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When faced with a terrorist attack against a satirical newspaper, the appropriate response seems obvious. Don’t let the victims be silenced. Spread their work as far as it can possibly go. Laugh in the face of those savage murderers who don’t understand satire.
In this case, it is the wrong response.
Here’s what’s difficult to parse in the face of tragedy: yes, Charlie Hebdo is a French satirical newspaper. Its staff is white. Its cartoons often represent a certain, virulently racist brand of French xenophobia. While they generously claim to ‘attack everyone equally,’ the cartoons they publish are intentionally anti-Islam, and frequently sexist and homophobic.
Even in a fresh-off-the-press, glowing BBC profile of Charb, Hebdo’s murdered editor, he comes across as a racist asshole.
Charb had strongly defended Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad.
“Muhammad isn’t sacred to me,” he told the Associated Press in 2012, after the magazine’s offices had been fire-bombed.
“I don’t blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don’t live under Koranic law.”
In the Wake of Charlie Hebdo, Free Speech Does Not Mean Freedom From CriticismFound through this debate at
(Facebook) The Middle Eastern Feminist. You might want to dig some of the comments.
As I'm a privileged white male who didn't read the magazine nor would be able to because of lack of linguistic skills never mind knowledge of French politics I would like to hear opinions from some of you victims of the magazine?