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The New York Post cartoonist who made headlines for his infamous depiction of the author of the stimulus (presumably President Obama) as a crazed ape is stirring up controversy again with a work that makes fun of New York Gov. David Paterson's blindness.
This past Thursday, Sean Delonas drew a cartoon that showed Paterson's seeing-eye dog entering his office with a letter of resignation -- signed with a paw print. In the background Paterson is seen crying and saying, "Not You Too!!!"
It's a provocative swipe -- designed, of course, as a commentary on all the allies ditching the governor as he becomes immersed in ethics scandals. But it can also be interpreted as a cheap shot at Paterson's disability. The first legally blind governor to hold the office of governor, Paterson doesn't in fact require the aid of a seeing-eye dog to get around.
Still, this is far from Delonas's most envelope-pushing work. The Obama-as-a-dead-ape depiction was widely panned as offensive if not racist, and spurred much controversy and dissension within the Post's newsroom. And in 2001, Delonas depicted then New York City mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer kissing the butt of Al Sharpton in a cartoon which was widely condemned.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The Huffington Post:
