The day the New York Post sleazed its op-ed section with the vile, vicious, and veiled urge to violence cartoon against President Barack Obama this writer demanded that Post boss Rupert Murdoch issue this statement.
The 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.
Though it took a firestorm week of massive demonstrations, threats of a boycott, and an FCC license challenge (the Murdoch owned Fox Network), and a Mt. Everest sized stack of emails, letters, and faxes demanding the firing of Post management, Murdoch pretty much issued a statement that came close to what this writer demanded.
But that by no means closes the book on the sorry Post-Murdoch-Fox saga. It can, and probably will happen again. Start with Murdoch's apology. There were three escape clauses buried in it. One is the self-serving, lame Post defense that the cartoon was just fun and games spoofery of Obama's stimulus plan. The other is a rehash of the other Post editor's fall back line that the cartoon was not meant to be racist. Murdoch's final give the paper a pass defense was his declaration that the cartoon was "interpreted" as racist by "others."
That's not a whole heck of a lot better than the non-apology, apology Post editors issued a day after their public shellacking.
But even if Murdoch had made a sincere bare-the-chest heartfelt apology it wouldn't amount to much. That's the standard ploy that shock jocks, GOP big wigs, and assorted public personalities employ when they get caught with their racial pants down.
On a few occasions the offenders have been reprimanded, suspended, and even dumped. That won't happen with the Post editors, or the offending cartoonist, and Murdoch gave absolutely no hint that anyone would be disciplined for the racial slander. There are two reasons why. They tell much about why the Post, Murdoch's media empire, and shock jocks can get away with demeaning gays, blacks, Latinos Asians, Muslims, and women and skip away with a caressing hand slap.
One is that these guys ramp up ratings and that make media syndicates such as Fox and the Post's cash registers jingle.
The other reason is that it's virtually impossible to effectively muzzle cartoonists such as Sean Delonas and others that draw or talk race trash is the sphinx like silence of top politicians, broadcast industry leaders, and corporate sponsors.
Sharpton, Spike Lee, and a handful of local New York politicians led the charge against the Post, but that's pretty much where it ended. The problem of the silence or perfunctory belated criticism by higher ups to racial taunts surfaced a few years ago following then Senate Majority leader designate Trent Lott's veiled tout of segregation. It touched off a furor, and ultimately Lott stepped down from the post, but it took nearly a week for Bush to make a stumbling, and weak sounding disavowal of him. The silence from top politicians and industry leaders to public racism was even more deafening a few of years ago when former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett made his weird taunt that aborting black babies could reduce crime. Even as calls were made from the usual circles almost always blacks and liberal Democrats for an apology, or his firing from his syndicated national radio show, neither Bush or any other top GOP leader said a mumbling word about Bennett.
There's another reason for their silence. The last two decades many Americans have become much too comfortable using code language to bash and denigrate blacks. In the 1970s, the vocabulary of covert racially loaded terms included terms such as "law and order," "crime in the streets," "permissive society," "welfare cheats," "subculture of violence," "subculture of poverty," "culturally deprived" and "lack of family values" seeped into the American lexicon about blacks. Some politicians seeking to exploit white racial fears routinely tossed about these terms.
In the 1980s new terms such as "crime prone," "war zone," "gang infested," "crack plagued," "drug turfs," "drug zombies," "violence scarred," "ghetto outcasts" and "ghetto poverty syndrome" were shoved into public discourse. These were covert racial code terms for blacks and they further reinforced the negative image of young black males as dope dealers, drive by shooters, and educational cripples. And the image of young black women as a dysfunctional collection of B's and "hos," welfare queens, and baby makers.
Obama is hardly exempt from this irresponsible race tinged character assault. The non-stop whisper and slander campaign against President Obama by packs of bloggers, talk jocks, and even a senator on the legitimacy of his US citizenship is a case in point.
The loud demands will continue that Murdoch back up his kind of sort of apology with real action. But he won't. There's simply too much money in racial trash talk (and cartooning), and too much silence from the higher ups that send a tacit signal condoning it. That silence is Murdoch's ultimate trump card.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).
