not take prt in the writing of the stimulus bill are what we call band-wagon”ers”. They try to act like they know what is going on and go with what is cool and popular at the current moment. Saddly for America we are a country of 75% band-wagon”ers”.
Gerald: I usually read your articles and cringe in disagreement, but today’s article was actually well written and well thought out. I enjoyed reading it, hopefully I do not get cut off from the aforementioned joy with your next article.
Monkeys everywhere are terribly offended by all these false associations with a violent chimpanzee. Chimps are apes, not monkeys.
Now stop slandering monkeys by association, you shameless specists!
11:27 How can they be bandwagoners if they didn’t know Obama did Not write the bill?
9:21 Bandwagoners in this instance that because someone alludes to Obama being a monkey in a cartoon that they probably never would have cared about less the infamous Al bring it up. Let’s say that the cartoon went out and our dear friend Al said nothing, would there be such an uproar in wanting to fight it? I think not. He is famous, therefore giving him status (where there should be none) and people will follow.
@12:19: In 2005, some caricatures were published in a Danish magazine of the central Muslim figure, the Prophet Mohammed. Most were harmless, but one depiction had a turban-shaped bomb on his head and another had an angry-looking face, wielding a sword. It caused major drama in Europe because A) it spreads misconceptions about Islam through ignorance. While most Muslim followers practice teachings of peace and respect, the small minority of idjits who blow themselves up get 98% of Muslim coverage in the western media. B) Mohammed is so sublimely beautiful that it’s more or less a crime against the universe to constrain this beauty within the capabilities of mortal means. Depictions of Mohammed are forbidden and, in general, Muslims take their religion VERY seriously.
Dude, the cartoon was far from innocuous. Obama has been linked by the media and the press as the main voice behind the stimulus bill, and the NYP didn’t attempt to claim otherwise. My first thought when I saw this was that the monkey was being compared to Obama, and that IS racist. The fact that so many others saw the same comparison is particularly damning.
Now, I would give the cartoonist the benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t pulled this shit in the past, but look at Delonas’s cartoons: http://gawker.com/5155855/ten-masterpieces-from-sean-delonas
This guy is a fucking bigot. He compares gays to sheep-fuckers, makes fun of Heather Mill’s disability, and casts Arabs as terrorists. Come on.
Not only are we wallowing in racism in this country, uber-racist blacks threaten to destroy our heritage. It’s gotten so bad, you can’t even voice an opinion and you are punished. This site was banned from DIGG because they said it contained racist material: http://rfdamerica.com/?p=805 How is a simple discussion about the slaughter of white farmers in South Africa racist?
Whoever wrote this article “Must Be” disconnected to the feelings of the human race as one. This slandered all of us, whites too. Of course, the cartoon was created as a visible verbal assault on “OUR” first Black President. And what is most ridiculous is that someone decided to stick up for the audacity of the creator. He was out of line to show anyone laying dead shot by the Police. What kind of negative connotation are we subjecting our police to.