Sandra Guzman was an editor at the Post charged with running, among other things, a section aimed at Latino readers. After the paper published a Sean Delonas cartoon depicting President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee being gunned down by white police officers, she complained internally about what she saw as the paper's persistent and overt racism under the leadership of Australian he-man Col Allan. Then she got fired.

Yesterday, she filed a complaint in federal court alleging systematic racism in the Post's hiring, firing, and editorial practices, and depicting Allan as a stupid, giggling frat-boy who likes to show his female employees pictures of naked men for kicks. The complaint has all sorts of damning allegations—you can read the whole thing here, but some of the good bits are below. Guzman has separately filed a complaint against the Post with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit comes just one day after the paper fired reporter Austin Fenner, one of the few remaining African-American reporters on the paper's staff—we're told there are just three others, one of whom has been on an extended sick leave for most of the year. We're also told that the paper—a metro daily in New York City—has no African-American editors, and hasn't for nine years. UPDATE: A tipster points out Robert George, an editor on the Post's editorial page, is an African American. Our sources on the Post's demographics were thinking of the news and features pages.

SECOND UPDATE: According to two other tipsters, business editor Jay Sherman is an African American as well. For the record, we asked a rep for the Post about the paper's demographics, and got an e-mailed statement, printed below, in response.

We've contacted the Post to confirm that and for a response to Guzman's complaint, and we'll publish it when we get one.

Here are some of the allegations:

The Post, Guzman says, was a "hostile work environment" for women and non-white staffers, who are subject to "pervasive and systemic discrimination" and "harassment":

Allan's "inappropriate and sexist comments and conduct have been widely known throughout" the Post. For instance, he likes to show ladies what penises look like. He thinks it's funny!

He also, Guzman says, likes to rub his penis up against his female employees, whether they want him to or not:

Other editors at the paper, following Allan's classy lead, have taken to offering female staffers better jobs in exchange for blow jobs:

Allan's colleague Les Goodstein, a News Corp. senior vice president, thinks latin ladies are hot, and told Guzman so. He also liked to lick his lips while staring at other women's breasts in her presence:

The beef that precipitated Guzman's firing was over a drawing by Sean Delonas, a racist, gay-hating, and—worst of all—astoundingly humorless cartoonist. The Barack-Obama-Is-a-Dead-Chimp cartoon is not his first exceedingly tasteless offering, and at one point, Guzman says, Delonas had the bright idea of depicting Jews as sewer rats, a pitch that apparently got nixed:

Guzman's complaints about the cartoon fell on deaf ears, both because real men don't care about whiny P.C. minority-type people and because she just didn't get that the whole point of the New York Post is to "destroy Barack Obama." At least that's what she says the paper's Washington bureau chief told her:

Col Allan certainly didn't care about P.C. minority-type people: When some of them staged a protest outside his newspaper, he laughed at them because "most of them are minorities and the majority are uneducated." Unlike the Post's highly sophisticated, Sean Delonas-loving readership:

Allan felt the same way about the vanishingly small number of non-white employees he oversees. When one of them approached him to discuss his feelings about the cartoon, Allan simply walked away:

After Guzman made her feelings public in an e-mail stating that she had raised her objections to the cartoon to management—an e-mail that got picked up by the Huffington Post and other blogs—Allan, she says, launched a crusade against her. His animus, according to Guzman, overwhelmed his news judgment. In August, Guzman—who is a personal friend of Justice Sonia Sotomayor—was invited as a guest to a White House reception celebrating Sotomayor's confirmation. No other reporters were to be present. Guzman asked for permission to cover and report on the event, and Allan said no. Granted, her personal relationship and status as a guest would make such an assignment weird, but a) it could have been disclosed and presented as an insider account, and b) since when has the Post cared about conflicts of interest? Especially when they have a chance to get an exclusive about a highly newsworthy event? Of all the transgressions listed in Guzman's complaint, this is perhaps the most shocking—that Allan let his hatred of Obama, Sotomayor, and Guzman kill a potential scoop.

