It's hard to prove a cartoon is racist without going heavy into stereotypes and style, especially when it's not as simple as a black person being drawn as a monkey. Yes I know they were saying that's how others saw her. You'd think a national magazine would know better than to proliferate racism like that, even if it was 'indirect'.
Like others have published, they had no grace in what they were doing and went over the line - sometimes far from satire, and they shouldn't be respected for that.
Before the OP and others jump down my throat again, no, that doesn't mean they deserve violent retaliation but I would have hoped that it was obvious that has nothing to do with what I'm posting about. Victim blaming is not what this is about. It's about calling a spade a spade and not giving an excuse to promote xenophobia more than it already has been.
Anyway, you could insult the most radical muslim pretty easily these days and show the hypocrisy of claiming to be religious whilst supporting violent acts.
That's valued. There's benefit there.
Especially if it pushes people to confront ideas that are otherwise backwards but close to their scripting. It might be offensive, but it has some benefit, even if it's not really tangible. I'll admit that is what they do in some cartoon cases.
At the same time there is a limit to what should be acceptable insult and provocation, something others (and other countries) usually recognize.*
I'd argue that happens when you provokingly and strongly insult the actual beliefs of over a billion people unnecessarily and in a mocking fashion.
I'm told those limits also exist in France, and from what I can tell with that previous court case I mentioned - to any degree when it suits the elite, seemingly just not for the muslim populace.
Who are already considered to be facing strong discrimination in France, not to mention troubled with their own daily terrorism elsewhere - that I should mention wasn't all that common until recently with the Iraq war and interesting series of events that were the arab spring.
Repeated insult can take its toll on some, in various forms.
So do you then retroactively support the offenses because 2 out of the billion attacked them for the cartoons?
Yes it shows support.
Yes it shows resilience to violence and terrorism.
But it also helps to fester it - the supposed opposite intent of the drawings in the first place. Not to mention furthering the hatred and discrimination their message contains.
Both of the above things can be done without also claiming to be Charles Hebdo.
Just for a different comparison, if someone got sick of WestBoro Baptist Church and their awful shenanigans and attacked them viciously.
Do we show our support to the WBC victims by regurgitating their claims under a banner of free speech?
Out of curiosity would that also be a terrorist attack? They were trying to silence the hateful preaching of WBC, something permitted to them by freedom of speech in US.
Maybe some of you would if their original message was something you've been wanting to spread yourself but have been afraid to due to legit accusations of being politically incorrect which tends to be ignored during the heat of the moment of these situations. Somehow I feel like that wouldn't be too many considering what is and isn't up for game these days.
*I admit it's confusing to hear David Cameron show so much support for not the victims ( Hamas does that too) but for the idea that they were protecting freedom of speech.
That type of free speech would be illegal here in the UK.
Whilst actual freedom and liberties and reporting of those things get...well:
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...sed-guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq