The New York Post, Racism, Parody, and Chimps: You Decide

(See information from today’s Huffington Post after my commentary and poem, if you are not fully aware of this sickness.)

Reasonable and thoughtful people might disagree about whether the chimp cartoon in question is a mere “clear parody” of Washington or a racial dig at our President. However, given that it was featured in the Post, and given the fact that anyone with half a working brain can easily fathom the potential misperceptions the cartoon engenders, particularly the nitwits who ingest Post-Shits unquestioningly, I have taken the liberty of cobbling together a little verse in “honor” of Sean Delonas and Col Allen. Just freedom of speech, baby. Just a parody. Nothing sinister or figurative going on; just a little break from my post-surgical malaise.
Oh, and just an aside: While I many times have felt that Al Sharpton behaved and spoke irresponsibly and risked fanning racial flames when doing so was uncalled-for, counterproductive, dangerous, and yes, opportunistic, I think he is absolutely correct about the possibilities of meaning in this cartoon.

Dirty Col Needs to Do His Seandry

Behold once again: the New York Post having a ball,
Etched upon it the unmitigated gall
And graphic meanness too many know, trust, and love,
There seems to be a level it just cannot rise above.

Just Murdoch’s minions monkeying around,
Doesn’t matter whether the journalism is sound,
Call it “parody” and its critics liberals or publicity hounds,
But the only mongrel is the paper Fox spreading its shit around.

What’s all the fuss; it’s just a political cartoon
Poking fun at our legislative buffoons,
Anyone who is reading into it anything more
Is nothing but a liberal, progressive whore:
Coordinating the downfall of our nation,
By insisting that newspapers be free of deliberate agitation.
The Post is your informer, your purveyor of the truth,
No matter how it’s done, with or without couth,
Tell it like it is, perhaps with a little spin,
To let you know who’s to blame for the shape our country’s in:
Athletes, liberals, immigrants, and those who cannot pay,
To have the media report the news in an objective way.
Nonpartisan is a filthy word, responsible journalism is a joke,
The Post does the dance each day, with some mirrors and some smoke,
It demonizes, proselytizes, hypnotizes so well,
And if you should complain you can just go straight to hell.

Make way for its gossipmongers, columnists, and other writers,
Make way for its cartoonists, its lampoonists, and spiters,
Dirty Col, he loves ‘em all, and he defends them as a bonus,
Even racist little pricks like cartoonist Sean Delonas.

Background info:

A cartoon likening the author of the stimulus bill, perhaps President Barack Obama, with a rabid chimpanzee graced the pages of the New York Post on Wednesday.

The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding
guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.

“They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” reads the caption.

An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the
New York Post website
and page 12 of the Wednesday paper.

At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president
to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that’s what
Delonas wanted.

Rev. Al Sharpton has weighed in on the cartoon in a statement:

“The cartoon in today’s New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One
has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee
that “Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”
“Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous
with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?”

The New York Post has issued a statement defending its
stimulus/chimp cartoon
and slamming Rev. Al Sharpton for
protesting
the piece.

Here’s the full statement by Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post:

“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. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”

Tags: Al Sharpton, chimp cartoon, New York Post, NY Post, political cartoons, Sean Delonas