Last week, halfway through a vacation where I spent a disproportionate amount of time worrying about being mauled by a shark, another white shooter opened fire some 200 miles down the coast. During the manhunt, I watched helicopters thunder up and down the shore searching, not for Dylann Roof, but for a threat so rare as to be almost illusory. In all this, I know, there is a parable for whiteness and its absurd preoccupations in the face of great privilege. Its self-obsessed imagination. My unearned oblivion.
Still, there are things that I know. Having spent the first 18 years of my life in the mountains of Tennessee, and another four in North Carolina, I felt sick, but not quite surprised, when I heard that a white supremacist with a goddamn bowl cut murdered nine African Americans at a historic church in Charleston. Right now the press is doing what it does, trying to play up this white terrorist’s personhood. (Did you know that his poor sister had to cancel her wedding?) The awful truth is that he is like us, just not in the sense such manipulations imply. For years, Roof has been spewing poisonous nightmare views that the people around him didn’t identify as extreme. And why would they? Frankly I’d be hard-pressed to differentiate between sizeable chunks of Roof’s manifesto and certain Facebook posts by my high school acquaintances. His thoughts on, say, George Zimmerman sound a lot like my uncle’s. The difference is that Roof’s rant has the gravitas we are forced to give someone who has murdered nine people. All too often we try to laugh off the words of regular old non-murderous racists, or just live with them, however uneasily.
Now that the Confederate flag has been denounced by the likes of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Walmart, it seems that mainstream society finally recognizes this relic of our shameful past as racist imagery. I’m less sure that people understand that it is much more than just a symbol; it is also a threat. Though I spent more than half my life in the South, I find it difficult to articulate the ways in which its discourse is not just a code, but codes built upon codes, including syrupy insults and thinly veiled warnings. Depending on which side of the law you ascribe to, the Confederate flag carries the implication of violence or a promise to look the other way. Whether it’s draped in the back window of a pickup or waving over a courthouse, its message to black Americans is always the same: if I see you here, there will be trouble.
The rhetoric used by staunch defenders of the Confederate flag will sound familiar to anyone aware of the cultural conversation surrounding satire in comics. In both, you’ll see people rally behind racist imagery under the pretense of honoring history or supporting freedom of speech. Comics figureheads like Art Spiegelman who have no love for white supremacy per se have created and/or defended racist cartoons as though the integrity of art itself depends on it. Not realizing that literally no one self-identifies as racist, they imagine themselves to be that other R word: righteous. What would Dylann Roof make of “Notes from a First Amendment Fundamentalist,” I wonder? Compare Spiegelman’s condemnation of the “sanctimonious PC police” with the part of Roof’s manifesto that talks about how easily black people are offended. Yeah, I know there are differences. But tell me, what similarities do you see?
The Charlie Hebdo shooting was both an international headline and a story deeply felt on a personal level by many people in the comics community. What happened in Paris was a tragedy, and there’s no shame in being moved by a story that is especially relevant to your life. But those who said “Je Suis Charlie” (or, worse, “Cartoonists’ Lives Matter”) did not speak for Comics. They spoke for white people who understood the massacre to be of universal significance because the killers were militant Muslims and most of the slain were white. While this fits conveniently with our idea of Trouble in a post-September 11th world, the incident was, demographically speaking, a statistical anomaly. Very few victims of terrorists—including the state-sponsored ones that infiltrate U.S. police—are white. You know who is? Right-wing terrorists like Dylann Roof, who are twice as lethal as their Muslim counterparts in America.
Reader, I don’t wish to suggest that you don’t feel the appropriate degree of sadness or outrage or abject depression about what happened in Charleston. None of us has near enough feelings for the nine people who died there, much less the victims of other atrocities that happen around the world on a given day. But if you do not recognize the Charleston massacre as a story that pertains to Charlie Hebdo or to comics on multiple levels, you are egregiously mistaken.
As a white person, I’ll never fully understand, much less convey, what it feels like to casually encounter racist imagery like some of the more infamous Charlie Hebdo covers or the Confederate flag. I can only offer an imperfect analogy. Back in North Carolina, across the street from the house where I was staying, there was a bar with a BITCH PARKING sign out front. I wasn’t particularly alarmed or surprised upon encountering it. Had I not lived outside the South for so long, I doubt I would have even registered it as a thing. First and foremost I recognized it as a stupid joke (though of course a joke, like “celebrating heritage” or satire, offers a certain kind of cover or deniability). In its sheer ridiculousness, this joke made me laugh. On another level, I felt annoyed. On another level still I felt weary. And finally, churning beneath all of those things, I felt a sense of unease. To me BITCH PARKING communicated a warning so obvious it may as well have been in flashing lights: Go home, girl. There is nothing for you here.
It was lunchtime and we weren’t there to drink. We didn’t even sit down. My brother-in-law just wanted to buy an ironic t-shirt. Still, looking around that dark room with a handful of Bubbas and a specials list featuring something called the Wet Pussy, I understood that my instinct in the parking lot had been correct. As my brother-in-law cheerfully chose his shirt, I felt something that wasn’t fear or danger or even anxiety, but its nebulous possibility.