There's much more, so do read the complaint in its entirety. We're sure Rupert Murdoch will, using his sophisticated racism-detecting system to determine that Guzman is full of it. Because if Glenn Beck's not a racist, then Col Allan certainly isn't, right?

UPDATE: The Post has released a statement responding to the complaint.

This lawsuit has no merit and is based on charges that are groundless. As previously stated, Ms. Guzman's position was eliminated when the section she edited was discontinued due to a decline in advertising sales.

According to a story in the New York Times today (in which the NYT tries very hard to suppress its glee), the Post's circulation has fallen by 30% in less than three years, to just a hair over half a million; and its financial losses were around $70 million last year, making the paper an expensive habit even by Rupert Murdoch's standards. And the fact that Rupert's adding local reporting to the WSJ makes Post reporters (reasonably) nervous they're falling out of favor.

We must not let this perpetually money-losing right-wing tabloid fall from grace! New York would be such a boring newspaper city without a loud, drunk voice of opposition. A few helpful suggestions:

• Andrea Peyser's sexxxy, but is she sexxxy enough? Millions of people in New York have sex every day without being mentioned in Andrea Peyser's column. Work on that.
• Col Allan is drunk, but is he drunk enough? Secretly rig the water fountains to emit gin, if you haven't done so already.
• Sean Delonas is racist, but is he racist enough? Racist cartoons are all well and good, but try upping Sean's visibility by getting him out there on the street, among the people, beating up minorities, then quick-sketching it on a blog. After he's all done promoting his children's book.

After infamous Post cartoonist Sean Delonas published a panel depicting a dead monkey who wrote President Obama's stimulus bill, associate editor Guzman sent an email to other reporters saying "I had nothing to do with the Sean Delonas cartoon... I have raised my objections to management." Naturally, the note went public.

The Post fired Guzman last week when it discontinued her section, Tempo. But sources inside the paper tell the Huffington Post's Sam Stein that it seemed management was looking for an excuse to get rid of Guzman.

She has been on their shit list and they were trying to look for a reason to get rid of her.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/06/ny-post-fires-editor-crit_n_311432.html

Murdoch's News Corporation, which owns the Post, is, by all accounts, an organization especially obsessed with loyalty and hierarchy. And Guzman spoke out of turn. Yes, she was correct, and her comments were, even then, restrained. Yes, Murdoch agreed with her, writing that the cartoon was "a mistake... I want to personally apologize..." And yes, in an era of Twitter and Facebook overshares, there are editors who regularly slag their own publications far harder. But it would appear that none of these mitigating circumstances matter in the insular culture of News Corp., where a plainly bigoted but loyal cartoonist remains on staff while the mildest of dissenters is shown the door.

That's from last Sunday! Sean Delonas: furnishing you with exquisitely timed tributes to diversity, since 2009.

The New York Post's resident bigot funnyman has not drawn even one amusing caricature of Sotomayor. She is Hispanic, Sean! This should be a no-brainer! Is he at his desk staring at one depiction of her serving Swine Flu-laden tacos and another of her in a maid's uniform, paralyzed with indecision? Is he unable to draw a sombrero? Is he just upset that Obama didn't pick a homosexual? Who knows! But we are disappointed.

Yes, he did! See, New York Gov. David Paterson is in his office there surrounded by pictures of Mr. Magoo—another blind man, who was blind, like David Paterson's blind. Ha, burn, Paterson! You are so blind. Sean Delonas Pwns the government fat cats again!

No idea why our blind governor is pictured looking over at the taxpayer here. Ask Sean Delonas. [NYP via Balk]

Update: Drat. It's just his normal day off. Nevermind. You'll be seeing his regularly scheduled racist, homophobic fever dreams tomorrow.

