Protesters gathered outside the New York Post’s Manhattan office last
night chanting “shut the Post down” after they claimed a cartoon in the
tabloid compared President Obama to a chimpanzee.
The Post's Editor-in-Chief insists his cartoonist was simply mocking
the authors of the fiscal stimulus Bill as no better than a team of trained
monkeys. But the newspaper’s critics say Sean Delonas’s sketch was
tantamount to calling for Barack Obama to be assassinated.
The cartoon, published on page six of the newspaper on Wednesday, showed a
policeman standing over the corpse of an ape with a smoking gun in his hand.
A colleague says to him: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the
next stimulus Bill.”
The cartoon was referencing a celebrity chimpanzee named Travis who was shot
dead by police in Stamford, Connecticut on Monday, after it mauled a friend
of its owner.
Civil rights leaders and politicians responded furiously claiming it echoed
racist stereotypes. The Reverend Al Sharpton, an prominent civil rights
leader, called the cartoon “troubling at best given the historic racist
attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys”.
Members of the public also reacted angrily against the Post. Its phones
rang all day with upset readers and protesters, picketing the tabloid’s
offices, demanded an apology and a boycott.
“How could the Post let this cartoon pass as satire?” said
Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists.
“To compare the nation’s first African-American commander-in-chief to a dead
chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.”
State Senator Eric Adams called it a throwback to the days when black men were
lynched.
Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post, defended the work. “The cartoon is a
clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent
chimpanzee in Connecticut,” Allan said in a statement. “It broadly mocks
Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals
himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”
Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary, declined comment. “I have not seen
the cartoon,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One as Mr Obama returned to
Washington. “But I don’t think it’s altogether newsworthy reading the New
York Post.”
