Obama compared to a chimp (by Latuff)

Latuff | 22.02.2009 06:03 | Anti-racism | World

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

New York Post Obama chimp cartoon causes outrage

A New York Post cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police has drawn outrage from civil rights leaders. The cartoon caption reads: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee who was killed on Monday by police in Connecticut after it mauled a friend of its owner.

Some critics called the cartoon racist and others said it suggests that Obama should be assassinated. “To compare the nation’s first African-American commander in chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel,” said Barbara Ciara, president of the US National Association of Black Journalists.

High resolution version of the above cartoon here:

http://dc.indymedia.org/usermedia/image/1/large/new_york_post_obama_chimp_cartoon_causes_outrage.gif
And here:

http://ia331417.us.archive.org/2/items/NewYorkPostObamaCartoonCausesOutrage/NewYorkPostObamaChimpCartoonCausesOutrage.gif

Latuff
e-mail: latuff@uninet.com.br
Homepage: http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Insight/Article.aspx?id=944077

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Chimps

22.02.2009 09:45

and we never saw Bush portrayed as one, did we?

orang utan

Am I the only one...

22.02.2009 16:15

Who saw that cartoon and thought it was saying, "This economic recovery plan looks like it was written by a chimp"?

Admittedly, I'm not familiar with the cartoonists other work.

MonkeyBot

Well I thought

22.02.2009 18:16

It was comparing him to George W. Bush whose image as a chimp is rather more familiar.

New Yorkers should actually take notice of what the 99% of the world says rather than assuming that they know whats best.

confused

the cartoon in question

22.02.2009 19:02

Obama chimp cartoon from New York Post

to save people having to search for the original cartoon that caused the problems, here it is.

I think it is within the IM guidelines to post this here. If not, here is a link to it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01299/cartoon_1299301c.jpg

If even this is against guidelines, you will just have to Google for it. It's all over the internet, so there will be no problem finding it.

I totally oppose racism but I don't think this cartoon is racist at all. I think the people against it are misunderstanding the satire. And Bush was always portrayed as a chimp anyway.

anon

Satire

23.02.2009 09:51

Looks like satire to me.

As was said above, it looks like it was saying that a chimp could have written the stimulus plan.

Travis Pickle

23.02.2009 21:03

In case noone knows, the original cartoonist was referencing the main TV news story, a chimpanzee called Travis shot dead after eating a womans face. Seemingly Travis knew how to use the internet so be aware of any posters here could be a face-eating chimp. Whether the reference was chosen deliberately or inadvertently out of racisim is arguable but the US didn't suddenly become a non-racist country.

Danny

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