Spike Lee Calls for NY Post Boycott

Democracy Now! reports today: "In other media news, protests are continuing outside the New York Post over the publication of a cartoon that critics say depicts President Obama as a chimpanzee.

"On Friday, filmmaker Spike Lee called for a boycott of the newspaper and urged athletes and entertainers to shun the paper’s writers. NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous has called for the ouster of cartoonist Sean Delonas and editor-in-chief Col Allan.

"Lloyd Riddick: 'I was in the Air Force six-and-a-half years. I’m seventy-four years old. I’ve been through hell for this country, including when they stationed me in Biloxi, Mississippi. And that was in 1954.

"And you could go into a store and look at a pair of pants and hold them up against you, but you couldn’t try them on, because a white man had to try that pair of pants. I know racism. You could hold a hat up over your head, but if it touched your head, you had to buy it. I know racism.'”

Good for Spike Lee. I saw the cartoon. Disgusting and outrageous. And the quickest way to put the pressure on the post, other than by an advertiser boycott (unlikely, given the advertisers) is to turn off the tap on content. I'm all for criticising Obama's policies when they deserve criticism (and praising them when they deserve it). I'm 100% opposed to racist smears against him.

Here's the NYP's fake apology, as delivered by the London Telegraph:

"The newspaper acknowledged that the cartoon published on Wednesday had drawn controversy because African Americans and others saw it as a depiction of Obama.
'This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize,' the paper said in an editorial on its website headlined 'That Cartoon.'"

That's not an apology. That's telling people who were offended by their blatant bigotry, "Too bad you were wrong in understanding our point." Here's an apology: "We were wrong. We should not have printed that cartoon. We understand that the cartoon, in the context of American history and culture, is bigoted. We won't do it again. We caused pain. It was our fault. And we're sorry."