the NY Post lives down to its reputation

[redbird]

It took Rupert Murdoch's New York Post about a month to go from putting the oath of office on the front page of the paper to publishing a stupid, racist cartoon about President Obama. I'm not linking to it here, because it's ugly, offensive, and not remotely funny. I can't boycott the post, because I stopped reading it years ago for reasons only partly political. (When I was growing up, before the Murdoch days, my parents got it as well as the NY Times, because the Post had late sports results and cartoons.)

I was reminded of this by a friend who posted, comments disabled, but with a link to a story that included the cartoon. She expressed surprise that it wasn't all over her friends list; I suspect this is a combination of people figuring it's been mentioned in the regular press and doesn't need to be discussed here, and a weary "yes, it's run by obnoxious right-wingers, big surprise." The president's press secretary settled for a remark to the effect that the NY Post isn't very newsworthy.

Comments

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Ill Doctrine's take on the subject (http://www.illdoctrine.com/2009/02/monkeys_and_trolls.html) which comes down to, "The New York Post is and has been a troll for a long time, and should be treated like other trolls." And also that he doesn't know "if they played the 'Black people are monkeys' card on purpose or by accident," and doesn't really care because "this is a 'what you did' situation, not a 'what you are' situation."

He makes the point which could be a distraction and a tangent or could be added ammunition, depending on how you take it, that even if this was about exactly what Rupert Murdoch claimed it was about, it's hard to see where there's any humor in that, either.

Frankly, as far as I can tell, people are talking 'boycott' because they want an apology. But that's the kind of thing that makes sense when an organization that usually stays on the safe side of a line crosses it and needs to get slapped down for same. So if the NY Post generally doesn't venture into not-very-subtle stereotyping and/or bigotry, and this was out of left field as well as out of line, then okay, I think protests of various forms are appropriate. But if the NY Post makes its money by getting people mad on a regular basis, then this isn't a time to stop buying as a maneuver to get a concession, it's just an indication that probably we should have stopped buying a long time ago - not to get an apology, but because no one wants to spend money on or propagate crap.

So I don't know which scenario it is. I'm missing so much of the context that despite having seen a brief glimpse of the cartoon, I can't figure out why it's being read as Obama rather than some other black man who's been gunned down by police, which is, y'know, not unheard of. I'm sure there is a context that makes it all make sense, and I'm really not asking anyone to explain it to me because I don't need to know. I don't like it, no matter what.

[redbird]

Because the text is talking about writing the stimulus bill.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

That seems to settle it, yes.