Last month, Delonas shook up his usual routine of hysterical gay-bashing, misogyny, and politically astute "all Democrats are Muslims are terrorists" analysis with a little old-fashioned (barely) coded racism. Oddly, his charming cartoon about a monkey who was shot after writing the stimulus bill did not go over well with the black community! Or "the non-asshole community"!

There were protests, and two apologies—a fake one from Col Allen and a realer one from Murdoch himself.

But besides those apologies, the Post didn't actually do anything. Well, they fired Liz Smith. But Delonas soldiered on, mocking Murdoch critic Michael Wolff for sleeping with a lady and for having the trademark Delonas "swishy gay-leg."

But on today's Page Six? Some other cartoon from some guy named Gorrell, who is obvious and unfunny instead of crazy offensive and unfunny, like our Sean.

Delonas' last cartoon ran on Friday, and it makes no damn sense at all, as it is about a terrorist snowman scaring the FBI, an apparent reference to all those news stories about the FBI being scared of snowmen. Right? So either Delonas finally lost his mind from the stress of people paying attention to how much of a bigot he is and is taking a much-needed break, or the Post actually fired him (unlikely!), or he just took the day off.

Even as it's busy shutting down the Seattle paper and (maybe) combining some papers in Texas, Hearst has found the time to tell the union at the San Francisco Chronicle to either give in to the company's demands or face 225 job cuts. Winding down the entire newspaper industry is hard work.

That whole NAACP protest against the New York Post over the Sean Delonas monkey cartoon thing wasn't as unified as it appears; Nat Hentoff reports that the NAACP actually had one critic removed from its annual meeting after he said "Demagoguery is not the standard of effective leadership in addressing serious social justice issues." Related: Nat Hentoff is now reporting for the "Daily News Tribune." Times are bad.

College newspapers are floundering financially because of weak ad revenue, just like real papers! Solution here.

More on Brooklyn blogger Robert Guskind, who died this week of a reported drug overdose.

Tania deLuzuriaga, the former reporter who quit after it came out that she had an affair with a Miami school superintendent while covering him, has found a new job! She's now a flack. [Joke joke joke]. Well good for her for being employed, we say.

Cityfile broke the affair story last week. Wolff said his lawyer would be in touch with them—but they've heard nothing, prompting them to taunt him today (worth reading for the kicker).

But far more annoying for Wolff is the New York Post, which jumped on this story with a level of interest reserved for its enemies. Of which Wolff is one, because he talked bad about the boss, Rupert Murdoch! You can just tell the Post is gonna run this one into the ground. Page Six had one item yesterday reviewing the rumor itself, and then another item today plugging Wolff, just because they can. And they gave him the greatest honor of all: A Sean Delonas cartoon mocking his body.

No matter how this turns out, that's something to be proud of.

[UPDATE: As an alert commenter points out, Delonas even drew Wolff with the telltale "gay sheep fucker" prancy-leg under the covers. Delonas cartoons are multi-leveled things.
UPDATE 2: An alternate theory we've heard: The Post's payback is for Michael Wolff saying that Col Allan should be fired for Delonas' monkey cartoon. Either way: beef!]

Rev. Al went on down to City Hall yesterday to let it be known that he will not be satisfied with Rupe's niceties. The vague "boycott" continues! Probably of more concern to News Corp, Al says he's meeting with the FCC today to lobby against News Corp's NYC ownership waiver. (Does that have any hope of success? No idea, but we hope so, for the sake of a good feud). Even Mayor Bloomberg is now being subjected to jeers over this sensitive issue, for being insufficiently outraged! We applaud Rev. Al's determination to keep this thing going, because he's guaranteed free space in the Daily News as long as he wants. Although his supporters should work on some better slogans:

[Murdoch] says in his statement this will never happen again. Well, he does not say how he intends to see that it never happens again," Sharpton said in front of supporters holding signs reading, "Yes we can shut you down NY Post!" and "How do you spell racism? New York Post."

