In case my regular readers have not noticed, I have removed the "I am Charlie" icon from this site. Ironically, this comes only days after I published a story on CH based on their latest cover, which refers to the Barcelona terror attack.
When the office of CM was raided by Muslim killers and several of their staff murdered, I joined most of the world in solidarity with their right to publish cartoons critical of Islam. Posting an icon that said, "Je suis Charlie" ( I am Charlie) was my act of defiance.
However, this week CM has published a couple of cartoons that lambaste the state of Texas, specifically, the victims of Hurricane Harvey. The message is that Texans are just a bunch of white goobers who voted for Trump and are now being punished and not worthy of support. (No, I will not post the cartoons.)
I walked a careful line with anti-Islam cartoons. I made it a practice not to post cartoons that mocked Mohammad because they were offensive to every Muslim on the planet. Cartoons that mocked jihadists, terrorists or those who wanted to stifle all criticism of Islam were fair game including the one I cross-posted this week from CM.
To mock the victims of Harvey is to mock all the citizens who were in its path. They are made up of whites, blacks, Hispanics and others. They are made up of people who voted for and against Trump. The people at Charlie Hebdo need not fear one thing, however. There won't be any gun-toting Texans storming their offices to kill them in revenge.
Texans are better than that.
Good news in your neck of the woods....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ocweekly.com/news/uci-students-for-justice-in-palestine-sanctioned-again-8389976
You might have recognized that much sooner. After all Charlie Hebdo published the kind of cartoons that you yourself rightly decline to publish. That's no excuse for murder, but many of us said from the beginning, Je n'suis pas Charlie Hebdo, et je n'etais jamais. People who would publish gratuitous cartoons about Mohammed would gladly publish defamatory cartoons about Texas.
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair enough comment but we had to support victims of Islamic terrorism. After all, heads of state flocked to Paris to march in solidarity.
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