Here’s the latest from Talking Points Memo on yesterday’s horrific terror attack against the satirical French publication Charlie Hebdo.
You see, those cartoons are actually an example of “racism.” For real:
Media: Instead of lionizing Charlie Hebdo's racism, support the cartoonists you're exploiting http://t.co/bvzBtnHyOr pic.twitter.com/ZowcUF30wN
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) January 8, 2015
The tweet links to this op-ed by Erin Polgreen and rather than explain the racism accusation, the piece doesn’t actually mention race or racism at all.
There is this criticism, however:
But Charlie Hebdo isn’t sacred, either. It often crossed the line. In a comprehensive overview of Charlie Hebdo’s track record, Jacob Canfield writes that “[w]hile they generously claim to ‘attack everyone equally,’ the cartoons they publish are intentionally anti-Islam, and frequently sexist and homophobic.” Canfield cites one example in particular, a cover in which Boko Haram sex slaves were drawn as welfare moms.
Since when does one’s religion, gender or sexual orientation make one a different “race”?
Here’s the cover of the one example TPM and Canfield give that might be considered racist. The text is reportedly translated as, “The sex slaves of Boko Haram are angry. ‘Don’t touch our child benefits!’”:
But based on what we’ve read (one example) regarding the politics of the writers and cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, calling this image racist is a gross injustice.
And TPM left out the part from their citation of Jacob Canfield’s “comprehensive overview” of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons where Canfield calls the now deceased Stephane Charbonnier a “racist asshole”:
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.”
Stay classy, TPM.
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