Cartoon shows out-of-control racial sensitivity

Has anyone finalized his or her plans to assassinate President Obama yet? It has been an entire week since the New York Post printed that comic based on the chimpanzee attack in Stamford, showing an ape dead on the ground with two police officers saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill." By now, every Republican and Caucasian must be under the subliminal influences propagated by such racist drawings and in the process of purchasing a gun to shoot our new president. And it's obviously because Obama is black.

I don't know about you, but I do not understand how this one cartoon got so out of control, becoming more evidence for racism against blacks. While it is obvious that the cartoon is about Obama, the event depicted was a real situation that resulted in a dead chimpanzee and a harmed victim. As for the reference to the stimulus bill, that is all America has heard about for weeks, so of course it is going to make its way into comics. Personally, I still see no implications of racism other than the ape in the picture looking a little darker than the police officers do.

However, the cartoon itself is a bit crude, but aren't all the best political cartoons? If each picture isn't bold enough to grasp your attention, no one is going to read them and laugh - and subsequently, no one is going to think about them. It's not as if the cartoonist drew Obama with bullet wounds in his chest; it was just the ape.

It's pretty much common knowledge that ,when you run for presidential office, there will be monkey cartoons - many, many monkey cartoons. Just look at George Bush. While nobody really had any sympathy for the former president, they still had time to draw monkey cartoons about him. About.com has a whole section of political cartoons just for Monkey Bush, with at least three for each of Bush's facial expressions. One even pictures Bush as a monkey reading "The Origin of Species," which I actually happen to find offensive, but the lynch mob I hired to go after that cartoonist had to postpone.

This is also not the first cartoon to show someone hurting Obama. Several Hillary vs. Obama cartoons depict Clinton harming Obama in a physical way, one of which shows Clinton first extending an olive branch as a sign of peace, then beating Obama over the head with it, leaving him obviously bloody and wounded. Another is a cartoon of Clinton trying to flatten Obama with a steamroller representing "the Clinton machine." Are these just other ways that we can all assassinate our president, or can we admit that those offended are going a bit too far with accusations?

Al Sharpton made a statement describing the chimpanzee cartoon as, "troubling at best, given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys." Many other complaints that lit up the Post's phone lines decried the insensitivity about the seriousness of the actual attack and how the cartoon is another instance of the racism that blacks are trying to break away from.

This entire issue is not about racism. The cartoon had nothing to do with racism in the first place. As a white American who is happy with the job Obama has been doing in his first days in office, I wish the nation could now focus on Obama as president, rather than Obama as the black candidate. Many Americans, black and white, have embraced Obama far more than anyone could ever predict. The color of his skin is undoubtedly important to the history of America and the struggles of the black population. However, the decisions he makes as our president affect us more right now. Every Obama supporter should be proud for making history, for giving blacks the equality they deserve. But sadly, what dissertations about this cartoon really prove is that many people still do not see blacks and whites as equals. If they did, huge complaints and debates about political cartoons would take place at least three times a week.