obama ape cartoon

A recent cartoon depicting President Barack Obama as an ape has sparked outrage.

In the stripe, President Obama appears to have apelike features, and air bubbles of statements he’s made in the past about the Affordable Care Act and the Middle East hover over his head.

The cartoon, created by Ted Rall, was posted to the liberal website the Daily Kos.

From Mediate:

Rall explains that although Daily Kos pays for cartoons from cartoonists who are not Ted Rall, he decided to publish his work on the site for free in order to “access readers, many of whom would enjoy my work if they saw it.” Things went well for a few weeks, until Rall got the following message from the site’s administrator:

Your depiction of Barack Obama as ape-like is intolerable. Being critical of Obama, even ferociously so, is not the problem. Through British and American history, blacks have been subject to racist depictions of themselves as monkeys and apes. No excuse is acceptable for replicating that history, no matter what your intent. If it happens again, your posting privileges will be suspended.

Read more at Mediate

This isn’t the first time that the president has been portrayed as a primate. In April 2011, GOP officials circulated an email featuring the president among a family of apes as a joke.

Thoughts on the controversial cartoon?

Is it offensive, or just something that comes with the territory of politics?

Sound off below!