Regarding freedom of the press, this is a very bad precedent. Just as liberals were starting to get a tiny bit of traction on real issues and shake off a somewhat deserved reputation as a bunch of fussy little PC police...

Are you implying that I'm a coward for not being upset by this cartoon, as if that's the litmus test as to whether I care about racism?

We cringe when Muslims throw a hissy fit over a teddy bear or a cartoon about Mohammed. Yet now so-called "progressives" are doing the same for an ambiguous cartoon they can't even prove is about Obama or black people at all.

Now there's going to be a new rule of self-censorship for the papers: No cartoons about monkeys.

What other animal will be next? Chihuahuas, because it might offend Mexican immigrants? Cats and dogs, because it might offend Chinese restaurant owners? Rats, because it might offend New Yorkers?

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and a right to be free from group defamation.

No right is absolute, including right to free speech. Right to free speech isn't the only fundamental right at stake here. There is right to free from defamation, right to security, right to privacy.

Before there was a holocaust and pogroms, there was a concerted effort to dehumanize Jews throughout Europe using such frauds such as the 'Protocols of Zion'.

The recent genocide in Rwanda was preceeded by an effort to dehumanize one group by using racist speeches by radio-hosts and racist publications.

There has to be balance between one's right to free speech and another's right to feel secure, when there is a clash between such rights.

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I agree with Holder's statement and it goes way beyond the racial issue.

Polls show that more than half of the citizens of this country are not demanding justice for all the crimes of the Bush administration.

Those crimes include complicity in the 9/11 attacks, taking the country to war with lies,
illegal spying on US citizens, illegal torture of suspected combatants, looting the US treasury--the list goes on and on.

Any hope for a better future depends on whether
Eric Holder as attorney general turns out to be a brave man.

If he is not, our march to fascism will continue unabated.

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Oh, wait, isn't that the definition of NOT racist behavior?

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"The possibility that white America would sooner see Barack Obama assassinated than allow a black man to reach the White House was a very real fear throughout the presidential campaign."

White America? So all white people are now lumped together as bigots and racists? I'm sorry but no this is not a very real fear. The vast majority of white america is not racist contrary to what the author apparently believes. I wish he would judge white people on a person by person basis. I am offended by this racist article.

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....(switches to great mental visual of various politicians - ours are mostly white too - jumping up and down in parliament and slapping their hands on their desks) ....

....WOOOOHHHH-OOOOOH... AHHHHHH...EEEEEE-EEEEE-EEEE :.D

... other than that it's usually NOT funny if you have to explain the joke first :.?

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The dress is missing..it represents Pelosi!

Would an albino chimp be better for the looney left?

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As a true freethinking independent (I do not subscribe to one ideology or political party) I have to say that from my observations most right wing ideologues do not even believe that racism exist or, that even worse, that it should exist. Pathetic! Yes, extreme liberals and leftists maybe overly sensitive to racism...but at least they do not live in total denial or ignorance

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I do not understand why we let racialists, race baiters such as Al Sharpton decide what is offensive or not.

Read this book about the Loony Left [the Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wrights , Radical feminists, Gay Activists] and the Rabid Right [Right to life, Anti abortion movement, fundamentalist social conservatives] and how they set the tone of the debate.

Why do we let them hijack us? Why do we let them decide and set the tone for legislative agenda when they are in Beckermans words "American Idiots." When did America become a "Dumbocracy"?

DUMBOCRACY: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right and Other American Idiots



In this election year, we hear much about the all-powerful "bases" of each major party. Who are these activists? What drives them? And why are they all equally dangerous to our lives, liberties, and pursuits of happiness?

In Dumbocracy, journalist Marty Beckerman spends four years with foot soldiers of the Left and Right -- pro-choice and anti-choice, pro-gay rights and anti-gay rights, pro-war and anti-war -- and delivers a searing, hilarious indictment of the True Believer mentality.

Whether it's banning free speech to protect people's feelings or banning adult entertainment to enforce morality, extremists have no use for our civil liberties. The ends justify the means for each side -- such as brainwashing children and criminalizing dissent -- because culture warriors have no other reason for living than victory. However, Beckerman is unafraid to expose their tactics -- and their never-ending hypocrisies -- with comical, over-the-top glee worthy of South Park or The Daily Show.

