Chimp Attack Cartoon by Sean Delonas Draws Condemnation, Sparks Outrage

Political cartoons are hundreds of years old, a tried and true way of lampooning, satirizing, criticizing, or applauding the strange goings-on in the fertile fields of political maneuvering. Most are simple food-for-thought offerings to be agreed with or not. Some are extremely controversial, like the fist-bumping Obama terrorist cover on a July 2008 issue of the New Yorker. And whereas that artwork created a debate over taste and objectionability, the latest offering from Sean Delonas in the New York Post may simply be purely objectionable.

The cartoon depicts two police officers, one with smoking gun in hand, standing over a bullet-riddled, dead-eyed chimpanzee. The caption reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

The tragic story of Travis the Chimp being killed by Stamford, Connecticut, police after he severely mauled 55-year-old Charla Nash fought for headline space alongside of President Obama's signing of the final stimulus package Tuesday, February 17. It is obvious that Sean Delonas is making a comparison. What has gotten many crying "foul" is that some believe that the cartoon may have racist undertones.

At first glance, one might simply think that Sean Delonas was going for a current event tie-in with the artist's disdain for the final stimulus package signed into law in Denver by the President. The cartoon also seems to pull on the old adage that if you get enough monkeys banging on typewriters for an extended length of time, they will put together a masterpiece - except in this case. Or perhaps he was conveying that the author of the stimulus bill should not have been monkeying around.

Seems like harmless political criticism. Except...

Some believe it to be a racist jab at President Obama. Some say it goes beyond political appropriateness. Some, like the Reverend Al Sharpton, believe it to be "troubling at best." Al Sharpton told the Associated Press that the cartoon was both offensive and divisive. In his statement, Sharpton said, "Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

Tom Archdeacon of the Dayton Daily News noted that the New York Post was a sensationalist newspaper, "But today's Page Six cartoon by Sean Delonas is nothing but offensive." He later adds, "The way I read it, it's flat out racist."

Beau Friedlander at Huffington Post stated that the New York Post "ran a cartoon that splashed classic dog-whistle racism (in black and white no less)..." He went on to say, "There's no room for the innocent shrug."

Sadly, this is not the first time Sean Delonas' work has been labeled questionable or objectionable. In fact, he's come close on enough occasions for Gawker.com to throw up a 2006 article titled, " 'Post' Just One Sean Delonas Cartoon Away From A Bigotry Trifecta." The Daily Kos reminded readers that Delonas published two anti-gay cartoons within three weeks back in 2006.

Having Reverend Al Sharpton weigh in on the matter seems too easy in the knee-jerk reactionary department. However, the racist undertones of this cartoon are not going to go away anytime soon. It certainly will gain Sean Delonas and his cartoons some notoriety and fame. It will get the New York Post noticed in a most unflattering way, but, then, the Post has made it its mission to be noticed in the poorest of light, its contents consisting mainly of only the best yellow journalism.

But does the image of the dead chimpanzee remind one of the Travis the Chimp attack? Of course it does. Does it remind one of the simian derogations all too often heaped upon darker skinned peoples by the ignorant and the insecure? Most certainly. Does it remind one of the ever-present social disparity that is black crime, or conjure images of the police brutality and excessive force often used against the black population (often by white police officers), and/or the constant threat of violence that is all too often used to deal with a given situation in the United States? Unquestionably. Does it really look like Sean Delonas has dredged up all these putrid aspects of American society and compared the new president to a berserk chimp whose attack on a woman resulted in her face being torn off? Yes, it does.

What is more troubling and something not being spoken about is that the "writer" of the stimulus bill, the titular figurehead and key promoter of which is President Obama, has been put down, shot like some rabid animal in the cartoon. Surely, this cannot be what the cartoonist meant to convey? Surely, he was being "figurative."

And there will be those who say that it is just a cartoon, only a simple statement that the economy is not something that should be left to mental inferiors (Democrats) and that the next stimulus package (implied) should be written by others who are more capable (Republicans). Perhaps Sean Delonas is not so mean-spirited as some might label him and this is really all he meant to convey with his picture metaphor.

Perhaps.

But it sure does not look that way.

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Sources:

Associated Press

TMZ.com

Gawker.com

HuffingtonPost.com

Daytondailynews.com

Dailykos.com