I agree with other folks who cite the other examples of racist cartoons this artist has used in the past -- nothing anyone can say will convince me that he didn't understand the racism he portrayed. I appreciate that Murdoch apologized, but I don't think he can speak for anyone other than himself when he says that there was no intentional racism in the cartoon. Perhaps he hasn't been to the South, but I also think those who create publications or produce the content have an obligation to be more educated about traditional racist portrayals. Either Murdoch and Delonas are woefully ignorant or disgustingly racist. How sad.
The only person that should be offended is the white woman laying in a hospital fighting for life as she knew it because she got her hands and face ripped off. Are you kidding me? Why do ppl want to create problems where there aren't any?
Why are Blacks equating themselves to a Chimpanzee!!! I never considered that once. It was obvious to me that this cartoon was based on the Chimp attack and The Chimp was equated to the Stimulus Bill. Why would anybody think that Obama was portrayed by the Chimp in the cartoon?
Sharpton and Lee need to sit down....they are making Black ppl look bad.
I am a 'white' woman and I can tell you that comparisons to apes, monkeys, etc. have long been and are still used against Blacks. It is a fact of life they must live with day in and day out.
If you are so insensitive to the plight of your fellow humans, I feel sorry for you. That you find it necessary to display it so blatantly is a mystery to me.
We need to stand up and be heard again. Boycotts do work-- but it takes long, hard, slogging work before they are effective.
One thing that may be useful is: rather than simply not watching FOX or reading Rupert's papers, take a look at them and begin writing letters to their sponsors stating that you will boycott THEM unless they pull their advertising. Then, follow through with the boycotts until you no longer see those ads on FOX.
A lack of advertisers will hit them in the pocketbook much more quickly and effectively than simply not watching their programming.
"They'll (Congress) have to get somebody else to write the next stimulus bill (since we just killed the crazy Connecticut chimp they hired to write the first one)."
If the President were white people would be scratching their heads at this cartoon.
STOP THAT FOX DUMBING DOWN PROCESS ON YOUR FAMILY.
It would be different if Obama had writen the porkulus bill, but he didn't did he.
No it was Nacy Pelosi who wrote it so she is the monkey.
The only people who see racism in eveything are the people on the left.
You guys are tyhe ones who always see racism when there is none.
The only people who don't see racism in ANYTHING are the people on the right, and I think that's a much bigger problem!
We all know that racism in America is alive and well, and it's shown just how healthy it is since President Obama's campaign and election. The racist connotations in the cartoon were blatant, and the only way one can see it otherwise is to read into the cartoon what was NOT in it all, such as seeing two or more people in one monkey! The skilled experienced politically-astute cartoonist could have very easily drawn two monkeys instead of one, if it was his intention to make that inference!
I think those who see the racism, that we all know exists, are much more in reality than those who don't. In fact, I'm beginning to think that those who don't see it or choose not to see it simply don't want to it, maybe because they don't want to see themselves.
Its all perception.
An AA woman has an excellent blog about this issue on this site called Brown vs. Monkey or something.
Unfortunately, it is our fellow citizens that apparently like what they see hear and do. This is America and unfortunately we have become less educated and more infatuated with fantasy than reality.
Is this not clear enough that our world ranking in education is 26-32? (depends on what data)
What more do we need ? Do we just continue as usual; because we are in such great shape as a country. Do we continue to pretend all is ok except for the 'government'?
Our nation's foundation is cracked and almost in shatters?
What gets me is the nerve of the Republicans to speak as if they know how to fix what they have done.
The Republican that is a Rhodes Scholar will challenge the less than one month old Presiedent and tell him what he needs to do. Do they think the NOVEMBER ELECTIONS meant NOTHING?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-wolff/chimp-cartoon-writes-ny-p_b_169147.html
The second is the silver lining. Unlike OJ, Jeremiah Wright & other incidents, there is no misunderstanding between Blacks and Whites about this. Everybody with a brain understood that the cartoon was unfunny, disturbing and had a racist code built into it. At least that is a step in the right direction.