MONKEYSHINE

The New York Post just released a FORMAL APOLOGY for offending some of its viewers. It's a response to the outrage over a cartoon associating the stimulus bill with a dead monkey. People everywhere exploded about this, suggesting it was thinly veiled racism targeting a black president.

I really didn’t see it, or wasn’t looking for it anyway. I surf the web absently for news while I’m on the phone, so when this came up I clicked the cartoon instead of reading the story. I immediately associated the stimulus bill with the recent shooting of a monkey gone wild. I felt it timely but not very funny… I love animals, even the rabid ones (at a distance).

But by the afternoon, this story ballooned to Al Sharpton proportions. I only saw what all the fuss was about after I paid attention. I guess the House and Senate fought over the stimulus bill so hard that I stopped associating it directly with Barack Obama. I mean the guy had to use some star power just to get the damn thing passed.

Please don’t misunderstand; my dissent in no way extends to the protestors or their issue with the image. I fully acknowledge the racial slurs passed between white and black people through our shared history. But I felt my initial experience of the cartoon was telling, so I wanted to get it out there. I just didn’t see the racist implications at first, and I’m sorry so many other people did.