No extremist will escape unscathed, but moderate readers of all stripes will relish Beckerman's iconoclasm. Beckerman's grand political satire will have readers laughing on the floor and ripping the hair from their scalps.

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Just another "typical white person" with another bad cartoon. By the time this four years is over they will have proved that all "typical white people" are the racists, and Al Sharpton will be the official state p.c. controller.
All hail to Obama...

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Quite honestly, the first time I saw the cartoon I believed it was in bad taste. But only because it capitalized on a horrendous situation in which a woman was horribly maimed.

I never for one moment saw it as racist, because I don't see our president in that light. I assumed the joke was that a monkey could have written the stimulus package. HA HA, big deal, crass as it was, it did not appear to be racist to me. Just bad humor.

I sincerely wonder about the mindset of someone who automatically associates chimpanzees with black human beings.

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This type of satire towards blacks is nothing new and has been going on since newspapers have been in existence. The Ny Times along with all the other major newspapers across the nation are dying off and soon the majority of people will get their info off the internet.

Black people have bigger issues they need to address and focus on such as black on black crime,drugs, the family structure and other issues. Black people will never get the respect they want until they learn to respect themselves first. We cannot control the actions and ways of other people (especially if that other people have been practicing such behavior since their historical beginnings). It is what it is.

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The question is how much and whether it is acceptable to ostrich the issue.

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Yeah, yeah, spare me the First Amendment bullshit speech. I find it amazing how so many people will wrap themselves up in the right to free speech and expect those who disagree to just shut up and take it.

Well, let me refresh your limited memories here: the First Amendment does indeed guarantee the right of both speech and press. However, it also says that the public can seek REDRESS of grievances, and not just of the government. In other words, the New York Post can indeed publish that racist cartoon (and anyone who doesn't know that primates have been used to represent black people in racist propaganda is obviously too stupid to live), but the public has a right to take the Post and any other organization or group to the mat--therefore exercising THEIR right to free speech.

The problem is that we are too scared to have the kind of open and honest national dialogue on race because well, we Americans don't like being made to feel uncomfortable. We'd rather tread lightly and tip-toe around the tulips while singing 'Kumbaya', dressed in our 'fair trade' organic clothing. Even liberals, who are supposed to be champions of the oppressed, tend not to want to get their hands too dirty or get too involved in the struggle for TRUE racial equality.

Also, people endlessly BITCH about Black History Month, and frankly I'm not crazy about it either, but this is what happens when Americans are too fucking LAZY to demand that the history of ALL Americans, regardless of color or gender, be included in the history books--and no, I don't just mean SLAVERY either. The solution is quite simple and I'm surprised that no one has figured it out yet--rewrite those stale old Eurocentric history books to include the contributions of people of color. Real easy, right?

Bottom line, until we lance the wound of bigotry and allow it to heal, it's just going to fester and get worse.

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Sorry, I think you are off track.

For those who fail to see the "humor" of the cartoon:

The police (righteous authority?) have just SHOT the MONKEY who had the audacity to author the stimulus bill, with the comment "they (who, liberals?) will have to find someone else" to author the next one, ha ha!

This code speech not only suggests the old racist idea of black (president) equals monkey, but INVITES HIS JUSTIFIED ASSASSINATION!!!!!

How can you be missing this? I'm sure there are some in the target audience who aren't. How many of our liberal leaders have to be shot before we wake up?

During the previous administration, people were detained for wearing T shirts saying anything even vaguely negative about Bush or his administration. I want to know why the Secret Service isn't closing the Post's editorial office and detaining people.

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The racism in this country is (some not all) BLACK people dissing white people, for baloney reasons. This is AMERICA, where any immigrant can become successful--economically, spiritually, intellectually. So can any born and raised AMERICAN.

If black people feel like a monkey in a political cartoon is a symbol for the President of the United States, well, so it might be! You don't complain when it was President Bush who was so caricaturized, why complain about Obama then? He's not even 100% black, he's only 50% black and not a black who has slavery in his past (unless his ancestors sold their fellow africans to the arabs for shipment to America.) Obama is 50% white american, and btw in case you forgot he was raised by his WHITE grandparents, because both his birth parents were deadbeats.

