Backlash against NY Post cartoon felt in Durham

NEW YORK — The NAACP organized a protest at five North Carolina Fox stations Thursday over a cartoon that ran in the New York Post. Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns both the Post and the Fox network.

About a dozen people showed up to protest at WRAZ Fox 50 in Durham. Management there agreed to forward a letter from the NAACP to the Fox network. While WRAZ is a Fox affiliate, the station is locally owned by Capitol Broadcasting and has no ties to the New York Post.

Critics say the newspaper cartoon, which showed police officers shooting a chimpanzee and saying "they'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," was racially insensitive.

The national NAACP has urged readers to boycott the New York Post, calling a cartoon that the newspaper published an invitation to assassinate President Barack Obama.

Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, called on the tabloid to remove editor-in-chief Col Allan, as well as longtime cartoonist Sean Delonas.

Earlier this week, the newspaper apologized to anyone who might have been offended by the image printed Wednesday.

On Thursday, after protests by notable figures including director Spike Lee, the paper posted an editorial on its Web site saying the cartoon was meant to mock the federal economic stimulus bill, but "to those who were offended by the image, we apologize."

NAACP officials said that if the Post does not take "serious disciplinary action," they would reach out to organizations across the country to join them in their efforts against the tabloid.

NAACP Chairman Julian Bond called the publication of the cartoon "thoughtlessness taken to the extreme. ... Anyone who is not offended by it does not have any sensitivity."

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If I said that Obama has big ears, (which he does) would that be a racist comment? What about if I said he has big lips? (which he doesn't) Maybe since he is just as much white as he is black, I would be making a racist comment about whites? What if the cartoonist were black? Would they're be a backlash? Have you noticed how blacks can make comments about other blacks that, if said by a white person, would be considered racist? In the past ten years, in personal or group conversations, I have probably heard the 'N' word spoken about 100 times. About 97 of those times, the person speaking the word has been black. You know what? I don't like to hear anyone say that word. Have you noticed all the TV commercials lately that show the white person as a bumbling idiot, and the black person as the level headed intelligent one? I have noticed it but I can just not buy their product if I so choose. I don't need some national group of white talking heads to tell me when I should be offended.

Junebug
February 27, 2009 10:17 a.m.

The NAACP is a trouble making group of racists. Every black person that I know (which is a lot) in which the subject of the NAACP came up, thinks that the NAACP is a joke and that they don't represent most blacks opinions. Black people as a whole are intelligent free thinkers who have realized that their lives are better than that of any other generation of blacks, and they are not seeing a big difference in the way they are treated as opposed to whites, or any other group. They aren't falling for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's junk any longer. This, being black history month, would be a good time for black people to write a new chapter for the history books about how they rejected the antiquated ideals of the NAACP. It's time to stop shaking people down and start lifting them up.

Junebug
February 27, 2009 9:57 a.m.

I've seen the cartoon and I'm going to have to side with the NAACP on this one.

copforlife
February 27, 2009 9:13 a.m.

12 people showed up to the protest, what a laugh and a waste of time!

lbl3373
February 27, 2009 8:31 a.m.

The NAACP just accused the president of being a chimp. This cartoon has been explained ad-neausium (sp?). But the hate organization is attempting to make it more than it is, as usual.

Sidekick
February 27, 2009 8:28 a.m.