This is a cartoon that ran in the New York Post today. I've already read how Al Sharpton feels about it, and as you may have guessed, he is outraged. I think it's important to try and form my own opinions about things of this nature that sometimes may not be in line with the Reverend's. However, at first glance (and first read), I did detect racial undertones and I'm trying to figure out if that was purposeful or a misinterpretation. I know that I have a diverse group of people that read my blog so I'm wondering what your thoughts are.
**Edit: In case you don't know any of the back story, police shot a rabid chimpanzee in Connecticut for attacking a woman...so that is where the inspiration comes from, I believe.
52 comments:
I can see how this can be interpreted as racially offensive. However, there are no shortage of political cartoons in which George Bush is portrayed as either a monkey or a chimpanzee. I believe this is more in reference to the recent police shooting of a chimp.
EXTREMELY offensive!
true...people made fun of bush constantly. but i think here the cartoonist is not outright saying that the monkey is in reference to Obama. but we infer that...and the fact that it's a monkey and we have a black president makes it too much of a coincidence to overlook maybe.
Its hilarious, BUT, I'm not about to think about it.
A jew a black mand and a chinese walked into a bar. The owner said get the hell out of here.
I find it offensive. I just saw the news story this morning about the chimp situation. Tragic. And to tie that in with the stimulus bill... I don't see how the cartoonist couldn't have assumed it would be seen as racist. Blatantly racist.
I don't know, something about this rubs me the wrong way. I really dislike it.
Even if it isn't racist (and it may very well be), something about shooting the President isn't funny.
if we dont consider this racist, we can at least agree the depiction is racially insensitive. the chimpanzee can only be interpreted to be president obama, who has willingly shouldered the credit for crafting the stimulus bill. anyone ignorant of the fact that "monkey" is a derogatory term for blacks is minimally considered racially insensitive.
even further, i think the author should be investigated for thinking of this metaphorical depiction of president obama being shot!
I definitely agree with you anonymous...at the very least racially insensitive.
I think if you parce the caption carefully enough then it isn't as offensive as you think. For me that's based on having read pretty heavily about the stimulus bill and therefore knowing how shockingly little the White House and the President actually had to do with writing it.
Coming at it from the other direction, don't you have to immediately make the same mental connection a racist would to see it as racist? Seeing a chimp and equating it with a black person I mean. Isn't it only racist if you accept that premise first?
I don't know how you don't look at the caption in context...that is, with the picture it's supposed to be relating to. I understand that the stimulus bill may be much bigger than whatever the president's involvement was, but that isn't how the general public is going to see it. In large part, he's the face of it. It's the first major thing he's supposed to be tackling as president. So of course we are going to relate the two, whether or not it's completely warranted or not. I would suspect the cartoonist is very aware of this fact.
As to your other point, I don't think I'm in any way held responsible for that mental connection or should actively choose not to make it if that was what was intended. It has been used in a derogatory way in the past and I am simply aware of that. If this is how he meant it, then I have a right to be offended. It most definitely is tied in to the intention of the artist and if it was intentional then I call that racist on his part. If it was indeed not in any way related to that, then no harm done. But as was said earlier, I think there is a certain responsibility to be aware of such a sensitive issue and with such a high probability of many folks making that connection, why would you even go there?
its pretty messed up even without the caption.
@Bri, clarifying, of course there is a difference between whether I'm offended by something and whatever the artist might be trying to say. I was trying to answer your question, and since I can't read the cartoonist's mind, my reaction to hearing a description of the picture and reading the words is all I have. I kind of think that reacting to something as ambiguous as this sort of let's the cartoonist off the hook. If his intent was to make the comparison you think it was, than we've let him off the hook by letting our own prejudices do the work for him instead of forcing him to be more blatant about it.
I find it extremely offensive - and no matter how you "interpret" it I don't understand it's purpose, other than to be just that: offensive (a la Howard Stern - that's his thing, to be offensive)
Even if you take the caption away and the fact of who are president is, what would be the intent of this picture alone? IMO - to offend.
For a President with a history of reckless (or rabid) behaviour it might be appropriate, but Obama has no such history.
A provocative cartoonist might also be intentionally defying racial sterotypes and defending his right to use monkey as an analogue of idiocy or recklessness.