[NYDN]

Rupert has issued what we must admit is a very civil and human-sounding apology! A day after Al Sharpton and the NAACP vowed to keep on protesting this issue until it hit News Corp in the wallet, the head of News Corp appears in the pages of his dirtiest, fuck-you-Al-Sharpton paper to sincerely apologize. Interesting. Rupert comes off like the responsible father who has to apologize to the neighbors because his kids had a wild party while he was out of town. And while we would have expected a very slick non-apology from Rupert, this almost sounds like (dare we say?) an actual apology:

As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you - without a doubt - that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

Ha, this officially makes the New York Post a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys! (Except for you Delonas; it makes you a prancing sheep-fucker.) [Pic via]

The brief backstory: The Post is a right wing rag and has always been pretty well hated by New York's black community (see, for example, Public Enemy's "Letter to the New York Post"). During the Clinton administration, News Corp got a waiver from the FCC that allowed it to own and operate multiple TV stations and newspapers in the NYC market. At the time, Jesse Jackson was perceived as having some pull with the FCC; therefore, News Corp had to play nice with Jesse and Rev. Al during the Clinton years.

Once little Bush came in, though, News Corp was once again cozier with the administration than Jesse and Co. were, so they were able to go right back to their normal state of outright hostility towards black liberals. Now, Al's strategy is to use the cartoon controversy as an excuse to ask the FCC to review News Corp's waiver.

Could that really work? The FCC will naturally be somewhat less dick-riding to News Corp under Obama than it was under Bush, but this still sounds like a stretch. My sense is that this is just a bargaining chip, which could end up making Al Sharpton look foolish if it totally fizzles out. But that could just be leftover pessimism from the past eight years.

Media beef-starter Michael Wolff actually thinks that Post editor Col Allan is going to get canned for this whole cartoon thing! If News Corp really was in danger of losing its waiver, then it certainly wouldn't hesitate to throw the greasy Australian editor overboard. And the NAACP would certainly be satisfied with that. But it would seem more characteristic for News Corp to just say "Fuck you" to black New Yorkers and forge ahead as usual. That's what makes them so fun, and evil!

It's the newspaper of the working man, after all! Anyhow, click to watch Spike's harsh words for the tabloid.

• Don't say 'If you were offended...'—Or words to that effect. Which is what the Post did, essentially. People aren't all that smart, but they're smart enough to detect the inherent insincerity in this formulation: "Sorry you're so sensitive."
• Don't let the lawyers write it—Lawyers do nothing but cover your ass (and theirs). Apologies are simply not what they're made for. Vicki Iseman, McCain's lobbyist friend, is now pissed at the Times for issuing a lawyer-crafted note about the story, then immediately crowing to staff that they didn't apologize. So how can you ensure that your non-apology is satisfactory?
• Exhibit a thin, perceptible veneer of contrition—A good non-apology must allow both parties to salvage their own pride. This is done by using insincerity coated in a thin candy shell of contrition. Overly broad words help everyone swallow the thing. "I am sincerely sorry for this incident." Why are you sorry? Doesn't matter! Maybe because the other party is such a chump, who knows. But don't outright imply that, see? "We sincerely regret that this ever happened." You can apply these to any situation, almost!
• Let it be known QUIETLY that you had no reason to apologize—Don't just blast out a note to the whole world mocking your own non-apology as some legalistic bullshit. Just drop that fact very smoothly in the course of conversations with people who you feel should be made to understand that you're not guilty of whatever. You can even wink, in real life, as you do so!
• Both sides must tacitly agree to accept that they won—The recipient of the non-apology is entitled to walk away telling everyone that he was proven right. The giver of the non-apology is entitled not to have their face rubbed in it to the extent that they're tempted to be honest about how fake it was. It's like playing basketball with a child, and graciously letting them win. It's fine as long as they're a good sport. If they start getting too proud of themselves then you have you REJECT them, and then the crying starts, and it's all a big mess. Just learn to get along with your enemies, and save everyone a headache.

