Comments on: The 2009 ”What The HELL Were They Thinking?” Award Goes to…

By: k-otic

k-otic — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:55:39 +0000

OH and for those of you that think things like this don’t have effects, please go here.
http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/02/the-connection-between-blacks-as-apes-and-police-brutality/

By: k-otic

k-otic — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:32:30 +0000

I am a libertarian to the core, so I believe anyone should be able to say anything in a free speech (although this one is blatantly offensive). However, all I am going to say is if you believe in free speech, than I don’t expect to hear ONE complaint when the backlash of racist cartoons against white people start showing up (and they should.) Fair is fair, and the fact that after all these years people still find it FUNNY to make jokes like this, just shows that we are all monkeys. But so be it. that’s freedom, crackers.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:51:22 +0000

No, Bill, you can draw a racist cartoon without deliberately setting out to do so. Many people who continue to express racist thoughts do so without realizing that they are racist. These people have acquired these thoughts thanks to racist remarks, ideas, images purveyed by the media, by friends & family, by a sheltered upbringing.

It is fallacious to examine the intent of the creator of any art work, even a cartoon. What we have here is a cartoon that uses an historically racist connection between a monkey (in this case, a chimp) & an African-American (in this case, President Obama). Thus, the cartoon is racist.

Tofor, I agree with you that the U.S. has made great strides in overcoming racism. This cartoon is a tiny backslide from that, but there are much bigger problems of bigotry toward races, classes, ethnicities, gender, & sexual orientation remaining.

By: tofor

tofor — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:19:05 +0000

Not Surprised-You criticise those of us who don’t think the comic is racist by asking what we gain by defending it, yet *you* come on here and call total strangers racist.

I enjoy this blog because of my love for comic strips. I participated vociferously in this discussion because of my interest in politics. We have here a cartoon that either attempts to say, “Obama is black and so it makes sense that he acts like a chimpanzee” which is racist, or it says, “The stimulus bill is so stupid it’s like it was written like a chimpanzee.” which is not racist. Taken at face value the message is clearly the latter and any other interpretation is simply looking for deeper layers of meaning that would normally only be considered on this very website. Because there are people interested in squashing any criticism of Obama, no matter how slight, this cartoon instead became a national scandal.

By: Not Surprised

Not Surprised — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:19:04 +0000

I’m really not surprised that there are idiots trying to defend this comic. I am a little saddened by it in 2009 though.

It’s clearly racist. It’s point is blatant and yet there are people fighting tooth and nail to defend it.

For what?

At the end of the day what do you earn for defending a racist comic online on a freaking blog?

You should be outraged that someone would try to get away with this. If you found it amusing then enjoy cowering and secretly enjoying racist stereotypes in total anonymity. Bring it out in public and you’ll get reamed.

The only monkeys are the idiots who found this comic amusing or somehow can’t understand how it’s racist.

By: Abby

Abby — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:43:37 +0000

I find it humorous that none of you find this comic funny. Especially since it is.
Grow a sense of humor.
This comic is only racist if that’s how you want to see it. I took it as the person who wrote the stimulus bill(not Obama, by the way) being compared to having the intelligence of a monkey, because the stimulus package isn’t going to help at all.
So by saying what was said in the comic, they’re saying, “I guess we’d better find another idiot to write something useless.”

By: S.P. Charles

S.P. Charles — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:22:06 +0000

Blacks = monkeys is a common American racist metaphor. That’s just the way it is. Whether it’s a connection you or I would ever make is irrelevent.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:07:49 +0000

Shortpacked’s got a comic up about this cartoon here. As for my opinion of the cartoon, I think there’s enough cause for the cartoon to be taken at face value without assuming it’s racist - When I first saw it (on that something awful thread) I hadn’t heard about the chimp-shooting incident and thought it was just an attempt to combine the ideas “This bill is so bad it’s as if it was written by a chimp” and “This bill is so bad, somebody should be shot for it.”

By: Mark Jones

Mark Jones — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:42:04 +0000

In a way, I think we’re giving the cartoonist too much credit by saying the chimp represents Obama. If I’d seen this cartoon without any sort of commentary, I would’ve merely assumed it was an attempt to combine two recent events, resulting in an unfunny comic.

Of course, even if we say that the chip *does* represent Obama, I’ve yet to see how that’s racist…couldn’t it just be a comment on the stimulus legislation?

By: Winter Wallaby

Winter Wallaby — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 04:26:22 +0000

Woo, hoo! 100 posts!