Personally I think it was intended to provoke and not in a good way.
Quote from the Guardian (UK Newspaper): "The Post's cartoonist Sean Delonas, meanwhile, has frequently been accused of bigotry: the New York gossip blog Gawker once nicknamed him 'the Picasso of prejudice'."
Often, being referred to, or compared to, an animal is not offensive. But , I find this case extremely offensive and insulting. Because, in my mind, the inference is that Obama was the monkey who attacked the woman.
Presidents do not write bills, do they? As Shannon noted, Bush was depicted as a monkey type creature in cartoons hundreds of times, and it was always funny...right? Nonetheless, if we assume that this cartoon is referencing the situation with the woman who was attacked, I think it's in very poor taste. It's a sad and sick story that has left a woman mutilated and an animal dead. There's nothing funny about that.
Honestly when I first saw it I had no idea about the rabid chimp in CT, I thought the cartoonist meant that "the stimulus bill was so poorly done that a monkey could do it". Guess I've been watching too many Geico commercials.
This cartoon was meant to provoke. I believe that the cartoonist knew exactly what they were doing when they created it.
It has multiple interpretations. I believe their goal was to cause a controversy.
As an international, I find it offensive to the black race. We have always been compared to as "monkeys, animals".
The caption added a "negative" political twist to it.
i couldn't believe this when i saw it, bri.
its BULLS#!T and the fact that its even being disputed as NOT BULLS#!T is even s#!tt!er. (i'm sorry, i still don't cuss)
in a nation with an OBSCENE history of institutionalized malevolence, where slavery continued for over 200 years and negative racial depictions (including BLACKS AS MONKEYS) were popularized in its aftermath as a deliberate means to justify the still persistent inequality, anyone who could even question the potential that this cartoon MIGHT cause racial offense is either a complete moron or ASTOUNDINGLY naieve.
thomas jefferson didn't single-handedly write the declaration of independence, but he's credited with it's completion just the same. president obama is the party widely considered "responsible" for penning the stimulus bill, so regardless of the actuality of who EXACTLY 'wrote' it, we KNOW who the chimp represents. the concept of any black man as a monkey revitalizes dangerous ethnic notions that still suffuse general sentiment in some parts of the country today. so no matter HOW MANY PRESIDENTS in this country EVER have been depicted as monkeys, when it's a black man, ITS DIFFERENT.
yes it is.
furthermore, assassination is NOT a funny joke.
i thought i couldn't be surprised by stupid people anymore, but i am sitting here at this keyboard shocked and appalled.
...and another thing, it's really very sad to me that this is being questioned the way it is. there is ZERO ambiguous about it.
REGARDLESS of the cartoonists "intent," WE KNOW that monkeys have spent at least a hundred years representing derogatory black stereotypes in this country. DON'T WE KNOW THAT?! in spite of any zoo incident, or rabies scare or whatever went on in connecticuit, the comparison of a black man to a chimp WILL ALWAYS conjure the excruciating history of similar correlations in american culture. i am sad that so many can be oblivious. it's like we're living in two different americas.
Okay, first of all, the New York Post is not the New York Times, there's a huge difference. The New York Post is more like a tabloid that likes to throw up huge headlines and do other such things to shock and grab attention rather than just report the news.
Anyway, here's my white person perspective on this cartoon. In my profession as a government employee, we OFTEN explain our headquarters' decisions as simply a monkey throwing darts at a dartboard. And if it's especially fucked up, we'll just say it's like a monkey fucking a football. I don't even know what that means exactly, but I know it's especially jacked up and I know it has nothing to do with race. My opinion of this cartoon, ESPECIALLY given the incident in CT which I didn't even know about, is that it presented the cartoonist the perfect opportunity to relate the government stimulus plan with some random idiocracy developed by a monkey. I don't think the cartoonist meant it as a racist insinuation against Pres Obama especially given that Obama had nothing to do with "writing" the stimulus bill, he's just trying to get it passed.
All that being said, Brianna is 100% right in saying that the cartoonist would know that it would most likely be interpeted as racist by those sensitive to anything that could appear to liken a black person to a monkey, as this cartoon obviously can be interpreted as doing. Therefore, by him/her drawin it anyway and not caring that black people will be offended whether they should or should not, does that make him a racist or just an asshole???
