New York Times Political Cartoon

[Thorne]

I understand other people's viewpoints and I can, and do, see how this could be taken as a racist statement. But my feeling is that it's all in the eye of the beholder. While I am intellectually familiar with the idea of equating some races with monkeys, when I looked at that cartoon I didn't see a racist depiction. It's not until other people screamed about racism that the idea ever even occurred to me.

Like Master Eq, I see the cartoonist combining two recent news stories in a supposedly humorous way to bring attention to both. Was he trying to be racist? I don't know, and no one but the cartoonist knows, either. And what if the cartoonist is black himself? Does that still make the cartoon racist?

And why isn't anyone making disparaging comments about the two cruel police officers who killed a helpless animal? Couldn't we view this as an animal rights issue?

C'mon, people. You can read into that thing almost anything you want to read into it. And it isn't until somebody starts making a lot of noise about what they perceive is wrong that most people will pay attention. If nobody had made any comments about this cartoon, who would have even noticed it? Just a relative handful of New York readers, and it would have died a natural death.

In fact, just as a point of interest, how many people here actually saw that cartoon when it was initially published, and how many didn't see it until after all the noise started and the accusations of racism were thrown around?

[damyanti]

Was he trying to be racist? I don't know, and no one but the cartoonist knows, either. And what if the cartoonist is black himself? Does that still make the cartoon racist?

Was he trying to be racist? I answered that in a post above. But being a racist/holding prejudices is not exclusive to the "white" and holding negative racist prejudices towards "one's own" is scarily common.

In fact, just as a point of interest, how many people here actually saw that cartoon when it was initially published, and how many didn't see it until after all the noise started and the accusations of racism were thrown around?

I saw it before "accusations of racism were thrown around" and it was pretty clear to me.

[Dr_BuzzCzar]

[B][COLOR="magenta"]
I saw it before "accusations of racism were thrown around" and it was pretty clear to me.

Ditto, I saw it and the very 1st thought I had was "that's going too far even for the Post".

[DuncanONeil]

The animal was not helpless, in fact it was attacking people. The people that lived with it and loved it!