Is New York Post cartoon racist?

Is this New York Post cartoon racist? Does it depict the police officers shooting Barack Obama? After all, there are still far too many backwoods Americans who throw about derogatory slang terms about blacks.

However, it's free speech but does free speech also cover what some define as hate speech? The line, though, was crossed a few years back with a Muhammed editorial cartoon published in Europe and that led to riots. America is much calmer than that but does this editorial cartoon prove that racism is again going mainstream?

Like any art form, it is open to interpretation and I welcome and am curious about yours.

(h/t)

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