NY Post chimp cartoon reveals racist power structure

I can't understand how anyone can see the recent New York Post's chimp cartoon as anything other than racist. To begin with, the drawing depicts President Obama in classical racist imagery as an ape. As noted by Al Sharpton,

"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."

But showing an African American as an ape is the least of this cartoon's problems. The drawing more than hints at the white power structure assassinating the first African American president, thereby forcing the economy in a new direction. Remember the rabid anti-Socialist death threats shouted at McCain rallies? Or the questioning of Obama's trustworthiness and ability to make decisions due to his supposed associations with the Weather Underground terrorists? This cartoon starkly illustrates the privileged and powerful putting an end to what they consider a threatening economic policy, as fearful white male police officers brandish a smoking pistol after killing the crazed ape who wrote the stimulus bill.

And that's without mentioning that the shooting takes place on a city street by cops, another perennial image of the oppression of black Americans.

Frankly, I would rather have a poor economic policy than this horrendous cartoon.

(The picture above does not show the whole cartoon. The bullet holes and blood are a little too graphic for my taste, so if you want to see the cartoon in its entirety, you can do so here.)