The cartoon as it appeared in the New York Post

New York, Feb. 19 (AP): A New York Post cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee gunned down by police drew outrage from civil rights leaders and elected officials who said it echoed racist stereotypes of blacks as monkeys.

The cartoon in yesterday’s Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee named Travis who was killed on Monday by police in Stamford, Connecticut, after it mauled a friend of its owner.

Some critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialised a tragedy in which a woman was disfigured and a chimpanzee killed. Others said the cartoon suggests that Obama should be assassinated. Many urged a boycott of the Post and the companies that advertise in it. “How could the Post let this cartoon pass as satire?” said Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists.

“To compare the nation’s first African-American commander-in-chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.”

State Senator Eric Adams called it a “throwback to the days” when black men were lynched. The Reverend Al Sharpton called the cartoon “troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys”.

Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post, defended the work. “The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut,” Allan said in a statement.