If you ask me this is just another Muslim cartoon controversy!
NY Post editor defends cartoon; knocks Sharpton
The New York Post is defending its cartoon today but Sean Delonas where a police officer shoots a chimp — playing off the rampaging Travis — with one cop saying: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
The cartoon quickly sparked a controversy, with Al Sharpton saying that it’s “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.”
Sharpton continued: “One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that “Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”
“Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African-American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill.”
But editor-in-chief Col Allan defended the cartoon, in a statement to Politico.“The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”
UPDATE: NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous released a statement: “NAACP continues to fight for a country where America’s promise can be realized for all and where racism Is just a tragic memory. We are saddened that the New York Post chose to create a symbol that is so divisive, insensitive and antithetical to that goal. The NY Post must do better.”