Bill Stovin's Blog http://mediamelon.net recently ran a blog on the Chimpanzee Cartoon which appeared in the New York Post. My question was this:
If someone did a cartoon of a monkey morphing into Bush, it is humour. The same cartoon monkey morphing into Obama is what? Why?
This answer from "Corey" was exactly what I was looking for and very well put:
There is no reoccurring history of monkey’s personifying white people in negative racial ways.
Sure, if Bush anthropomorphically began swinging from trees and eating bananas, the reference would describe his own behavior without inferring a cultural or racial degradation. Political correctness is different than historical awareness.
Global consciousness still contains remnants of hateful thought using monkeys as a way to portray Black people. Hopefully evolution will, offer the time needed to educate people of little to no tolerance, or fade away their DNA .
The alternate view, and one that seems to have been minimized in all the commotion, is that the cartoon refers to the monkey in Congress who actually wrote the bill.
ReplyDeleteThe President does not write bills, only Congress can write a bill, the President can only sign or not sign it.
The bill was so obviously flawed and ill-conceived that only a monkey could have written it.
But people see what they want to see, and many are constantly looking for insults which may not exist.
True. Obama did not write the bill, obviously BUT it is inextricably associated with him in whatever form it is finally passed.
ReplyDeleteIF historically Blacks were never portrayed as monkeys, it would not be a problem.
Perception becomes reality.
We have a congress full of monkeys but then again that would be an insult to monkeys.
ReplyDeleteReader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain
ReplyDelete