If black people feel like they are 'held back', THEY are doing the holding.

I don't go around saying that 'men held me back', because I am a woman. No. I am what I am because of my own efforts in life (and of course with the Grace of God). Being a woman didn't cause me any more stress than being a an african-american. If I can go into the world at 13 and rise to be a self-made multi-millionaire than ANYONE can, regardless of race, culture, or sex.

ANYone can work and study and strive until they have reached their own goals, just as I did. The only thing holding black americans back is their own desire to be 'set apart' from the rest of the american community.

This black 'entitlement' thing (because that's what it is) reminds me of many deaf people, who don't want to be part of the 'hearing world' so they deny themselves or their deaf children the cochlear implant that would allow them to have that key sense of hearing.

Black americans suffer because of many reasons, 99.9% self-imposed restrictions... not staying in school, allowing gangs in their society, allowing drugs in their society, not dressing appropriately for their job roles, getting gold caps for teeth (which, btw, was a WHITE thing from the 40s/50s), using welfare payments as 'income' instead of 'temporary financial help', talking street talk instead of good English, using the word "nigger" as a term of endearment and also as a devisive race word instead of bringing it into mainstream slang then disdaining it like the f word or the c word or the m word as in 'poor taste'.

Black americans also do themselves a disservice by labelling themselves as 'african-american' when they are part of a melting pot society and thus are simply AMERICAN. They should refrain from naming a main street through their (voluntary) segregated communities "MLK Jr. Blvd", because that lets other people know where NOT to drive at night, and it also ignores all the other prominent black people who had a serious impact on society or culture such as Sojourner Truth, or the peanut guy, etc. and also makes it seem as though MLK Jr. was the 'only' good preacher, when in point of fact he stole (err, borrowed) most of his speeches from other ministers.

Furthermore, it is black people who voluntarily segregate themselves at parks and beaches, in churches, at high school proms, and on and on. Go take a look at Brazil. It REALLY is a melting pot where everyone speaks Portuguese and also their own native tongue, and they have native celebrations that all Brazilians attend. They don't fight amongst themselves, or pretend that the light-skinned people care to hold anyone back. Oh and while black-americans are bla bla blaaaahing about how they are being held back by 'white society', ASIAN-americans are simply going about their business, sending their kids to after-school education facilities after the daily public school lets out, paying cash for cars and houses, running their own businesses that earn them a good living, and generally leading productive lives.

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We tend to get outraged over things like cartoons and use of language. Pop-culture transgressions. And then things like the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe don't even make it on the radar screen. Maybe that's where we are right now, that's all we can handle. I understand that use of language and symbolism are important things. But dark-skinned humans 100 miles from the United States are starving to death and that's not in the headlines. It makes language and symbolism seem much less urgent.

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It's just a lie to claim that the monkey represents the bill's "authors" and not Obama. Everyone knows the stimulus bill is his initiative: he, and no one else, has been the one campaigning nationally for it; if it fails the NY Post will call it his failure. The cartoon is saying our President is subhuman, kill him. There's a word for this kind of violent, racist sedition: NAZI.

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I'm sickened by the level of white denial here. How so MANY people can be so entrenched in their disbelief and faux shock that people got upset about an overtly racist cartoon merely proves Holder's point. Amerikaans are indeed cowards.

Course it's pretty tough to have a frank discussion when the discourse space is taken up by blatant white supremacy, shutting down any prayer of open dialogue or discussion. All the progressive or liberal armed with knowledge gets is white supremacist denial, distraction, projection, evasion, etc.

Seems to me, the only thing left to do is roll up the sleeves and fuckin' club it out, a regular ole fashioned street brawl. Maybe once everyone's got the piss and vinegar outta their system and the denial's been beaten out of the closet white supremacists we can sort things out. Not sure how to ensure the miscreant supremacist ilk end up dead in the process... on second thought, maybe the brawls would continue with them until they're all worn out too.

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Eric Holder may have made a poor choice of words, but his statement is correct.

