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Dear Mr. President,
As our newly elected leader, I call upon you to to lead us in America. You are a black man, leading the most powerful country in the world. As much as I would like to believe that racism doesn't exist, it does. Please do your part to make it disappear.
I ask this because this week a satirical cartoon was sketched out, and printed in a popular publication. A cartoon that depicts a chimp getting shot by police (for attacking a woman). A cartoon that also pokes fun at the ridiculousness that is the current stimulus bill. Now for me, I see nothing wrong with this. The point of these cartoons is to take current events and joke about them. But you see, Mr. President, many people are making a connection between the primate in the cartoon, the comment, and black people. This I find ridiculous. In 2009, this connection should not be made.
I ask of you to come out to the public, your people, and tell us all that a joke is a joke. A cartoon is a cartoon. Tell us that you personally feel that this is not racism.
With Great Respect,
JonnyUps
2.19.2009
Dear Mr. President,
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3 comments:
But Jonny, my friend, if racism is done away with, what else will Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do all day? Get actual jobs? Contribute something meaningful to society instead of furthering division and hatred? Fat chance of that. But just in the off chance that it does happen, as a backup I'm sure Obama threw a bailout for them somewhere in that 1,000 page bill that no one's ever read.
Whether it was intended to be racist or not, studies have shown that the depiction of black people as primates directly leads to an increase of violence perpetrated against blacks. To then have this comic show POLICE killing this monkey/president is a pretty inflammatory gesture. Why couldn't it have been congress or something assassinating him, not a group of people who a) are supposed to serve and protect, and b) already have a high incidence of brutality towards minorities in their field? Furthermore, it has never in the history of America been okay to openly joke about assassinating a president in a credible publication. All racism aside, it's crossing a line. I don't feel Obama has any obligation to vindicate this cartoonist from any backlash he may be receiving. Political cartoons aren't meant to be embraced by everyone, and the cartoonist is in the wrong line of business if he thinks that's the case. The fact of the matter is that the guy who drew this thing should have known better. If you draw political cartoons for a living, you should be more away of the historical and social implications of your choices of imagery.
I agree to an extent. But...if President Obama wrote the stimulus bill, it would be clearly portraying the assassination of our President. However, the monkeys in Washington D.C. wrote the bill and they are the ones being joked about. This wasn't about color, or political lines. It was about 2 current events.
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