Chimpanzee inkblot test

https://polyploid.net/blog/?p=plsbzm63p Sometimes a political cartoon, or actually any sort of cartoon, can function as a type of Rorschach inkblot test. That is what we see in a cartoon may reflect our own internal thoughts more than they reflect either anything in the cartoon itself or anything that the author intended. But, sometimes there is actual agreement between various parties on the meaning of a cartoon. Such is the cartoon above, published today in the New York Post. It was based on an incident yesterday in which a chimpanzee went, ahem, bananas and had to be shot to death by policemen after critically injuring one person and trying to attack a policeman. However, that was transmuted into a political statement, and that is where the fun started.

So, what do you see in the cartoon above?

Well, obviously, the New York Post saw nothing distasteful in the cartoon, or, at least, I would hope not. However, major row has broken out over the cartoon itself, with people divided about whether this is a racist cartoon or not. Two issues have come to the fore in the discussion. One is that black people were gratuitously called monkeys during much of our history. Remember that the monkey is called the author of the bill. If that monkey represents President Obama, then a black person is being pictured as a monkey, yet again. The second problem that some saw, of course, is the link to violence. Again, if the author of the bill is the President, then this cartoon is altogether too close to picturing an assassination.

https://merangue.com/luopaxwe The counter-arguments are also obvious. The cartoon is simply picturing the bill itself as something that appears to have been put together more by a rabid monkey than by logically thinking Congressmen and the President working together. Neither the cartoonist nor the newspaper have any prior history of deliberately racist cartoons, nor would it be in their interest to deliberately publish a racist cartoon. After all, New York is a city with a large African-American population and you do not want to hurt your sales. The New York Post is saying that it was not meant in any racist way and that they stand by their publishing it.

https://blog.extraface.com/2024/08/07/rth49k0f So, what do you see in the cartoon above?

https://inteligencialimite.org/2024/08/07/3dmz3xdzk7a Now let me tell you what did surprise me. In interviewing both Republicans and Democrats, more than one national outlet found that on one issue both agreed. Both Republican and Democratic congressmen agreed that if the chimp was meant to represent President Obama, then it was indeed a horrid cartoon. However, if the chimp was not meant to represent the President but was simply making an editorial comment about the supposed incoherence of the bailout bills, then it was probably not a problem.

https://transculturalexchange.org/owj4kfawe15 So, what did you see when you looked at the cartoon above?