We sincerely regret that you had to read this entire post.

Delonas' real crime is that he's just not funny. Yes, he's clearly a garden-variety ignorant white dude bigot with an incredibly deep-seated fear of somebody calling him gay; but if he were funny, he'd be able to get away with that to a much greater extent. He's not funny, so he just looks pitiful, protected by other soft, paunchy ignorant white dude bigots like Col Allan, all with sour faces and too much self-justification, like so many sad old newspaper barflies.

But you don't have to be funny to write children's books! So Delonas did just that, with Scuttle's Big Wish. Currently #392,359 on Amazon! His son helped him with the plot, according to a 2006 review:

One day, Scuttle hears a cry and discovers that a golden beetle is trapped in a spider's web. Daring to save the beetle, in spite of constant death threats from his nemesis Pounce the cat, he frees the insect.

Sure enough, the beetle grants Scuttle his most fervent wish, that everything he touches be turned into cheese. In short order, Scuttle becomes fatter and fatter and also starts to die from thirst and hunger. Even Tweet turns into cheese.

Something quite familiar about that theme, I just can't put a finger on it....

From an editorial on its website:

[The cartoon] was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.... But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.

This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

After this very slight contrition, the editorial immediately turns to lashing everyone who has disagreed with the Post in the past, saying they used the cartoon as an opportunity for "payback."

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

We're sorry you issued a pointless apology, Post.

Up top, a clip of Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wondering bemusedly if he's been apologized to, since he's both a Post critic and someone legitimately offended.

Robinson and MSNBC host Keith Olbermann later speculated that recently-liberalized News Corp. overlord Rupert Murdoch ordered up the New York Post's uncharacteristic written regrets. Well, obviously. A toy does not operate so independently from its owner. (See end of video below for one of several instances in which Murdoch has publicly acknowledged meddling in the tabloid as he sees fit.)

A little background, if you're blessedly unfamiliar: New York Post political cartoonist Sean Delonas has always been a bigoted idiot, but people are just now realizing it after Delonas authored a cartoon where a monkey is shot and killed for authoring the stimulus bill—an uncomfortable, fraught comparison to make when dealing with our first black president. This is something that could be understood by almost anyone—even Elisabeth Hasselbeck! However, Barbara (already bleary-eyed from watching back-to-back episodes of The Mentalist on her DVR last night) had an alternate explanation for the outrage: "Because it's a black monkey." Audience laughter and the confused interventions of her cohosts did not deter Walters from pressing her case until Sherri Shepherd finally thought, "What the hell?" and said, "If it was a white monkey, I still would be offended." We wouldn't! They're adorable.

• The View [ABC]

Sharpton said it's worse than Don Imus' derogatory comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team. The Post, Sharpton said, seems to play into the old stereotype of African Americans being monkeys.

There you have it! Hard to tell from the midday news tight shots, but it looks like they got at least a semi-respectable number of protesters out there, not that anyone at News Corp gives a fuck. Sharpton says if the Post doesn't "take some action" against Delonas and his editors, he'll lead a boycott of advertisers. To which Col Allan, we imagine, finished his Hot Pocket, licked his lips, turned to his editors, and said, "Fuck Al Sharpton." [CBS2]

The little NYT story on the cartoon yesterday got more than 1000 comments. It was all over the cable news networks. It was all over the local news network, NY1. And the Daily News ran a Michael Daly column today calling for the Post to apologize. But the Post? Well they didn't catch that story yesterday, probably because of the din of phones ringing with threats to burn down their building. But hey, did you guys hear about that monkey attack? Ha, you just can't get enough of that one, right? It's a totally legitimate story, unconnected to race in any way, so please stop calling, black people!

[PS—hey Delonas, 78% of New York Post readers believe that yellow ties are a sure sign of being a prancing gay sheep-fucker. Photo via]