Another point of view to take is if the artist is not racist, then he should not have printed this for the simple fact that racist people will look at this and equate Obama with the dead chimp, whether he is actually intending to imply that or not. Kind of like the reason Dave Chapelle stopped doing his show. Obviously Dave Chapelle was not intending to make black people look bad with his show, he was just trying to be funny, but in retrospect he looked at his show and thought about how racist white people would interpret it and that didn't sit well with him so he stopped doing the show. At some point humor and free speech has to take a back seat to people's intepretations and sensitivities IF you care.
When I saw this cartoon online this morning, it stung... It's offensive.
Period.
I don't care who wrote the stimulus bill- when I think of it I, like many other Americans, think of President Obama. When you couple that with this country's history and how Black men and women were likened to animals and portrayed as sub-human, I don't know how you could NOT find this cartoon offensive.
The cartoonist knew that people would make this correlation and be hurt by it, and the fact that he obviously didn't give a damn is effed up.
This has nothing to do with assassination Melanie, it's a drawing of an actual incident that happened which the cartoonist links to an ongoing political situation. Political cartoonists do this all the time, it's political satire, that's their job.
a lot of you have some very interesting and enlightening opinions. i had my first initial response, and now i think that after reading what others think and learning a bit more about this cartoonist guy, this was no accident and is definitely offensive.
marcus, as you said, the incident in CT. gave the guy a correlation. now, if we still had W. as our president and this cartoon comes out, no big deal. maybe still not funny to a lot of folks because it's sad about what happened to the chimp, or it makes some think of assasination or something, but that's where it ends. but our president IS BLACK. everybody knows that and therefore it changes things. and i will not try to say it better than melanie did (mel you sound so smart, i want to borrow your brain), but i think we definitely have to acknowledge that this guy knew what he was doing. he's no dummy. and i understand his job might be to push the envelope or stir up controversy, but in my mind this crosses the line. sure, everyone has the freedom of speech and he's allowed to do just that, but i don't think we need to sit back and give him the benefit of the doubt on what his intent is. call a spade a spade.
@Melanie, I don't much appreciate being called a complete moron. But forgive me, I haven't lived my life having calibrated my feelings according to how people I wouldn't want to stand in the same room with think about someone like me. I'm sorry that you share the world with so many people that, believe it or not, looked at the same cartoon that you did and didn't see what you saw. You call people like me naieve, I'd like to think of us as progress. We didn't see Obama in that cartoon. Isn't that a good thing? I heard your new Attorney General giving a speech yesterday in which he called America 'a nation of cowards' when it comes to talking about race. After reading a comment like yours I can kind of understand why that might be. How can someone believe they can actually have an honest give-and-take discussion after reading something like that?
This is somewhat off topic, but I feel inspired to clarify my opinion: of course Obama didn't sit down and personally write the stimulus bill, but I also don't believe for a second that he was the "silent author" of it. This bill was written by a relatively small group of lawmakers (ie Obey, Pelosi) each pushing agendas (hopefully) representing the needs of their constitutes. I believe that Obama was backed up against a wall and forced to sign and try to "sell" this stimulus bill - regardless of what's in it - because most everyone agreed that something/anything needed to be done ASAP. I believe that he has done what any President would, given the circumstances he has been put in...but I certainly separate him from the content of the bill and I hope I'm not the only one who makes this distinction...especially if it ends up not being as "stimulating" as we all hope!
To me, there is nothing sad about sharing and reading other's opinions and/or questions. You always keep the healthy mix of fashion, politics, flash, and controversy, so thanks for this post and your blog, Bri! ox
Ms. Glenn,
I was thinking about … the derogatory, hate-filled, divisive and very violent attributes of the world’s political/social/religious/whatever arrangements.
I read your blog because of the aforementioned reality. To read and laugh about wearing a ring ‘with purpose’, a new ‘Budweiser sighting’ (and secretly find out about Brit_Brat, lol), along with other such meaningful details of Ms. Glenn’s Fab-u-los life.
Please, a place of respite from all the haters, and with whatever clever wordings they use to mask what lives in their hearts.
