Despite the rhetoric that race no longer matters, two incidents involving race grabbed headlines Wednesday.
The New York Post is under siege for an ill-conceived editorial cartoon that pictured two policeman shooting a chimp. One cop says to the other:
"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
A lot of people didn't get it, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, who complained that the cartoon by Sean Delonas is racially offensive.
In a statement, the Post defended it as "clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut," and labeled Sharpton a "publicity opportunist."
But come on.
Who doesn't know that in America's racist past, black people were openly referred to as monkeys. And exactly who is the chimp supposed to be? The cartoon was a bad idea and should not have appeared.
Mary Mitchell is a columnist for the 
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