.
Good article with most of the info needed appeared in England: here.
KW: Okay, I will try to find quotes and research and more info and do a more thorough post soon. But, I can’t resist a little update on the story now.
As you know, the NY Post published a cartoon that many people perceived as racist and an attack on President Obama.
First, the NY Post refused to apologize. Then, people protested. Then the NY Post offered a half-hearted apology. Then, people protested more. Then, Rupert Murdoch – conservative media mogul and owner of the NY Post – did his own, personal apology.
So, where are we now?
1. The NAACP – the kind of moderately positioned champion of African Americans – demands that the Post meet with them and create diversity policies. So, they don’t take the apology, but they seem to have stopped demanding firings, and they are demanding an audience with the perpetrators. (In rereading the statement at the NAACP today, I think they still think that firing the Editor-in-Chief and/or cartoonist is still something that should be considered.)
2. Al Sharpton, with the National Action Network – the radical (ie: demanding of justice, addressing systemic problems with gusto) positioned champion of African Americans – is demanding that the federal government revoke Murdoch’s special privilege waiver to own more than one major media outlet in the same city market.
I like Al Sharpton’s position.
Note that NO champion of African Americans is stating that this is over.
Will keep you posted.
Filed under: activism, media, New York State Politics, News, US Politics Tagged: | African-American, Al Sharpton, black issues, Murdoch, NAACP, NY Post, Post
Garbage.
And anyone who calls for the firing of any artist is full of it.
The play on Rachel Corrie should have been staged with no problems. The producer of the CBS miniseries on Hitler who compared Bush to Hitler should not have been fired.
How dare you get with any group that calls for firings. That is against freedom of speech.
Also, as many other sites have pointed out: (A) The cartoon is not about Barack and (B) the objection and outrage is coming from a fundamentalist sect that rejects Charles Darwin’s evolutionary teachings. That’s at the heart of this and why the idiotic claim of it being a threat was long ago dropped from the complaining.
Keesha,
Thank you for your opinion.
I do understand and believe that people should be careful with censorship of artists. Though, everyone will find that they have a line they would agree with where something crosses lines of being too violent or pornographic to be publicly distributed.
If the government fires an artist, or cuts off grants based on politics, that is something to worry about.
Though, when the readership of a newspaper says they don’t want to see an artists work, that is more grassroots democracy than censorship.
The monkey/stimulus package piece, which clearly has overtones of violence against the President, is not the first time this cartoonist has used his platform to promote hate. He has written very nasty cartoons about gay people and transgender people before.
Of all the people in the world who are journalists and artists, I am not sure he continues to deserve a place in the spotlight and a salary to promote his messages.
Thanks,
Kimberly