Newspapers have editors for a reason. The fact that the New York Post had Obama on the next page signing the legislation for the stimulus plan just put the icing on the cake. Ok Mr. Murdoch, (Rupert Murdoch owner of the NY Post, Fox News networks, and about $8 billion worth of other communication companies) we get it; you’re not too fond of Obama.
People aren’t going to stop being racist (or having racially insensitive tendencies) just because we have an African American as our president. The lines between political satire and poor taste seem to get burred a little too often when it comes to the portrayal of Mr. Obama. Need I remind you of:
Barrack the magic Negro
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/26/rnc.obama.satire/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfxVkLhlu5s
Drunken Negro face cookies
http://gothamist.com/2009/01/23/greenwich_village_bakery_selling_dr.php
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBLR6XYJlsc&eurl=http://dontgetgassed.com/
New Yorker Magazine cover
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/14/america/NA-US-Obama-New-Yorker.php
One of the reasons Obama got into office is because he transcends the racist BS that sill exists in this country. That stuff is beneath him. And the people that keep putting that content out there aren’t getting the response they had hoped for. Barack knows that there is a price to be paid for being fist; this is just part of the cost. Charge it to the game. There is also a price for bad publicity of a multibillion dollar empire (lost subscriptions, advertising dollars, etc). If you really feel the need to show the media that this sort of thing is unacceptable, hit them in their wallets. Just my thoughts.
Can anyone with a newsprint copy of yesterday's Post confirm that? That detail about the placement of the cartoon vis-a-vis a photo of the President is totally new to me, and would obviously be very relevant if it is as the above comment says it is.
I personally don't care about the intent or background of the cartoonist. The issue is the cartoon and the reasons why the cartoon makes people react the way it does. When I first saw the cartoon, I was like wow, you can't do that. Then I read your comment about the chimp in CT. Okay, now it makes more sense, cartoonist draws picture of major incident that's in the news and most people will be aware of, then adds quote by police officer refering to current political situation. That is textbook political satire and could have easily been done when Bush was pushing the bailout before Obama even took office.
But, like you said Bri, we do have a black president and that does change things on many levels. Because of America's history with regard to race, black people are justifiably extremely suspicious of white people and are quick to throw around the word racist or otherwise play the race card. I actually lost a "friend" because of a facebook discussion regarding the race card, which ended with me being called an outright racist and being deleted from her friend's list. The problem with that is exactly what Lustig said, it makes people scared to talk about race and therefore inhibits progress.
Most black people I know didn't think Obama could win the White House. He did. He beat a white male Republican and beat him soundly. Now an African-American man is the most powerful person in the world, in the most scrutinized job in the world, in the land of free speech and free press. This is the big leagues, it gets no bigger than this. Get ready for a lot of cartoons that push the envelope to come, get ready for political satire by comedians and shows like SNL, get ready for harsh, racially insensitive criticism from jackasses like Rush Limbaugh, and take comfort in the fact that America freely elected a black commander and chief to try and fix the problems caused by many moronic and greedy white men.
I know my blog is usually light-hearted but I was interested in this topic and chose to write about it. That's kind of what's so fabulous about having your own blog. LW...you have my back on that, right!
Anyway...I for one do appreciate and value different opinions most of the time. :) I labeled this a debate simply because I felt that it would be. And just because your opinion may differ from mine, does not mean I won't try and respect it. I believe there has been a lot of good information shared here and a few different viewpoints, which is what I was looking for.
At the end of the day I do believe that there was something intentional behind this cartoon and I believe it's responsible of us to point that out. It's not that I don't "get it" with the racially insensitive part of it being taken out of the equation. I do. And I can imagine that perhaps it would be easier for other people to see that more readily than others. But I'm not so sure I understand why you would want to choose to see it that way, especially when it becomes more obvious that that wasn't the intention. I don't think that's progress at all. It's like if I hear some white guy use the N-word...I'm not going to not be offended and then say that's progress on my part. I know the history of that word and it's offensive...just like I know the history of blacks/monkeys. I don't know, I just think it's somewhat comparable. Maybe this is not as blatant to some but at the very least we should agree that it was poor judgement, right?!
marcus you wrote at the same time as me! great minds think alike. ok...so i do agree with you, i just don't want people "missing" the point that was trying to be made here. because this was no simple oversight and i can live with freedom of speech and all of that, i just don't believe that ignorance is bliss.
