Racist New York Post cartoon....what were they thinking?!

On Wensday, Feb. 14th, the New York Post ran a cartoon by Sean Delonsa showing two police officers conversing over the bullet ridden courpse of a monkey. The caption of one of the officers reads "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

After its release there was an uproar about the racial content of the cartoon. Many peopl have marked the drawing as racist towards President Obama.

In an editorial this past Friday, Feb. 20th, Rupert Murdock apologized for the paper running the cartoon as reported by the BBC.

"As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me," said Murdock. "Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted."

While this might quell the angers of some of the people who have seen the cartoon, others might not let this mockery of the nation's first half black half white president go with out a fight.

Still some people do not find the harm in the cartoon and say that people are going to far by thinking that the chimp in the cartoon is President Obama.

For others, including myself, the cartoon seems odd in the fact that the artist was relating two seperat events, President Obama signing the stimulus bill and the shooting of a crazed chimp in Stamford Conneticut.

"It's dumb," said Lakesha Robins, a student at the University of Memphis. "How did the cartoonist think that this was funny, what was he drinking to make him think about trying to connect these two events. He must have been out of it."

This reporter agrees, what was Delonsa thinking when he drew this cartoon? Did he even think of the ramifications of his actions? Did he care?

When all is said and done Mr. Delonsa will have to deal with the outcome of his actions and perhaps spend time reflecting on his mistake, both from a racial stand point and from a logical stand point.

______________________________UPDATE________________________________

Upon a fifth look at this cartoon, I have come to the realization that this cartoon is not as bad as it has been made out to be.

There has been a problem with this cartoon because so many people have heard about it by word of mouth. With so much press about this cartoon, the line that uttered by one of the police men in this cartoon has been misconstrued and many people have viewed it with an already hostile mind set. Like I have stated in this blog, one of the police officers in the cartoon said "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

With this piece of information the subject of the cartoon actually changes, since President Obama did not actually write the stimulus bill he only signed it into action. The subject of the cartoon is now clearly the United States' Congress.

Even though the cartoon is not about President Obama, Mr. Delonsa's cartoon is still hard to understand. There is not a clear conection between the vicious chimp attack and our country's stimulus bill. Again, perhaps Mr. Delonsa should consider how easy it is to make the connection from one news story to another, or maybe he should make the connection more apparent.

A fight in Washington---the fate of America will be decided.

The Nation’s leaders are in for the fight of their lives as the Senate passes their own stimulus bill.
This week the Senate approved their $838 billion dollar stimulus plan with a vote of 61-37. The Senates bill differs from the stimulus package passed in January not only in the size of the package it wants to give, $19 billion more dollars than the House, but also in how the package will be used.
In the Senate bill, if passed, will be used towards stress tests for banks, creating a “bad bank” to help rid the country of “some of the toxic assets clogging up banks’ balance sheet and considerable resources aimed at reducing the rate of mortgage foreclosures” as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
On the other side of the coin is the House of Representatives and their bill. The House’s stimulus package focuses on giving money to state governments for education budgets and offering greater financial assistance to people who have lost medical insurance because of job loss.
The differences of the bills give some indication of how either part wants the money spent, and before the end of this week the two will meet to hammer out a finale plan that the president will sign into law.
Though as promising as an idea that may be, the Senate and House are reluctant to give up on much of anything in their bills. For the Senate the ideas of straightening out the bank crisis to fix the economy, meanwhile the House totes their bill as a way to create more jobs for Americans.
With both sides opposing the other’s bill so strongly, this reporter predicts a fight on Capitol Hill where the fate of the bills are not as much on the line as the fate of the country and the common man.
"I just don't know," said University of Memphis student John Calmers, age 20, of Millington. "Both packages have good things and bad things, but in the end I think it is going to be a big head ache for the government and worse for the average American."
With the Senate and the House meeting this week, Americans should expect a bill to be placed on the President's desk by the end of the week.