The NY Post, Chimpanzee and Modern Day Racism

I must confess that I read the NY Post daily for years not because of their breaking news but because of their gossip column and fodder about NY social society and such. Needless to say I will have stopped reading the NY Post.

Like most people I was stunned, offended and irritated the very first time I saw the ‘cartoon’ – not the second or third time – it was immediately repulsive! Each time I look at the ‘cartoon’ I become increasingly insulted.

 Even at first glance the image of a black chimpanzee represented a black man to me.  Once I read the caption and the dead chimp was associated with the stimulus package I thought “dead black chimp equals dead black president”.  Too often in New York City’s history NYPD officers have shot innocent black men dead in the streets of NY. In that context alone the cartoon is highly offensive and a so called parody is plain distasteful!  In additon there is NOTHING funny about a woman being attacked and mauled by the angry 200 pound ape named Travis; there is nothing funny about 55 year old Charla Nash’s face being torn up by this wild beast so I don’t see how this is a parody.

Whether this was the imagery famed cartoonist Sean Delonas intended, the offensive and violent nature of his work should have been apparent to him – I’m sure he has some common sense.  If common sense eluded Sean Delonas then editor Col Allen should have had enough wisdom and good judgment to tell Delonas that his cartoon was not acceptable and explain to Delonas why it could be viewed as distasteful, hateful and abominable.

 Not so long ago in May 2008 t-shirts were peddled in the state of Georgia by Marietta bar owner Mike Norman at his Mulligan’s Bar and Grill in Cobb County.  The image on the t-shirt showed a picture of Curious George peeling a banana, with the words “Obama ’08” underneath bringing back old stupid southern racist nonsense, gibberish and garbage.  Blacks in Georgia did not tolerate the hooey from Mike Norman and protested.  The publishing company that owns the Curious George image said they would take legal action to stop the sale of any t-shirt depicting Barack Obama as the monkey from their children’s books.

The history of moneys and apes being associated with blacks in America started with Buckner Payne.  In 1867 Reverend Buckner Payne an ignorant, unqualified junk scientist from the south said, “We take up the monkey, and trace him … through his upward and advancing orders – baboon, ourang-outang and gorilla, up to the negro, another noble animal, the noblest of the beast creation. The difference between these higher orders of the monkey and the negro is very slight, and consists mainly in this one thing: the negro can utter sounds that can be imitated; hence he could talk with Adam and Eve, for they could imitate his sounds.”  The full 48-page text of Buckner Payne’s “The Negro” as a pdf file can be viewed courtesy of Google, by following this link.

This description of blacks as non-human was published in 1867 – after the South lost the Civil War. Southern whites didn’t have to define Negroes as animals while they were enslaved and lived like animals on plantations. But once the Negro was free – and politically empowered during Reconstruction the defeated white Southerner felt the need psychologically and politically to justify their treatment of blacks by putting forth this idea that blacks were monkeys and therefore not  human.

In 1900, Charles Carroll (I have no idea what his expertise was) published a book expanding Buckner Payne’s notion. “The Negro a Beast” cites the Apostle Paul’s declaration that “there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts.”

Carroll wrote: “It becomes plain that the dog, the swine and the negro all belong to one kind of flesh – the flesh of beasts.”

He argued further that the “red, yellow and brown” races resulted from the “amalgamation” of whites and blacks. Therefore non-whites aren’t human either. To argue otherwise, according to Carroll, was a blasphemy equal to Darwin’s theory of evolution.

Carroll further stated that, “This modern church theory that the negro and the mixed-bloods are included in the Plan of Salvation is another result of putting man and the ape in the same family.”

I am still insulted that in 2009 The New York Post thought that they could brazenly and unashamedly publish this kind of muck and not be held accountable. 

There will be a protest at the NY Post building in Manhattan today, Friday, February 20 at 5pm.  If you cannot make the protest, you can write a letter to the editor and mail it to the New York Post New York Post, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036-8790.  Or you can call them at (212) 930-8000 (hit 8 for the operator).  Or you can email a letter to the editor at letters@nypost.com.  You can also post your opinion at: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/letters/letters_editor.htm

I pray that America gets over this Neanderthal thinking quickly.  United we stand.  Divided we will fall. We need unity in America.

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