The New York and Washington papers are much more high brow when it comes to politics. This is clearly a criticism of the economic recovery plan and not intended to be racist. The bigger issue seems to be that Al Sharpton feels that it is racist. He may have a point. but we should all be aware that Mr. Sharpton has a historical pattern of exploiting incidents to keep his name in the papers. It was J.C. Watts, an African American Republican congressman from Oklahoma who called Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson "Race-baiting poverty pimps." His argument was that Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Jackson needed to keep the race issue alive in order to keep themselves alive. This comic was tailor made for Mr. Sharpton - foolish looking white cops shooting a non-white mammal and then making an insensitive comment.
Since the election of President Obama Mr. Sharpton hasn't had much to complain about. His exploitation of this comic is unfortunate because it distracts everyone from real issues that need to be addressed. Instead, we are all reacting to Mr. Sharpton.
Heeeeeck yeah! It's YOUR blog, and we all read it voluntarily. ox
I'll try to keep this short, because I think that each of us has already given this jerk cartoonist much more thought than he deserves over the last 24 hours. I have never said that I didn't think the original intent of the cartoon was to incite or to provoke, it clearly was. The problem is the danger of giving someone like this what they want, which in this case was a huge amount of attention. The result will be that this cartoonist, as well as many others, will know how easy it is to provoke people with what could be defended as a very mild political statement. By showing so much outrage here, you are not forcing these people to expose their racist tendencies by making more extreme statements in order to get attention for themselves in the future. They can simply use the same very simple satire and count on people taking the bait. That's what I see as the real problem anyway. There's an expression bloggers use when talking about comments, don't feed the trolls. As hard as it might be to do so at the time, I really think it's a better long-term solution for dealing with these people.
ok, first @ bri, i love it that i "SOUND so smart"!!! hahaha! i KIND OF am! after all, i did magna kum laude and proudy out of one of the finest sociology programs in the nation! lol.
@ john, i apologize for any offense i caused with the moron remark. i do, however, stand by my opinion that this is NOT ambiguous, this is NOT imagined and this is DEFINITELY NOT PROGRESS!
no, i do not calibrate my life based on the opinions of others...rather, i have a life that is shaped and strongly affected by those others. did i ask to be born of an african immigrant? no. did i choose to opt out of white privilege as it exists in america today? certainly not. at any point in my life, have i ever requested any insults, discriminations or crosse-eyed glances based on an all-to-arbitrary attribute i had no control over? no again. and whether i CHOOSE to believe that racism exists (or existed, for that matter) has exactly zero effect on the reality that it both did and does.
i am in no way too cowardly to discuss race relations. and the fact that i am very opinionated on the matter, shouldn't preclude any potential for an honest give and take with someone just as opinionated, or someone totally on the fence. without differing opinions, there is no need for discussion at all.
for you to call it "progress" that you don't even notice the racial implications of a cartoon like this begs the question, aren't those who forget history doomed to repeat it?
it's been said that the best trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. by ignoring, or simply not seeing the racism that echos so loudly in this cartoon, we risk allowing more subtle manifestations of this and other derogatory ethnic notions to continue to suffuse the public at large. that's not progress. not at all.
oh yeah, and @ the last anonymous who wrote, i didn't read or hear any of al sharpton's or jesse jackson's reactions to this. my responses have been based entirely on my opinion of the cartoon and the comments of others on this blog.
i happen to be out of the country at the time.
well i wish you all cared about my fake diamond ring or track races just as much. :)
and just for the record, i did not read al sharpton's comments til after i had saw the cartoon and formed my first initial opinion.
Okay, I thought about it. This whole controversy is about nothing. Apparently, somebody made a monkey out of Obama (tricked him) to get him to be such a staunch advocate of the stimulus bill. (just more or the same old shit, really) Incidentally, one would need to be rabid to believe it is something that will actually make a difference. Don't believe the hype. Period.
Personally, I just thought the point of the cartoon was that the bill was so bad that a monkey could have put it together, and that the monkey = Congress. A lot of this has to do with the fact that race is usually the last thing I think about. I'm more concerned with a person's personality and character. That said, because many could and have taken it as a horrible jab at Obama, no matter what the author's intent, it should not have been published.
