Voting Rights

I've recently watched the movie Selma and have deepened my appreciation for those involved in the Civil Rights Movement.  While I've never been one to glorify leaders, and no point starting now, I revel in the fact that ordinary people made up the numbers that mattered.  Unaware of the behind-the-scenes deals and thoughts and theories, I found the pinnacle of success to be a bit anticlimactic to say the least.

Being a Yankee, I haven't been affected as strongly by the tactics used in the rural south to impede the progress of Civil Rights for Blacks and I am empathetic.  Being a transplant to the relatively unchanged south, I have seen the manifestation of the attitudes that linger.   It's not just the flying Confederate flags or the systematic shunning of educated, dedicated Black employees, but also the air of entitlement and deniability that is nearly palpable. But I digress.

In this, an election year, we are faced with the devil we know and the devil we think we know.  The next years of our life hang in the balance since our choice will be able to leave their mark if we need a new Supreme Court justice or new legislature or, fingers crossed against this one, we go to war.  No matter your beliefs about the fairness of or the validity of our votes, I'm thrilled to have the right.

Here in America, I am elated to be able to express myself freely, though I may be heavily scorned, as well as other rights.  I am grateful to those who fought, bled and died in Selma and other places to ensure my right to vote.  And come November, I plan to honor them at the polls.  See you there.

Is this acceptable?

Background Information:

A cartoon likening the author of the stimulus bill, perhaps President Barack Obama, with a rabid chimpanzee graced the pages of the New York Post on Wednesday.
The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.
"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," reads the caption.
An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper.
At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that's what Delonas wanted.

UPDATE: Rev. Al Sharpton has weighed in on the cartoon in a statement:
"The cartoon in today's New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."
"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

The picture depicts racial over- and under-tones. Here we are -- years after slavery is over, in the "land of the free, home of the brave," the great American melting pot -- still resorting to name-calling. I must agree with our new Black US Attorney General Eric Holder terming Americans "cowards." When will we stop hiding behind slurs and pictures and become true Americans who realize that we are all created equal? But, racism in America is so commonplace that this instance registers no surprise. (To Rev. Sharpton - as if he'd read this -- I'd say, I'm sure many Americans agree with the sentiment expressed. But while a "monkey" may have initiated this stimulus plan, a whole lot of barnyard animals are going to benefit from it.)

Comedic references to the President is par for the course. I've been waiting for the funny-men to come out of hiding and let loose on the race jokes about our bi-racial President. I'll be the first to admit that light-hearted ribbing is good for the soul. We enjoy making fun of ourselves and those in power.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives us the right to free speech. Because of this, I'm willing to accept this sketch based on the above comments. However, what I deem unacceptable is the allusion to our Commander in Chief being gunned down. Isn't this dangerously close to treason? Has a sitting President ever been depicted in this way? What we need to ask ourselves is why we allow such behavior.

Of course, the paper doesn't see anything wrong -- their economy was stimulated via this cartoon. If Don Imus could lose his job for calling a group of Black women "nappy headed hoes," what should happen to the man who disrespects our Head of State? Every instance of anyone publicly making a derogatory statement about an ethnic group is deftly resolved (some inappropriately). What makes this one any different?