Which was more offensive about chimp cartoon, racial stereotype or that chimp was shot?

[yurbud]

As someone who called Bush a chimp for his whole presidency, I feel that I have to temper any outrage over Obama being portrayed as a chimp out of fairness (even though Bush had far more chimp like qualities like lack of verbal language, abstract thinking, or the ability to walk upright without difficulty)

More disturbing to me was the fact that the chimp was shot, which continues the right wing trend of subtly condoning and even encouraging someone to take a shot at him.

I wonder what other people think though.

Which was more disturbing?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. I'm not offended that the chimp was shot.

Hell, if I'm in a police car and a chimp rips off the door and charges me I'd shoot him too.

Now there's certainly the complaint that the chimp was improperly cared for.

But I don't find that particularly offensive.

At least compared to racist cartoons run in major media outlet and defended by racists all over the country.

[yurbud]

4. even if the chimp was meant to represent an African American mildly left of center political leader?

Given our history how the careers of successful left of center and African American leaders ended in the 60s?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Are you talking about the cartoon or the actual chimp?

[yurbud]

9. cartoon

[daninthemoon]

2. I know what you mean about the chimperor stuff. I will try to refrain

from such aspersions in future, since I now have a sense of the shoe being on the other foot. Of course, there can be no question that the reasons for * getting that nickname are far different than the connotations in this cartoon. Also significant is the "beware of dog" sign prominently in the center of the scene.

[Uzybone]

3. How many times does someone have to say this?

Do you yet not understand that there is a long racist history of comparing black people to apes?

What does the fact that people called Bush a chimp have to do with this? Bush is a white man, racists never compared white men to apes.

[yurbud]

8. I know that history. Obama is not just a black man though--he is the most powerful man on earth

at least most powerful publicly.

I remember some black scholars saying black racism didn't have the same weight as white racism because whites had more political power and in the past even absolute impunity to mistreat blacks, so for a good part of history, a racial insult to blacks could have been followed by ''get a rope,'' which gave the insult far more emotional weight than a racial taunt from a black person directed at a white. Usually when white people tell me they are offended by some racial comment directed at them I tell them they aren't, they just wish they were.


Obama becoming president puts a little bit of a curve on this. While those insults can still do harm to the psyches of middle and working class blacks, for someone of Obama's stature, I imagine he sees the insult as hurting the person who said it far more than it hurt him.

If the effects of discrimination were mostly gone, that would always be the correct response to racist expressions. People wouldn't be hurt, they'd just look at the person who made it like they farted in church.

[Occam Bandage]

6. Neither: Obama was not portrayed as a chimp. The chimp was portrayed as a chimp,

and the joke was that the bill was so bad it was as if the Xanax chimp wrote it.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. to me -- this is a total stretch. Imaginary. Overreaction. What is offensive

is making a cartoon about a chimp who ripped a woman's face off. She is lying
in the hospital.

[slackmaster]

10. I found it offensive because it exploits a tragic event

A woman is disfigured and disabled for life, an endangered animal is dead, and a woman who is left alone without a beloved pet will have to deal with the guilt that her decision to keep a dangerous animal as a pet caused her friend.