Attorney General Eric Holder remarked that Americans are "cowards" about discussing race. But yesterday's cartoon in the New Yorker seems to have made a mockery of those words. Americans are discussing little else today.
This was an unfortunate and tasteless incident, however there have been countless insulting cartoon published of President Bush, Condi Rice and even 17 year old Bristol Palin. And no one spoke up. JC
The 'New York Post' has been accused of racism after it published a cartoon apparently comparing US President Barack Obama to a dead chimp.
And now newspapers, magazines and news website across the globe have condemned the publication. http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/02/19/new-york-post-cartoon-racism-row/us-president-barack-obama-compared-to-dead-chimp.html
A dead chimpanzee which attacked a woman in Connecticut on Tuesday was featured in the caricature, along with the policemen who shot it - one of whom is saying: “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton had slammed the cartoon, calling it a racist attack on the black President. Sharpton interpreted the image to be comparing Obama to a monkey - an historical racist term for African Americans.
Col Allan, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, denied the charge in a written statement, claiming the cartoon "broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."
Cartoonist Sean Delonas told CNN that the racism allegations were “absolutely frigging ridiculous”.
"It's about the economic stimulus bill," he said. "If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not."
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- America is "a nation of cowards" when discussing race. That sentiment from the country's first African-American attorney general, Eric Holder, has stirred up pundits, bloggers and readers.
Attorney General Eric Holder helps celebrate Black History Month at an event Wednesday at the Justice Department.
"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been and we -- I believe continue to be in too many ways essentially a nation of cowards," Holder told Department of Justice employees at an event Wednesday celebrating Black History Month.
He said that Americans are afraid to talk about race, adding that "certain subjects are off-limits and that to explore them risks at best embarrassment and at worst the questioning of one's character."
And that impression of race in America has set off a firestorm of criticism.
"Holder doesn't want an honest dialogue about race. In the Age of [President] Obama, 'talking enough with each other about race' means the rest of us shutting up while being subjected to lectures about our insensitivity and insufficient integration on the weekends," conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote.
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