Lee calls for Post boycott over cartoon

NEW YORK, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- Celebrities should help boycott the New York Post for publishing a racially charged cartoon, U.S. filmmaker Spike Lee says.

The "Do the Right Thing" director said at a New York protest Friday that athletes and entertainers should join the boycott and not let the newspaper off the hook for the cartoon protesters contend compared U.S. President Barack Obama with a crazed chimp, the New York Daily News reported.

"This is not the end," Lee said. "Shut it down. It's not just black folks. It's an insult to everybody."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime civil rights activist, also was on hand for the New York protest, along with TV judge Greg Mathis.

The Daily News said Wednesday's cartoon, created by Sean Delonas, showed a police officer making a questionable reference to a featured bloody chimp.

"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," the officer tells a fellow cop in the cartoon, an apparent reference to Obama.

On Friday, the Post apologized to those offended by the cartoon, which played off the shooting off a chimpanzee by police in Connecticut to make a point about the just-passed economic stimulus package.