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February 19, 2009
Racist cartoons in the mainstream press in Australia are few and far between. The New York Post's Sean Delonas recent cartoon is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.
Sean Delonas
The cartoon also refers to a 90kg chimp called Travis who was fatally shot this week after an attack on his owner's friend 55-year-old Charla Nash, who remains in hospital with critical injuries to her face and hands.
The New York Post has been criticized since the beginning of Murdoch's ownership for what many consider its lurid headlines, sensationalism, blatant advocacy and conservative bias. It adopted the sensationalist "tabloid journalism" style of his Australian and British tabloid papers.
At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Most provocatively, it compares the President to a rabid chimp. The incorporation of race into politics is bound to be controversial.
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is that a reference to Barack Obama---I interpret it that way.