15 minute work break

squashed:

What do we make of this cartoon?

Al Sharpton says it’s horribly racist. The New York Post seems to think it was okay. This time, I generally agree with Jeff Miller, who writes,

If this New York Post cartoon was intended to compare Obama to a monkey … if the slightest thought of racial malice crossed the mind of the cartoonist … then this is awful, deplorable, even unforgivable.  But does anyone really think the cartoonist meant this?

I don’t know what the cartoonist could have been thinking. Sure, the NY Post recently reported on a chimpanzee that was shot by police, though the details of the story don’t match the cartoon. Which raises the question of what the cartoonist was thinking? There are a handful of common narratives that should have tipped the somebody off that this cartoon could be a problem.

• White policemen repeatedly shooting an unarmed black man
• The black man as a primate
• Obama as a chimpanzee
• Obama as the primary proponent of the stimulus bill
• Transformative leaders being assasinated

Are putting these stories together a stretch? Maybe—but it’s less of a stretch than connecting a random chimpanzee attack in Connecticut with the stimulus bill. Is it particularly insightful or funny? No. At best, it’s a crappy political cartoon. At worst? Connecting Obama with a monkey is a problem—but connecting him with a monkey that has just been shot repeatedly by white police officers is all kinds of disgusting. Did nobody at the New York Post think this might be a problem?

frangry:

The March 2009 issue of GQ will feature the magazine’s picks for their “10 Most Stylish Men in America”. This years list includes a batch of well known musical personalities: Kanye West, Justin Timberlake, T.I., and Mark Ronson as well as actor/musician Jason Schwartzman and hotelier André Balazs, amongst others. You can see the whole article here.

I don’t know who those douchebags on the left are, but look at T.I. Just look at himmmmm. (via Hypebeast)

like whoa.