The truth is that "controversial" cartoonist Sean Delonas is a provocateur who really doesn't care about the limits of decency, or about appearing to be joking about murdering the President, or comparing a man of exceptional intelligence, education and achievement to a dead ape.
Humor is a wonderful tool for saying what is difficult to say, but when the difficulty stems from offending the dignity of people of African Descent and indeed of the United States of America, the tool is no longer wonderful. I've been vilified for criticizing George Bush as has everyone who disagreed with him. Bush's mildest critics have been called vicious, unpatriotic and "deranged" but although he's often been depicted as a monkey, I can't recall a single cartoon in the mainstream press showing him being shot by the police. Double standard? We need a better word than understatement to describe it.
"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, it broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy"Said Post editor-in-chief Col Allan. No it isn't. I'm the last one to go hunting for racist innuendo, but this isn't innuendo, it's a classic piece of bigotry right out of the Jim Crow era and it can't be whitewashed by slurs against Al Sharpton, whether you like him or not. Everyone on the planet who believes we are a violent nation of racists will nod his head at this. It will be reproduced in papers all over the world just at the time when Obama's election was beginning to change people's minds and that's just what the rabid right wants: failure for America, Resurrection for the policies that have torpedoed the world.
Delonas has left us a long slime trail of disgusting cartoons pandering to the demented, deranged, stupid, bigoted, homophobic and social misfits who read Murdoch publications looking for justification and stories of alien abduction.
It's time the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post found someone else to write the next cartoon. It's time America found better places to look for information.
Well, we'll have our work cut out for us, dragging all the Morlocks into the light of the 21st Century.
ReplyDeleteThe drawing is disgusting,vicious and the goon with the pencil is an insufferable putz!
Naive-alert: I could not believe that this cartoon was published by anything but a really out there paper or blog. Speak of lack of decency. Not only that, I thought political cartoons were supposed to provide an insight or another way to view things, this is just the cheapest kind of drawing without a sliver of insight, honesty or integrity.
ReplyDeleteif it wasn't racist, then what was the ape supposed to represent???
ReplyDeleteRe: The people who complain GWB was compared to a chimpanzee:
ReplyDeleteThere was no racism involved in that because GWB belongs (unhappily) to the caucasian race.
That cartoon is so unspeakably fetid on so many levels. Yes it is difficult to believe that a publication in a major WORLD city would publish it.
There is only one word for it:
TREASONOUS.
Sadly, I'm not sure the cartoonist was even thinking in these terms when he drew it. He's probably so blind to his own racism that it didn't occur to him the chimp would be seen as a racist slur. That's not an excuse, but a comment on conservative thinking.
ReplyDeleteI think you may be right Matt. These wingers live in a bubble and if they hear anyone outside, they are likely to dismiss them as "Liberals."
ReplyDeleteBut looking at this guys' past cartoons, malignant contempt for non-Neanterthals seems to be a long term pattern.
You have such a blind hatred (whatever happened to tolerance?)for anybody on the right, that you HAVE to inject race into everything you disagree with. In order to gin up hatred against the left, you incite. The fact that you are actually "exploiting" African-Americans by using it to demonize the right doesn't seem to be a contradiction in your mind. The cartoon was meant as a commentary on the stupidity of the stimulus bill. Whether you agree with that or not, you should support his right to say it without being second-guessed, and having meaning attached that was never intended. Racism IS alive, and it exists within the minds of the left who judge everything under the racial microscope, even when it wasn't about that in the first place. BTW, NANCY PELOSI wrote the bill, NOT President Obama!
ReplyDeleteThe cartoon is an example of the far republican right pandering to bigots. Nobody in his/her right mind could see this cartoon as anything but a dumb racist joke.
ReplyDeleteNobody in his/her right mind could see this cartoon as anything but a dumb racist joke.
ReplyDeleteIt's a dumb racist joke?
Of course, if he knew you all would be reacting so insanely, then he may be questionable in ethics, but a genius in marketing. Because I would probably have never even seen one of his cartoons if you weren't all screaming bloody murder (of Obama) over it.
"if you weren't all screaming bloody murder (of Obama) over it."
ReplyDeleteSure, all of us, including all the mainstream press and half the other political cartoonists - try tuning in to the world, won'tcha?
Ignoring bigotry is a worthless tactic, unless you're one of them. Think Jim Crow or slavery went away by themselves? Think minorities were granted civil rights because asshole apologists just ignored it? If you have the nerve to tell Polish jokes or Jew jokes or any ethnic or racial smears in person, go ahead and try to ignore the baseball bat to the mouth that you'd surely get for your trouble. Go ahead, punk.
I linked to examples of his other "work" and they were all pandering to bigots, douche bags and small minded idiots in the worst traditions of American racism. Even the Post has shredded his cartoons for being over the top - or under the rock if you prefer.
Your pathetic attempt to dismiss critics of this foetid crock is as pathetic as Limbaugh's dismissal of torture as a "harmless prank."
Oh, and Johnny boy - thanks for defining "the right" as bigoted subhumans. Saves me the trouble and when you go to hell, say hello to Hitler for me.
Capt: I'd heard about the cartoon, but I dismissed it as overreaction. Then I got here and saw it. And I can see that some people would be upset if they hadn't heard about the actual chimp being shot.
ReplyDeleteAnd I did look through some of his other cartoons. He does seem to pander to the base reactions of the worst on the right.
And then he gets more circulation by pissing you guys off and talking it up.
Unfortunately, in dealing with the tastelessness this guy deals in, you just give him a bigger audience. And that's depressing.
I'm read, perhaps, by a dozen people, but CNN and all the other major news services went to town over it.
ReplyDeleteI do disagree about ignoring such things. Like sunlight to fungi, a little exposure can help clear things up.