A neat bit of timing occurred yesterday when at the same time the first black Attorney General of the United States serving under the first black Chief Executive takes its citizens to task for their reluctance to confront racial issues, a cartoon parodying the gunning down of a rampant chimpanzee by police officers was interpreted by some in the black community as racist.
In the cartoon, displayed above, one of the officers standing over the dead chimp turns to the other and says “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” Not one of Sean Delonas’ better works, but I got the parody. The $787 billion, oft-criticized monstrosity of a stimulus bill was written by a Congress with an intellect of a monkey. Some community activists didn’t get the joke, instead interpreting the cartoon as comparing the dead monkey to President Barack Obama.
Opportun, er, civil rights activist Al Sharpton called the cartoon “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.” Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists was equally not amused, “to compare the nation’s first African-American commander-in-chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.”
A racist cartoon? It’s a stretch – it’s a real stretch – and unfortunately a harbinger of what may be to come in the way of reaction whenever President Obama is caricatured in the future. I recall the left taking enormous glee when parodying former President George W. Bush as everything from a chimp to a vampire. Some of it funny and relevant; some of it vitriolic and off the mark. In the age of Obama, it appears that dissent will be racially motivated.
If we are to take Holder at his word to “get to the heart of this country” by engaging in frank discussions of race, we should be able to do so without the rhetorical guilt trip that usually accompanies such dialogue. These discussions must also be predicated upon the notion that racism and bigotry exists everywhere – it is not exclusive to white America, nor are blacks the only target of its ugliness.
Holder also envisions a day “when the dream of individual, character based, acceptance can actually be realized.” But wasn’t Obama’s “transformational” victory the culmination of this ideal? Wasn't his own confirmation as Attorney General based on this criteria, or was it based on something else?
With the election of Barack Obama and the elevation of black Americans to positions of prominence within his administration, black America is now on notice – they are now either part of the solution, or part of the problem. The problems confronting all Americans – the economy, national security, terrorism – are fairly black and white, but the solution is neither. There are no more excuses.
In the cartoon, displayed above, one of the officers standing over the dead chimp turns to the other and says “they’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” Not one of Sean Delonas’ better works, but I got the parody. The $787 billion, oft-criticized monstrosity of a stimulus bill was written by a Congress with an intellect of a monkey. Some community activists didn’t get the joke, instead interpreting the cartoon as comparing the dead monkey to President Barack Obama.
Opportun, er, civil rights activist Al Sharpton called the cartoon “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.” Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists was equally not amused, “to compare the nation’s first African-American commander-in-chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.”
A racist cartoon? It’s a stretch – it’s a real stretch – and unfortunately a harbinger of what may be to come in the way of reaction whenever President Obama is caricatured in the future. I recall the left taking enormous glee when parodying former President George W. Bush as everything from a chimp to a vampire. Some of it funny and relevant; some of it vitriolic and off the mark. In the age of Obama, it appears that dissent will be racially motivated.
If we are to take Holder at his word to “get to the heart of this country” by engaging in frank discussions of race, we should be able to do so without the rhetorical guilt trip that usually accompanies such dialogue. These discussions must also be predicated upon the notion that racism and bigotry exists everywhere – it is not exclusive to white America, nor are blacks the only target of its ugliness.
Holder also envisions a day “when the dream of individual, character based, acceptance can actually be realized.” But wasn’t Obama’s “transformational” victory the culmination of this ideal? Wasn't his own confirmation as Attorney General based on this criteria, or was it based on something else?
With the election of Barack Obama and the elevation of black Americans to positions of prominence within his administration, black America is now on notice – they are now either part of the solution, or part of the problem. The problems confronting all Americans – the economy, national security, terrorism – are fairly black and white, but the solution is neither. There are no more excuses.
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