After New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas depicted President Obama as a crazed chimpanzee deserving to be shot in 2009, News Corp agreed to form a “diversity council” with civil rights groups that would meet twice a year to presumably make the company think twice before printing racist cartoons. But the cartoon above suggests that the panel was pointless, and that the New York Post is content with portraying innocent Muslims as deceitful, gun-toting, bomb-making terrorists.
Nevermind the dubious constitutionality of the NYPD’s surveillance of entire communities across county and state lines: the department’s spying didn’t turn up any illegal activity, especially not the blatant terrorism implied in Delonas’ cartoon. These people, many of whom are United States citizens, were subjected to surveillance solely because of their religion and nationality, not because they were breaking laws. No one would object to the NYPD pursuing legitimate leads, but a conviction against a man who made threats against the South Park creators doesn’t justify a massive violation of civil rights.
For Delonas’ cartoon to make sense, he has to depict people who practice Islam (and even others who don’t, including Persian Jews on Long Island) as sinister-looking Muslim stereotypes and place them in scenarios that have no basis in fact. Drawing Muslim college students who happened to go on a whitewater rafting trip isn’t nearly as titillating, but at least we know what’s at the top of Delonas’ Netflix queue.
Disgusting.
