Hopefully this is not how the New York Post intends to celebrate Black History Month. It’s not entirely clear who thought this was a good idea but this is the cartoon, by Sean Delonas, running in today’s Post. Clearly, the cartoon was partially inspired by yesterday’s horrific chimpanzee attack, as well as the signing of the stimulus bill yesterday, but it is also has unmistakable racial undertones.

The Post editor-in-chief Col Allan says: “The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut…It broadly mocks Washington’s efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.”

Sharpton’s initial response after the jump.

The cartoon in today’s New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that “Now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”

Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?