Mr. Murdoch, Is Obama Really a Chimp?

Mr. Rupert Murdoch, it's certainly no surprise to you that New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan would hotly defend the racist Post cartoon comparing President Obama to a chimp. That's what your shock and smut dealing Post is in the business of doing and it does it well. The idea of course is to get the tongues furiously wagging, get enraged emails, letters and phone calls pouring in, and then put forth the predictable defense calling this and other inflammatory cartoons a parody, a free speech right, and harmless spoofery. Allan didn't stop there. He couldn't resist the urge to take a swipe at Al Sharpton, branding him with the standard tag of race baiter and media hound for daring to call out the Post on the vile cartoon.

The furor might have drawn little more than a public yawn and shrug except for two small points. One is the long, sordid and savage history of racist stereotyping of African-Americans. A few grotesque book titles from a century ago, such as The Negro a Beast, The Negro, a Menace to American Civilization, and the Clansman depicted blacks as apes, monkeys, bestial, and animal like. The image stuck in books, magazines, journals, and deeply colored the thinking of many Americans of that day.

Yes, Mr. Murdoch, it's true that was a long time ago, and as Allan intimated in his lame defense of the Post cartoon, no sober person could seriously believe that anyone would liken the president or for that matter any black to a chimp. Unfortunately, a lot still do.

That's the second small point about the Post cartoon. Post Cartoonist Sean Delonas could so casually and easily depict Obama as a monkey because that image didn't die a century, half century, decade, or even a year ago. In fact, exactly a year ago, Penn State researchers conducted six separate studies and found that many Americans still link blacks with apes and monkeys. Many of them were young, and had absolutely no knowledge of the vicious stereotyping of blacks of years past. Their findings with the provocative title "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences," in the February 2008 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was published by the American Psychological Association.

Please keep in mind Mr. Murdoch that the overwhelming majority of the participants in the studies bristled probably as undoubtedly you would at the faintest hint that they had any racial bias. But the animal savagery image and blacks was very much on their minds. The researchers found that participants, and that included even those with no stated prejudices or knowledge of the historical images, were quicker to associate blacks with apes than they were to associate whites with apes.

This was not simply a dry academic exercise. The animal association and blacks has had devastating real life consequences. In hundreds of news stories from 1979 to 1999 the Philadelphia Inquirer was much more likely to describe African Americans than Whites convicted of capital crimes with ape-relevant language, such as "barbaric," "beast," "brute," "savage" and "wild." And jurors in criminal cases were far more likely to judge blacks more harshly than whites, and regard them and their crimes as savage, bestial, and heinous, and slap them with tougher sentences than whites.

The Post cartoon, Mr. Murdoch, was the complete package. It depicted violence, death, brutality, incitement, and animal like imagery. The topper was the not so subtle inference that the target of the chimp depiction and more was an African-American male, namely President Obama.

In recent days, Mr Murcdoch you've dropped a hint or two that you want to put the word balance back into the vocabulary of those who run your media empire. You can start by issuing this statement.

"News Corporation pledges that the Post's offensive cartoon will not be circulated, or reprinted, or syndicated. Further, we have zero tolerance toward racially insensitive and inflammatory cartoons or editorial depictions of African-Americans and other ethnic groups. Finally, we apologize for the Obama cartoon and pledge in the future that the Post and other Murdoch entities will hold to the highest standard of editorial sensitivity in our cartoons."

You'll issue that statement, Mr. Murdoch, if you are personally repelled by the comparison of President Obama to a chimp. That is so, right, Mr. Murdoch?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Comments

[Balzac]

I can't wait to see the editor of NY Post fired! That will be so freaking sweet.

[Rockster]

Remember the Obama as monkey dolls that the makers deemed a "tribute" when criticized? Many whites are ignorant of the Af-Amer aspect of Amer history and seek to legitimize or white-wash its ugly significance.

[harobamason]

Post Cartoonist Sean Delonas is a coward otherwise he would have used President Obama's face on the shot chimp instead of inferring the words 'stimlus bill.'

