However, cartoonist have depicted many of our presidents and leaders as monkeys when referring to bills and legislation that were seen to be written by a lower mind.

Not saying that this was not racist, but I can not say that it was either. A common animal used to satirize the useless and dumb writings of powerful white people becomes racist when applied to a black man.

Yes, this can be racist! But do a quick search and find many cartoons where our political figures are depicted as primates or have dictation being taken by one. Our inability to see beyond the mistakes of the past – not forget them but move beyond them – holds us all back from expressing ourselves without fear of misinterpretation or benefit of true interpretation.
Do we still feel the need to treat the African-Americans, as we a still fell the need to call them African-Americans and not just Americans, of our country as second class still to this day by censoring our artistic interpretations because we still can not view each other as equal and buffer our opinions because they may still be interpreted as racist?

*sorry about punctuation and run-ons ~ rants are what they are and hardly can be stopped by the appropriate placement of dots and squiggles*