Racism exists. The monkey doesn't. It was a joke that was reviewed by professional journalists. Many people found it offensive. A mistake was made.
Damnit this should be offensive to no one if you were truly informed and not so damn sensitive. I did not even connect to Obama to be offended. Yes I see the reference but it was not my first thought. Why? How you ask? Because Pelosi and Reid wrote the damn Stimulus bill, Obama endorsed it.
Opponents of the bill have said it is a joke from the jump so the monkey play was just a reference to the nature of the bill.
Racism? Man get over it already. Barack is in, no more excuses. Yes it exist but it is not everywhere in everything. STOP BEING SO SENSITIVE.
Pissed
Just came across this apology from NY Post concerning the provocative cartoon they featured.
Article Apology
Interesting...
I'm with Coach D on this one. I hardly follow politics at all and even I knew who WROTE the bill and who just signed off on it.
You gotta stop being so on the defense.
@Brit, oh...not sure I'd want to be around when your sister finds that one...
Anonymous February 18, 2009 4:19 PM
I should get a name but I just came across this blog and I don't want to over-commit.
"well i wish you all cared about my fake diamond ring or track races just as much. :)"
In some ways you're right, Brianna! Your diamond ring and track races are human, and represent someone's genuine efforts to achieve a meaningful life and navigate society. Any thinking (single!) athlete - such as myself - must identify with this. Much more newsworthy than a tired satirist's view of public events.
I looked through Sean Pelonas's cartoons over the last couple of years. He clearly does not like Obama. His imagery suggests an ambitious, but dumb, opportunist who found himself presiding over a terrible situation. He generally does not express racial hatred here. But, having said that, I haven't seen a single cartoon in favour of black people. His cartoon of the chimp may be a case of "this is too good an opportunity to miss", in terms of a current affair that dropped in his lap. Maybe he thinks that his comment here may be misconstrued as racism. Who knows. In some ways, kudos to him for sticking to his guns in terms of seizing on a good opportunity to lampoon what he sees as a bad political decision. But, knowing the political and racial overtones, he should have had the wit to reconstrue it in less offensive terms. The minimum crime here is laziness. And that's a major crime in a recession.
I don't know. It's hard to know if he is a racist. As you pointed out above, if he intends to be offensive then we should be offended. But, as I noted above, he is not unaware of his provocation. I don't know if he's being overtly racist, but he is certainly leveraging off a racial awareness.
My opinion: he or the paper should have pulled this - the weak apology is too little too late. Even if he is only commenting on a racial stereotype rather than reinforcing it, he is still perpetuating the memory of it, and reinventing it for a new generation, which is a bad thing. Very bad.
Satirists are supposed to be amongst the sharpest people in society and should not rely on lazy stereotypes. In this sense, the cartooon was out of order and he deserves a dressing down at least.
But let's not lose focus. Brianna jumped far off her bad foot and rejected sleazy opportunist men. This is a big step forward for humanity!
hahaha I know Jon. That's why I hesitated even commenting. But Coach D said exactly what I was thinking, so I couldn't resist. A good conversation or debate wouldn't be the same without my lazy, somewhat blind, usually against the norm views and opinions :)
I would just like to state, for the record, that someone who doesn't follow politics at all, didn't even VOTE, and doesn't see the big deal that a black man was elected president, is not really the type of person I expected to in any way agree with me. But of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion. (i too was wondering when you'd chime in and say what hogwash this is)
I would also just like to clarify, because it is being insinuated by some, that there are lots of people who are aware of what is going on with the stimulus bill, who wrote it etc, who still found issue with this. It's not because we are dumb and uninformed and sit back and think the president sat down in his oval office with the door locked, wrote this bill, and TADA. like someone mentioned above, these cartoonists are not dumb. I don't think I have called anyone a "racist" because I don't know what's inside his head. (which neither do you, by the way). what i do believe is that when political satire is someone's job, I find it hard to imagine that so many of us saw the correlation and at least paused for a second and asked WTF... and it never even crossed their mind. hard to believe.
ok...i do plan on moving on since an apology has been issued and that really is all you can ask for at this point. of course if you still have something to say, the blog is still open!
Brianna don't be so condescending. It's unattractive.
Ms. Glenn & Brit_Brat,
Cat Fight!
LOL.
wow... this was a good one!
dp
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