I am more than sick and tired of the social justice warrior world trying to piggyback on the Charlie Hebdo shootings to promote its own agenda, especially when it gets stuff wrong.
Take this Tumblr roundup, first.
2. Dominque Strauss-Kahn raped nobody. He wasn't even charged with any crime.
This one is briefer but no more insightful.
It does, following bullet point 1 for the first link, claim that Charlie Hebdo is racist.
This blog here goes all the way down the rabbit hole on that.
In response?
1. Islam isn't a race.
2. As for attacking religions in general, Charlie Hebdo had one cover with the pope, an imam and a rabbi all demanding the paper be "veiled."
3. It's just a further indication that SJWs' sense of humor is generally weak tea.
Indeed, via this link, one can see Charlie Hebdo cartoons that specifically fought racism in France. And militarism and more.
Reason magazine has more on all of this, including and especially that third point of mine — SJWs' oftimes lack of humor.
And, as for not drawing black people certain ways or whatever? This smells of the same idiocy of SJWs who attacked Ted Rall's cartooning of Obama.
And also, Wiki notes this of the newspaper:
Irreverent and stridently non-conformist in tone, the publication describes itself as strongly anti-racist and left-wing, publishing articles on the extreme right, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, politics, culture, etc. According to its former editor, Charb (Stéphane Charbonnier), the magazine's editorial viewpoint reflects "all components of left wing pluralism, and even abstainers."
Bingo. Indeed, and surprisingly, someone at Freethought Blogs who is not a SJW says the same, in more detail. As does Jerry Coyne.
As for one SJWer's rhetorical question, "Who decides it's not racist?" Well, who decides it is? Beyond that, the magazine's staff is well known in France for its intent. (I also think that, outside the fringes of the New Left, France has less of a "PC" issue than the US.) Beyond the fact that Islam is not a "race," France does have laws about incitement to racial hatred, and per this piece, Charlie Hebdo did not fall afoul of them.
SJWers are also making other errors. Like assuming this is also anti-immigrant, when the percentage of immigrants among Muslims is actually lower than among France as a whole.
As for one SJWer's rhetorical question, "Who decides it's not racist?" Well, who decides it is? Beyond that, the magazine's staff is well known in France for its intent. (I also think that, outside the fringes of the New Left, France has less of a "PC" issue than the US.) Beyond the fact that Islam is not a "race," France does have laws about incitement to racial hatred, and per this piece, Charlie Hebdo did not fall afoul of them.
SJWers are also making other errors. Like assuming this is also anti-immigrant, when the percentage of immigrants among Muslims is actually lower than among France as a whole.
Today, France's immigrant population amounts to 15 percent of the total population, with lower figures for the Muslim community: hardly a tidal wave.There's actual statistics.
Now, if Charlie Hebdo would only do a future cover mocking SJWs.
Meanwhile, let's conclude with President François Hollande:
As for non-satiric representational art of Muhammad? The Koran doesn't ban it, nor do early hadiths. And, it has a long history, up to the current day. Read here.
That said, European countries aren't perfect on free speech issues themselves. I don't like continental European hate speech laws in general, like the one France has and that's it now using to stifle anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné.
I don't like public or private university hate speech codes here in the U.S. Even though I think Steve Salaita is not all that, I still don't like him being tripped up over such codes. (That said, I do like, as I say at that blog post, the schadenfreude of SJWs getting tripped up by conflicting principles, especially if they threaten to trip up P.Z. Myers.)
==
Meanwhile, Robert Crumb of "Keep on Truckin" and "Felix the Cat" fame has contributed his own piece, shown at left. And, here, he discusses Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical tradition (which the SJWs either don't "get" or refuse to "get") and ... well, the cowardice and other general weakness of modern American media.
And, sadly, he's right about that, since American newspapers refused to publish any actual Charlie Hebdo cartoons, just like they refused to publish the Danish ones several years ago. Just like they refuse to publish a lot of actual Iraq war casualty pictures.
More evidence of that cowardice here. Especially from a newspaper not afraid to run other offensive covers of its own.
Of course, as Medium notes, cartoons have little actual power against terrorists. (And, although the Catholic Church may have played some small part in toppling Communism in Poland, the bigger role goes to Solidarity, and Joe Stalin's bon mot was largely true. Ask Pius X in 1870.)
Meanwhile, for the SJWers? More ammunition undercutting you. If we go by lawsuits, Charlie Hebdo antagonized assumedly "white" Catholics much more than Muslims.
What's really at stake is anti-clericalism, which has a long history in France., as is France's history of satire harder-hitting than the US, as Charlie Hebdo's own staff explains. Theoretically, one could argue that American SJWs are practicing "privilege" for not taking France's culture in its own light.
Dan Fincke addresses not just SJWs and claims of racism, US media timidity and more, at his Patheos site.
