Obama the assassinated chimp?

So I’ve got my hot little hands on a press release from the Austin chapter of the NAACP. Due to the outrage over a New York Post cartoon that slightly compared President Obama to a dead chimp, Newscorp’s chairman Rupert Murdoch (yes he’s my boss, but just wait, soon he’ll be yours too) issued an apology for the gargantuan mistake of publishing that offensive, dirty, awful cartoon.

I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

NAACP is calling this apology inadequate because it doesn’t offer any concrete measures for improvement of FOX Corp’s sensitivity.

Nelson Linder, the president of the NAACP’s Austin branch, said the cartoon’s “an invitation to the assassination of the 44th president.” His organization is calling for the termination of the cartoonist, the Post’s editor-in-chief and increased diversity in the newsroom.

FOX 7, a small local tv station thousands of miles away from New York City, is being asked to write a letter to Rupert Murdoch supporting the NAACP’s demand.

We ask KTBC to be good corporate citizens and go on record against this abhorrent display of racism.

All I have to say here is that I’ve never met any staff members of The New York Post. But I have met several at FOX 7. And I know something like that would never be published from our staff. I’m interested to see whether or not our manager will sign the request — and even more interested in seeing just what this group plans to do if the station declines their request. Stay tuned.