It’s a good tradition, especially when an article cites illustrious thinkers like Matt Yglesias to support it’s argument.
Charlie Hebdo is heroic and racist. We should embrace and condemn it. http://t.co/0AKZov9a2q
— Slate (@Slate) January 9, 2015
https://twitter.com/sarahzview/status/553377057132912640
There actually is a kernel of truth in Slate’s dilemma about Charlie Hebdo though.
We shouldn’t consider the magazine “heroic” at all. Give them credit for being a little more gutsy than the major news organizations who tuck tail and run from anything that might potentially offend perpetually outraged Islamists. That’s not heroism though. The cartoons published in the magazine are crass, generally offensive and puerile. That’s not racism though. “Racism” is just the lazy liberal writer’s wild card.
The real issue here isn’t somehow holding them to be both heroes and racists. The lesson is in recognizing that while they slandered all creeds in a trashy magazine, only one of those creeds thought they deserved to die for doing so.
France’s ambassador to the U.S. chimed in to correct Slate.
.@Slate Racist? Didn't you notice that it used the same caricatures for the Catholics who were by far their favorite targets? And for Jews?
— Gérard Araud (@GerardAraud) January 9, 2015
You can say anything about Charle Hebdo : bad taste, gross, vulgar (some would refute theses adjectives) but racist never! The opposite!
— Gérard Araud (@GerardAraud) January 9, 2015
Charle Hebdo was attacking – and some would say insulting – all religions without any prejudice, Catholicism more than Islam and Judaism.
— Gérard Araud (@GerardAraud) January 9, 2015
We don’t need to embrace Charlie Hebdo at all. We only need to embrace the truth that they have the right to be offensive.
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