Old formats spewing old stereotypes; remain closed for comments

Photo courtesy of Certified via Flickr and Creative Commons

Today’s edition of the media-mogul Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post featured a cartoon that has drawn extensive (and I would say deserved) criticism from the blogosphere for its portrayal of a monkey shot dead by police officers with the caption "They'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill." The cartoon has also been severely criticized by civil right leaders, such as the Rev. Al Sharpton.

The New York Post is standing behind the cartoon and its artist, Sean Delonas, claiming that it is was meant to imply that the stimulus bill recently signed into law by President Obama was shoddily composed and may has well have been written by a monkey. It also attempts to parody a violent pet chimpanzee that was shot dead by police officers in Stamford, CT on Monday. However, America's culture of slavery and certainly its connection to racist sentiments is not as far behind us as Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan may believe.

Allan has issued a statement claiming that, ""The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy." Allan continues this verbal march of ignorance by stating that "again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."

Though it is possible that the artist's intentions were as Allan states and lacked a malicious intent, it remains a poor reflection on Delonas and Allan's poor education in American cultural history. This tactic of turning a blind eye towards a very recent past in which African Americans were compared to primates, presumed to lack the same intellectual abilities as whites, and were bought and sold as property seems at best an ignorant oversigh and at worse an outright racist act.

The Post cartoon itself and the Associated Press coverage remain closed for comment. Instead, users on news aggregation sites like Digg are reposting the story and commenting on these sites. A write-up on The Huffington Post reveals some 4078 comments on the story.