Something hard to come to grips with is the fact that the person offended is the best judge of whether or not offense has been given.

Stereotypes are a core element of jokes. We often casually dismiss an objection by saying, "Hey, it was only a joke." Fags, kikes, niggers, honkies, dikes, breeds, and the like might be funny to some, but not to those persons who are the butts of jokes.

We should stop saying, "I'm sorry if you are offended (which is not an apology)," but rather say "I'm sorry I offended you."

As a nation, we seem hellbent on moving on and letting past grievances die in the past. It's easy for white persons who never experienced the degredation and horror of slavery, Jim Crow laws, terror and lynchings to want to leave it all behind. Jesus! Those damn darkies are free. They can vote, for Christ's sake! They get white men's jobs thanks to the Civil Rights Act and quotas. They got a nigger for president! What the hell do they want, anyway?

Well, how about reparations for 200 years of slavery, for one thing. Some estimates are that it would be worth about a trillion dollars. After all the wealth of this nation was built on the backs of slaves.

And, what about the American Indians who languish in abject poverty on land nobody wants? All treaties were abrogated and no payments the government promised to deliver have ever been paid. Forget? Forget you!

What about that 40 acres and a mule promised after the Civil War? I would be delighted to get 40 free acres anywhere in the United States and a mule to plow the soil.

Lynchings, and the terrorizing of black families for 100 years should just be consigned to "regrettable incidents?"

The common myth in this country is that racism, blatant racism, is a Dixie thing. Wrong! Slavery began in New England when indentured whites could buy their freedom but eventually black adults could not, and in time neither could their children. It was in northern states like Ohio that signs were posted warning, "Nigger, don't let the sun go down on you in this town."

Even many abolitionists, if not all, did not believe that Negroes were equal to white men (and neither did Abraham Lincoln). They were more like the SPCA than the ACLU.

Quite often the most ardent proponents of equal rights are closet racists. That's why Blacks will often say they prefer to deal with white Southerners than white Northerners. At least they know where they stand with rednecks.

It is these past crimes and lingering injustices that Eric Holder implied in his statement. It is not for white people to say what is or is not offensive to Blacks. It is for Blacks to say, and for white people to make sincere restitution.

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The average American racist is one who will never admit to being racist and lies their way through life about this issue and many many others. The first lie is an exploratory mission, but once a liar finds out how gullible most folks are, the lies are the norm for them and not the exception. Personally, I would rather go one on one in debate with a KKK member than live next door to the lying racist. If you can not be out in the open and proud of what you are or do, maybe you shouldn't be or do those things???

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my goodness people. not only do you not understand racism but you REALLY dont understand white privilege. you can afford to "not care" about racism. you use the first amendment from my constitution to justify this? I will defend the right of speech I hate to exist but that doesnt mean that I cant HATE YOU. You whip crackin, car draggin, knuckle draggin idiots. forget cowards. we are a nation of crackers. shut down that piece of shit post. dont send the police. send an angry mob. why do you think that that sharpton has a friggin full time job doing protests all over NY? cuz amadou diallo gets shot 41 times or whatever the fuck happened. please.

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Lesse, we have the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression putting the middle class on the streets and what do people protest? A cartoon.

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...maybe this will wake you up.

You'll see a steady stream of racist postings comparing black people to apes, which has been going on long before the NY Post released its cartoon. Of course, the black=chimp racism is not the only thing going on on this message board--there's also racism against other races, sexism, anti-semitism, and plenty of more rational discussion--but it's there and has been going on for a while.

Warning: adult content, including pornographic photos. NOT "work safe".

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New essay by anti-racist educator & activist Tim Wise:

COLOR-BLIND, POWER-OBLIVIOUS: ERIC HOLDER AND THE WHITEWASHING OF RACISM

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BlackCommentator.com

Commentary by Anthony Asadullah Samad, Ph.D. -

New York Post "Chimp" Cartoon: Incendiary Satire Has A Dangerous Past

Commentary by Bill Fletcher, Jr. -

Race, History, and Eric Holder's Remarks - The African World

Commentary by Larry Pinkney -

‘America:’ "A Nation of Cowards?" - Keeping it Real

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