A racist cartoon sparks outrage

A CROWD of about 500 people came out for a demonstration in midtown Manhattan on February 19 to protest a racist cartoon that appeared in the New York Post.

The cartoon shows two police officers having just shot a chimpanzee (this was apparently some sort of reference to a Connecticut incident, where police shot a 200-pound chimp that had mauled someone). One cop says to the other: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

There's a long history, of course, of racist depictions of African Americans as monkeys--and it wasn't lost on anyone that the first Black president of the United States is ultimately responsible for the stimulus bill that recently passed Congress. The fact that the cartoon showed its stand-in for Barack Obama lying dead from police bullets was a further sick twist.

As we were approaching the protest on 47th Street, I could see the crowd, and I mentioned how many people there were. A man overheard and asked what was going on. I told him, and he and the woman he was with joined the protest. He said the cartoon was "disgusting," so I said "come join us," and they did.

A few people came all the way from New Jersey on their lunch hour. I had sent out a Facebook announcement, and one of my coworkers actually attended. Many people on Faceback had set their status to "boycott the New York Post." Various radio stations, including WBAI, also announced the protest.

There were news reporters everywhere, as well as a number of politicians, including Rep. Charles Rangel and Rev. Al Sharpton. Members of the SEIU Local 32BJ and the transit workers' union attended.

The protest was a block long. People marched in a circle, chanting, "Hey hey, ho ho, the New York Post has got to go" and "Yes we can...shut down the Post!" There were handmade signs and large posters reading: "Don't buy the Post," "Respect our President" and "We are not chimps, we are not monkeys."

People were outraged. I overheard one man saying, "How could they think they could get away with this?"

Most of the people I spoke to said they don't buy the Post, which is owned by right-wing media baron Rupert Murdoch. One woman said that this incident is "not new," and as far as she was concerned, "the Post has been a racist paper for years."
Adrian Jones, New York City