==
At the same time, there IS some sort flip side — perhaps.
While I reject the racism idea, is Charlie Hebdo Islamophobic? Or, is it quasi-Islamophobic in the name of Mammon, as Tariq Ramadan alleges?
Looking at a Google Images page of Hebdo covers, while a fair amount of them are Muslim-focused, per a suit that Hebdo won in French court, that could well be because a higher percentage of French Muslims are fundamentalist than are Jews or Christians. Beyond that, Gerard Depardieu gets repeated skewering for his contemplated high-tax flight, among other things.
That said, why is anti-Semitism very much not OK, if anti-Muslim sentiments are? Survey would say that this is anti-Semitism, not anti-Judaism. (Hebdo's regularly run anti-Zionist cartoons.) So, Siné's case was about racism.
Seeing this is arguably the single biggest challenge to Hebdo's claim to be an equal-opportunity satirist. It also leaves the paper open to conspiracy theory claims.
However, on further reflection, I reject that.
The Charlie Hebdo situation reminds me that religious anti-Judaism and racial anti-Semitism are two different things, and that anti-Zionism is a third. Re the Siné case and him being fired for his cartoon, Hebdo's top staff made the judgment that he was engaged in the second, and not the first, nor the third. Yes, a French court disagreed, as did a superior court on appeal. But, with further thought, I see more clearly where CH was coming from, and given that it has, by its own lights, purported to be against racism, I don't see Hebdo's actions as hypocrisy after all.
Meanwhile, let's conclude with President François Hollande:
"We are a free people that doesn't give in to any pressure. We carry an ideal that is larger than us. We will defend it everywhere that peace is threatened."Exactly.
As for non-satiric representational art of Muhammad? The Koran doesn't ban it, nor do early hadiths. And, it has a long history, up to the current day. Read here.
That said, European countries aren't perfect on free speech issues themselves. I don't like continental European hate speech laws in general, like the one France has and that's it now using to stifle anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonné.
I don't like public or private university hate speech codes here in the U.S. Even though I think Steve Salaita is not all that, I still don't like him being tripped up over such codes. (That said, I do like, as I say at that blog post, the schadenfreude of SJWs getting tripped up by conflicting principles, especially if they threaten to trip up P.Z. Myers.)
==
And, sadly, he's right about that, since American newspapers refused to publish any actual Charlie Hebdo cartoons, just like they refused to publish the Danish ones several years ago. Just like they refuse to publish a lot of actual Iraq war casualty pictures.
More evidence of that cowardice here. Especially from a newspaper not afraid to run other offensive covers of its own.
Of course, as Medium notes, cartoons have little actual power against terrorists. (And, although the Catholic Church may have played some small part in toppling Communism in Poland, the bigger role goes to Solidarity, and Joe Stalin's bon mot was largely true. Ask Pius X in 1870.)
Meanwhile, for the SJWers? More ammunition undercutting you. If we go by lawsuits, Charlie Hebdo antagonized assumedly "white" Catholics much more than Muslims.
What's really at stake is anti-clericalism, which has a long history in France., as is France's history of satire harder-hitting than the US, as Charlie Hebdo's own staff explains. Theoretically, one could argue that American SJWs are practicing "privilege" for not taking France's culture in its own light.
Dan Fincke addresses not just SJWs and claims of racism, US media timidity and more, at his Patheos site.
==
At the same time, there IS some sort flip side — perhaps.
While I reject the racism idea, is Charlie Hebdo Islamophobic? Or, is it quasi-Islamophobic in the name of Mammon, as Tariq Ramadan alleges?
Looking at a Google Images page of Hebdo covers, while a fair amount of them are Muslim-focused, per a suit that Hebdo won in French court, that could well be because a higher percentage of French Muslims are fundamentalist than are Jews or Christians. Beyond that, Gerard Depardieu gets repeated skewering for his contemplated high-tax flight, among other things.
That said, why is anti-Semitism very much not OK, if anti-Muslim sentiments are? Survey would say that this is anti-Semitism, not anti-Judaism. (Hebdo's regularly run anti-Zionist cartoons.) So, Siné's case was about racism.
Seeing this is arguably the single biggest challenge to Hebdo's claim to be an equal-opportunity satirist. It also leaves the paper open to conspiracy theory claims.
However, on further reflection, I reject that.
The Charlie Hebdo situation reminds me that religious anti-Judaism and racial anti-Semitism are two different things, and that anti-Zionism is a third. Re the Siné case and him being fired for his cartoon, Hebdo's top staff made the judgment that he was engaged in the second, and not the first, nor the third. Yes, a French court disagreed, as did a superior court on appeal. But, with further thought, I see more clearly where CH was coming from, and given that it has, by its own lights, purported to be against racism, I don't see Hebdo's actions as hypocrisy after all.
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