Thursday, February 19, 2009

A Chimp, the President, and the New York Post

As you may imagine, this editorial cartoon from the New York Post is causing quite the stir:



People see Stimulus, they think Obama, they see monkey, they think RACISM!!!!

One teeny little problem: Obama didn't write the Stimulus bill. A bunch of Congressional staffers with begging lobbyists and drooling localities' governments blowing up their phones did. And, consequently, the Stimulus bill has about as much chance of stimulating the economy as something a trained chimp could come up with.

Now, had the cartoon read "Now we'll have to find someone else to fill in the Illinois senate seat," THAT would be racist...but given the intelligence shown by Senator Burris, not completely unfair if his race were different.

So, yes, it is wrong and racist to make monkey comparisons to black people. However, referring to the government generally as something akin to a trained chimpanzee isn't. It may, in fact, be unfair to trained chimpanzees.

1 comment:

Seneca said...

In fairness, it is Obama's Simulus. He hath handed it down from Sinai, and hath said that it is Good.

One might think that if the Post were going after Him, they would use a chimp that bore a little more resemblance to a human, and less to, say, a monkey.