The Rev. Al Sharpton has asked for an apology from Cartoon Network for an episode of edgy animated series “The Boondocks” that shows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. saying the n-word.

“Cartoon Network must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures,” Sharpton, a civil-rights activist and former Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement Tuesday.

“We are totally offended by the continuous use of the n-word in (cartoonist Aaron) McGruder’s show.”
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In a Sunday broadcast of the “Black Forum” show, McGruder, speaking from Los Angeles, repeated the epithet, arguing that Rice, as one of the administration’s “biggest hawks,” advised the president on a war that led to the “slaughter of innocent people in Iraq.”

Some of the black panelists assembled in the Washington studio winced at the remarks.

Conservative syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams rebuked the cartoonist, whose strip is syndicated in more than 250 newspapers.

“I can’t get over the fact you labeled Miss Rice a murderer,” he said.

The low-key McGruder, 29, asserted that he has a right to his opinion.

“She’s a murderer because I believe she’s a murderer,” he said coolly.

NAACP chairman Julian Bond, another panelist, wrote it off to “satire,” but added, smiling, “I agree with his politics.”
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