Delonas attempt to make a joke of a shot chimp and the stimulus bill mostly fell flat when the editor Col Allen chose incitement over the joke.

The 30 years editor of the New York Post must have been laughing his boots off when he turned to page 6.

Otherwise this Austrailian would have some empathy for Amercan history and it would have never gone to press.

He has goy his millions off of you Mr. Murdoch and out stayed his welcome at the Post.

Don't be a chump and fire his a$$!

[wanttruth]

The cartoon was disgusting! I'm glad the New York Post is getting heat for it. If this cartoon is a part of a pattern, then, someone needs to clean house.

[Blog Agog]

Liberals thought Bush was foolish for going into Iraq, so they called him/drew him as a chimpanzee. It was understandable.

Normal people think the Obamessiah is foolish for giving our money to people who took advantage of our system to get free houses. So we call him/draw him as a chimp. It's understandable.

Trying to make it racist to do so simply because he's half black isn't going to change anything. It will make it look like you are racist, but other than that, we'll ignore you. I hope the post slams the racist Sharpton repeatedly for this.

[calebd]

That's a pretty straw man you got there.

[UnknownSoldier]

If you take away all the words from the cartoon, can you point to the racism in the images. Think before you respond.

If you just read the words without the pictures can you point to the racism in the words. Think before you respond

So how can you get that the racism exist when you put them together. I think the problem is that this cartoon was in the New York Post which has a history of tasteless humor with a tinge of bigotry on its Op-Ed page.

[JimR]

An actual chimp was shot and killed by police just a day or two before in a very high-profile incident.

Think before you respond.

[JMBrodie]

Amd just last year, actual people walked around carrying actual effigies of Obama as chimp while liberally using the n-word.

Think.

[mockstar]

The analysis here is spot-on, with one problem -- IT DOES NOT RELATE TO THIS CARTOON.

Sometimes a monkey is just a monkey.

As an enthusiast of political cartoons, I can assure you that Sean Delonas, editorial cartoonist for the NY Post, is one of the worst political cartoonists working in the US. Both his art and humor are consistently sophomoric.

So it's fitting that he works for The Post, a tabloid masquerading as a real newspaper.

To me, it's pretty clear the cartoonist was comparing the writers of the bill (which were House and Senate Democrats, not Obama) to monkeys, the implication being that monkeys could have written the thing. End of (dumb) joke.

Note: if the monkey in the cartoon resembled the president in any way, this would be an entirely different conversation.

But it doesn't. It's just a poorly-wrought drawing of a freshly-dead monkey.

When more gifted political cartoonists like Mike Peters or Mike Luckovich depict Obama, it's obvious.

This cartoonist Delonas' artand caricatures are so BAD that he usually has to write the name of the person he's depicting on the depiction itself! If racism had been the artist's intent, as the YWCA suggests, you can be sure he would have written "Obama" on the monkey's carcass, or made it a recognizable stand-in for the president in some way.

He didn't.

[sinope]

Olbermann says Murdoch was actually "livid" at Allan over this cartoon.

[harobamason]

Still Murdoch should prove it.

Send Col Allen packing. He is so yesterday.

[messy]

is Bush?

[messy]

Obama is president. That means he's fair game. I can't believe all these so-called "progressives" coming out in favor of prosecuting a cartoonist for attacking the government power.

[alenaspoppa]

Wow. Way to just step aside and let the point drift right by you. No one is criticizing the cartoon for daring to challenge the powers that be. It's the racial undertones that are causing the trouble. Whether you see them or not is irrelevant, but that's where the controversy lies.

[FanofPaine]

Obama being fair game has nothing to do with him being attached with negative racial imagery (proof that Earl provided in the article). Attacking Obama's stimulus bill or even his administration is certainly fair game, but doing so in a historically racially offensive way is not.

If this was Hillary and she was being depicted as a crazy woman stumping all over the world, feminist would likely be outraged, that's because powerful women have been stereotyped as raging b*tches.

