For African Americans, “2008 was not a good year,” said Algernon Austin, director of Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy at the Economic Policy Institute, “and unfortunately, it looks like things will get worse.”

The cartoon features Barack and Michelle Obama celebrating with a fist bump in the Oval Office in front of a portrait of Osama bin Laden and an American flag burning in the fireplace. Mrs. Obama is portrayed as a militant radical, while Obama appears foreign.

Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.