Friday, February 20, 2009

Blown Out of Proportion

Why are people still talking about this cartoon? Al Sharpton (who's really getting good at reminding us all about how horrible the past was to blacks even when no one else really cares about it) is the one who turned this into a racist cartoon. The cartoon depicts a satirical look at the monkey that had to be shot in Connecticut and one of the officers says that now someone else will have to write the stimulus bill. When I first saw this cartoon, I immediately thought "Ha, ha! Our Congresspeople are ignorant, feces-throwing monkeys."

Apparently the Reverend Sharpton looked at that cartoon and immediately thought the monkey was drawn to be President Barack Obama (a reference to the way African-Americans were compared to monkeys). Now the news has been talking about that damn cartoon for three days or more and I'm getting tired of it. News Corp., who published the cartoon in the New York Post issued a pseudo-apology which is a lot more than I would've offered. I didn't see the monkey as President Obama, I saw it as a bunch of howling, screaming feces-throwing monkey in our Capitol.

Would the cartoon have been taken differently if the police officer had said something different or if the monkey was wearing a sash reading "Congress". I think people are looking too much into it because the police officer said "someone else" meaning only one person. Writing a law or a bill, especially one of this size, is a collaborative effort. President Obama didn't do it all, he only made suggestions and our House and Senate expanded on it to include things both sides wanted (like free ice cream for six months). I think Sharpton and any one else who always jumps on these types of things need to start picking their battles. I'm getting tired of trying to be made guilty about what happened before I was born and that my family had no part of and I'm sure there are others out there who agree with me.

And the worst part of it is that no one seems to care that a monkey had to die for all this to happen. Rest in Peace, Travis. What a way to make the news....