February 18, 2009
What does it mean?
This cartoon image provided by the New York Post appeared in the Post’s Page Six Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009. The cartoon, which refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner, drew criticism Wednesday on media Web sites and from civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton. (AP Photo/New York Post)
NY Post cartoon seems to link Obama to dead chimp
By Karen Matthews
Associated Press WriterNEW YORK (AP) — A New York Post cartoon that appears to link President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee drew outrage Wednesday from civil rights leaders and elected officials who said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys.
The cartoon in Wednesday’s Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee named Travis who was killed Monday by police in Stamford, Conn., after it mauled a friend of its owner.
Obama signed his administration’s economic stimulus plan on Tuesday.
Critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialized a tragedy in which a woman was disfigured and a chimpanzee killed. Many urged a boycott of the Post and the companies that advertise in it.
“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.”For the rest of the article, see here.
Depictions showing Africans as merely once removed from chimpanzees were used not that long ago.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
Filed under Comics, CryptoZoo News, Twilight Language