5/15: No Monkeying Around
9 p.m.
• Well gee, who could have thought people would find this offensive?
A bar owner is peddling T-shirts depicting Obama as the monkey from the children's books Curious George. The publishers of the book are considering legal action to stop further sale of the T-shirts.
Rick Blake of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, (which owns Curious George) tells the Atlanta Journal no one has been authorised to use the image. "We find it offensive and obviously utterly out of keeping with the value Curious George represents," Blake says. "We're monitoring the situation and weighing our options with respect to legal action."
Mulligan's is one of those places which revels in being politically incorrect. "This place is a diamond in the rough," Gene McKinley told the AJ, "People here are genuine and honest. It's the one place I can go without having to worry if I'm offending someone."
Mulligan's owner Mike owner Norman, 63, has been flooded with calls for his T-shirts ever since a story was published about local groups organising a protest this week.
"One guy in New Jersey wanted me to send him 100 shirts" he claims. Norman himself got the T-shirts from "someone in Arkansas" and has been selling them at the bar which is famous for its right wing political slogans.
In a part of the country where the legacy of Jim Crow is ever present, Norman, 63, claims to see nothing wrong with depicting an African-American as a monkey. Reminding people they have a right to offend "is my marketing tool," he says.
How dare he compare a presidential candidate to a monkey. Why that's unheard of. That's outrageous. That's...
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That's ... Uhhhh? Oh, yeah...
