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Democracy Now!

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Protests are continuing today outside the offices of the New York Post following the publication of a cartoon that critics say depicts President Obama as a chimpanzee. The cartoon shows a white police officer shooting dead a chimpanzee in the street. His partner, another white officer, says, They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill. After a number of civil rights activists and organizations called for a boycott of the paper, the Post issued an apology of sorts last night.

The apology said in part “It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill. Period. But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism. This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.” However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback. To them, no apology is due. On Thursday the Rev. Al Sharpton led a protest outside the offices of the Post. These are some of the voices from the protest.

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