People have asked me what I would say if it turns out that the New York Post cartoonist had no ill intent and didn't intend to invoke any racism in his recent cartoon that appears to depict President Obama as a monkey. Here is what I would say:
1) The idea that he may have been referring to all of Congress as monkeys doesn't add up, because the police didn't shoot a PACK of monkeys, they only shot one. That leads us to think that this person is the "lead monkey", which would be President Obama.
2) Obama is the one most readily associated with the Stimulus Package, since he was the one who promised it, the one who signed it, and the one who celebrated passing it. Did they think we would believe the monkey to be Nancy Pelosi?
3) It is actually racial inequality that gives the artist the privilege of going through life without sufficient cultural competency to even realize that this cartoon might be offensive to Black people, who've been compared to monkeys for the past several hundred years. Additionally, it is also racial inequality that gives this cartoonist the social privilege to say "screw you" to the Black community when they express reasonable outrage over this insult. The New York Post has not apologized and they've only worked to discredit Rev. Sharpton. That's the "Archie Bunker - I ain't changin nothin" approach to racism.
Bottom line: Even if you don't intend to be offensive, any idiot in the newsroom should have been able to look at this cartoon to say "You know, someone might think that we are depicting an assassination of our president and comparing him to a monkey. Maybe we should clarify a bit." Had there been more Black faces in that newsroom (again, a product of historical racial inequality), someone would have caught this horrible mistake. If I draw something that is highly offensive to Jews, even if I made an honest mistake, I should be respectful enough to acknowledge my mistake and apologize. Part of racial healing is similar to a marriage: you respect your partner's feelings even if you don't understand them.
When it comes to intelligence, compassion, professionalism and cultural understanding, the New York Post gets a failing grade. This cartoon is a disgrace.
6 comments:
Dr. Watkins, I agree that the cartoon was terrible and in extremely poor taste. However, if we set the emotion aside and look at this incident as an opportunity, we might be able to make some real racial progress here.
Here we are in the middle of "Black History Month" and a white cartoonist isn't aware of the sensitive nature of his cartoon. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and use this incident as leverage to force the full African-American story into American history books.
After all, until all Americans are taught true American history we can expect another 'ignorant' white reporter/cartoonist/talk show host/etc. to ignite us as a people.
I would suggest that you use your considerable clout to rally all prominent African-Americans to force this country to change the primary school curriculum to include what really happened to both white and black Americans during and after slavery in this country.
Let's get to the root cause these problems - EDUCATION.
People PLEASE don't let this news distract you from helping out Morris Brown.
Well first of all I would like to say thank you for sending us all the contact information on how contact the New York Post. I did send all of the them same email that stated "I am sure you have recieved plenty of emails. So I will keep this one short and Christian-like. It's hard to express how I feel about your "MONKEY" cartoon. So let me just say, I hope carma doesn't hurt as bad. If you just speak out agaist it things can sometime Change. Remember those words. "A Change we can believe in". Have a bless day.
"May you never walk so fast, that you leave the Lord behind"-Na-Tasha Lee-Bowman
Na-Tasha Lee-Bowman"
To my suprise I was contacted by Sandra Guzman she stated "Thank you for your feedback. Please know that I had nothing to do with the Sean Delonas cartoon. I neither commissioned or approved it. I saw it in the paper yesterday with the rest of the world. And, I have raised my objections to management. --Sandra Guzman".
As a Black American but Christian first I just want to say as "blacks" we have been through so much. It is so wonderful that people that work there can speak out and disagree. I just want everyone to no not to cast stones on the entire staff for the mistakes of a few.
Na-Tasha Lee-Bowman
AKA CherryBomb
When I saw the cartoon, I just could not believe that in 2009 in a paper published in New York City I would see something like that.
Its time we all contact the FCC. Rupert Murdoch was given a waiver to own a newspaper and a televsion station in the same market, which literally should not be happening. He was helped to break the rules, and this is how that 'waiver' is used. What a pay back ?
To say the least its insulting to President Obama, African Americans and the nation- at- large. Too bad for his detractors, he will be a force for "Change" until the end of his term in 2016.
Now let them eat cake!!
http://manchestersquare.blogspot.com
"It is actually racial inequality that gives the artist the privilege of going through life without sufficient cultural competency to even realize that this cartoon might be offensive to Black people..."
One of the big questions to ask and answer in that race dialog that Eric Holder wants to have would be "How could you NOT know...?"
Wouldn't hurt to lean on that point.
I agree with a lot of what Wes Barnard has to say as I think the cure for racism as a whole is Education and Exposure.
As far as the cartoon, I don't know the cartoonist from Adam. I do know that the point may be missed by Boyce Watkins. Watkins makes a statement about the fact that only one monkey was shot and not a pack of monkees to symbolize our congress. I believe the point was to show our government as one primate; tacky and in bad taste, yes, racism, I don't know.
The other side of this issue is through this negative history of portraying African-Americans as some type of primate someone automatically believed the chimpanzee to represent Obama. This is also veiled racism.
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