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February 25, 2009

The NY Post, Race and Cowardice

By Rod Dreher

Was the chimp cartoon Sean Delonas drew for the New York Post a racist provocation? Absurd.

Delonas' depiction of the bullet-riddled primate - an obvious reference to the berserk chimp recently gunned down in Connecticut - as author of the congressional stimulus package reflects, however clumsily, a common view among conservatives: that the monster spending bill was so stupid that even a monkey could have written it.

Yet more than a few people saw it as a bigoted slam against Barack Obama - and let the newspaper know.

"Every line was lit up for several hours," a Post employee told The New York Times. "The phones on the city desk have never rung like that before."

Actually, that's not true. I'm pretty sure it was as bad or worse on the morning of Aug. 31, 2001, when a column I'd written in that morning's Post caused the switchboard to all but melt down.

What had I written? A throwaway column about the funeral of the young pop star Aaliyah, who had just died in a plane crash. I'd found the lavish plans for the public ceremony - the horse-drawn carriage up Fifth Avenue, the white doves - a bit much and used the occasion to comment critically on funerary rituals and the cult of celebrity worship in contemporary America.

Admittedly, it was in questionable taste. But racist? Please.

That wasn't the view of two deejays for a black New York radio station, who whipped listeners into a frenzy. When I reached my desk, more than 200 phone messages waited for me. Most were extremely foul-mouthed and racist. A few contained explicit, violent threats. One caller left a chillingly detailed vow to wait outside the Post building and strangle me.

Did I mention that my photograph ran with my column?

After I declined my editors' offer of bodyguards, they decided I'd be better off staying at home for a few days. Then, to no one's surprise, Al Sharpton got involved. I sat in my Brooklyn apartment listening on the radio to Sharpton promise his followers, "We will bring down anybody who tells us how to mourn our own." This, from the bully whose racist fat mouthing led to the deadly Freddy's Fashion Mart fire in Harlem.

A concerned friend from L.A. called and offered me a plane ticket. "Get out of town," she said. I got.

Under pressure, the Post waffled on defending me. There's no telling how my situation would have ended had the Sept. 11 attacks not changed Sharpton's subject. Now, even though the paper disgracefully apologized for Delonas' cartoon, Sharpton's still hitting them hard. Yesterday he demanded a government investigation of the Post's hiring records to see if it's sufficiently, ahem, diverse. See what you get for giving in to a thug?

My 2001 Aaliyah column was mean, and I regret it. But as with the Delonas cartoon, the race-specific reaction it sparked was asinine and disproportionate. Even Nation writer Katha Pollitt, no advocate of right-wing columnists, penned a qualified defense of me. "I can't think of a more important issue than celebrity funerals for a self-described national black leader to be addressing right now," she deadpanned.

The Delonas controversy erupted on the same day U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered a speech describing America as a "nation of cowards" too afraid to have "frank conversations" about race. Is he insane? When people have their jobs and even their lives threatened for crossing invisible lines of racial sensitivity, you'd be crazy to take that risk.

If Holder really wants to show bravery, he'll stand up for Sean Delonas, instead of contenting himself to chastise his countrymen for not running marathons across minefields.

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