There were a million things this cartoonist could have done to show his unhappiness with the stimulus, and to think, some of those ideas might have been hilarious. I actually enjoy a good political cartoon, even when it blasts something I like, but this wasn't funny and opened unnecessary wounds. It's not like Obama, himself, was not portrayed as a monkey by people who hated him several times during the campaign, that's what makes it blatantly bad.

[sdskelton03]

First, we all know Mr. Obama wasn't the chimpanzee in the cartoon. If anyone actually believed that, the uproar wouldn't be over him being portrayed as a chimp, it would be over the bullets to the chest fired by police officers.

Secondly, Mr Bush was actually portrayed as a chimpanzee for eight years and I didn't hear a peep from anyone on the left about it.

Double standard race card played brilliantly.

Usually this author is above that sort of thing. I'm disappointed.

[Classof89]

"...it would be over the bullets to the chest fired by police officers."

There's outrage over that too. Unfortunately, that's not talked about as much. As for Bush portrayed as a chimp, come on now. You can use the tired "double standard" spin all you want; you know good and well what the chimp, the cops, and the murder stood for. How often have whites been compared to monkeys, throughout history, AND if they have, has it been stereotyped to the white race as a whole?

Personally I don't believe that Bush looks like a chimpanzee, nor do I believe that he should be killed, but being a self-established i*d*i*o*t, THAT I do believe he is. Nothing more.

[faith]

Baloney ! This was about a cartoonist depicting by inference the killing of the president and cartoonizing that president as a chimp. This is well beyond any boundaries of decency and is quite frankly, inciteful. The cartoonist and Mr. Murdock need to make a full, expressed, explicit renunciation of their cartoon and send a written letter of apology to the President of the United States for their unconscionable and deliberate, and terrifying depiction.

[FanofPaine]

This isn't a double standard. If white people were constantly portrayed negatively as a chimp then Bush being portrayed as such would be a call to those rallying for racial justice. There is no history of this happening.

When black people were compared to apes, they were done so to make them look less than human and to make them look stupid and savage.

If there had been a "zoo" full of animals leaving the United States on a boat without bullet wounds and the caption said, "Well at least they'll have to fine someone else to write the next stimulus bill", that could have been funny.

And I've read a lot of outrage about the bullet wounds. That's one of the worse aspects of the entire thing.

[JimR]

Irish immigrants were routinely depicted as monkeys in cartoons, as where white people belonging to other ethnic groups.

[lynnn]

That was the last undertone that many didn't realize. The Post wanted to draw a connection between the once docile human like family pet that turned savage, and the President. It just wasn't about the imagery, it was about trying to link it to the horrible CT story.

There is also something so "Birth of a Nation" about the cops shooting the chip, and thus, saving society, for good outstanding (Christian?) Whites.

That's why I don't mind Pat Buchanan, he at least tells people how he really feels, the spineless people at the Post try to hide it, bc well, it is not cool to be a racist anymore.

[nottaken]

You are right about Pat Buchanan. At least he tells you that he hates you. Unlike the other people who laugh in your face and call you the N word behind your back.

[annis]

It was a loutish production, but how can "editorial sensitivity" and "cartoon" be put together?

[VikingQuest]

As dumb as this cartoon is . . . does anyone here really think that anything and everything that crosses the newspaper or television is run by Murdoch?

Give me a break.

If this is what you believe, Obama is resonsible for everything anyone in Government does wrong because he is the CEO.

[lynnn]

That is the truth. Ailes runs Fox News (not Murdoch). Same could be said of the Post.

[Jalenth]

Not to mention the "curious George" monkey T-shirt some white racist tried to sell during the election. Which further implies that some people do think of Obama as a monkey.

[nottaken]

You are right. People do have short memories. Remember the man at Palin's event who was carrying a monkey and has Obama's name on the monkey.

[nottaken]

This comment is pending approval and won't be displayed until it is approved.

You are right. People do have short memories. Remember the man at Pal.in's event who was carrying a mo.nkey and has Oba.ma's name on the m.onkey.

Please Huff, how is my comment offensive that yu have to keep it pending.