Art Spiegelman’s blown cover for the New Statesman reminds me a lot of BITCH PARKING. The comics clubhouse scene is no longer about who’s allowed in; it’s about who feels welcomed. It’s about subtle signs and signals such as who is being tortured in the posters you hang on the wall. The flag you choose to fly.
Often, I think about the bathos with which champion of free speech and New Statesman cover boy Neil Gaiman imagined his own death at the hands of Muslim terrorists when he attended a literary gala at the Museum of Natural History:
Hanging above us as we eat is a life-size fibreglass blue whale. If terrorist cells behaved like the ones in the movies, I think, they would already have packed the hollow inside of the blue whale with explosives, leading to an exciting third-act battle sequence on top of the blue whale between our hero and the people trying to set off the bomb. And if that whale explodes, I realise, even an oversized flak jacket worn over a dinner jacket could not protect me.
To fantasize about your own grandiose, unlikely death is a luxury of whiteness. Back on the coast of North Carolina, I bobbed along nervously in the Atlantic Ocean every day for a week without seeing a single shark. One thing I saw plenty was the Confederate flag, both on the news and waving proudly in front of the shop that sells $7 towels. In comics I routinely see people hold up similar racist images as unassailable paragons of free speech. The next time you’re tempted to mock and dismiss those who tell you they perceive that phenomenon as an act of hostility, know this: the so-called PC police can’t do violence to comics by simply voicing dissatisfaction with this state of affairs. What sort of violence your gleeful disdain can do to them—the humans, not the comics—remains a live question. Whether or not you deign to examine it is, as ever, your choice.
I hadn’t made the Charlie- Charleston connection before, but it’s a good point. It’s interesting as well to see how the flag gets disavowed but Muslim cartoons don’t, both for the reason that racism has ended, not that it exists and should be opposed.
The connection between the Charlie and Charleston massacres is this, Bert: Fascist with a gun murderss enemies of racism.
Enemies of racism who perpetuate racist caricatures seem like they are at best confused, Alex. Which you could say of those who want to fly the Confederate flag as a symbol of heritage as well, I guess.
They are not confused one whit, Noah. Charlie Hebdo has been on the frontlines defending Blacks, Arabs, Rom and other minorities against racists and government oppression for forty-three years.
This is why, at the PEN ceremony honoring CH, the president of France’s most active, influential and important anti-racist organisation, SOS Racisme,took the podium to thank CH for its unflinching support over the decades.
To assimilate CH to the bigots brandishing the Confederate flag is ignorant and, frankly, odious.
But what else can you expect from a writer who– only four days after the Charlie massacre — openly sneered on HU at the request for a minute of silence to commemorate the victims?
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/01/shhhhhh-for-the-love-of-comics/
The lowest point by far in this blog’s history.
There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I suspect much of the difference is that bourgeois Americans with pretensions of being “cultured” tend to see France and the U. S. South very differently. The French are idealized as “sophisticated” and so forth, and their cultural products are automatically given the benefit of the doubt. White Southerners are just a different breed of “those people,” invariably viewed pejoratively, and valued only to the extent they treat themselves with contempt. There’s a lot of odious bullshit in the culture of the U. S. South, but there’s a lot of odious bullshit in French culture, too.
Sure, but not in the case of CH.
O’Connor:
” But those who said “Je Suis Charlie” (or, worse, “Cartoonists’ Lives Matter”) did not speak for Comics. They spoke for white people who understood the massacre to be of universal significance because the killers were militant Muslims and most of the slain were white.”
On January 11th, I marched with 4 million others in the streets of Paris to show support for Charlie Hebdo. Among those 4 million were hundreds of thousands of Blacks and Arabs, proud to proclaim ‘Je suis Charlie’.
When all you know about CH comes from Jacob Canfield’s HU hatchet job, obviously you will get a false or dishonest view of the tragedy and its causes.
Oh, and by the way — cartoonists’ lives DO matter. Or are you saying that they don’t?
Apparently so.
“Charlie Hebdo has been on the frontlines defending Blacks, Arabs, Rom and other minorities against racists and government oppression for forty-three years.”
And yet, they still use racist caricatures of Muslims to mock and attack Muslims. It’s almost like people can be anti-racist in some ways, yet still racist in others.
Cartoonists aren’t an oppressed category denied humanity, Alex. This has been explained to you before. It’s not an especially difficult concept.
The gun-toting murderers are gun-toting murderers, and I am pretty convinced that the staff of CH were people with strongly-held liberal principles who were not in any way deserving of a death sentence. Okay?
Now, can we talk about images? Honoring some flags and burning others seems to have been pretty central to Dylan Roof’s sense of his right to speak on behalf of history. I think you can pretty easily make a connection between his sense of injury and that of the CH shooters, even though Roof’s is, in my opinion, the one of the two which is thoroughly delusional.
The CH artists also spoke on behalf on history, and their righteousness also made them fearless in brandishing incendiary images. French liberalism is linked to French colonialism, and I feel like the CH artists were not especially conscious of that, despite their overall nobility of purpose.
The result of CH, I would guess from sundry op-eds, is that a lot more people, especially Europeans, want to go into Iraq and try to “end terrorism.” The result of Charleston is that a despicable flag will be erased, but, beyond that, there’s very little resolve being expressed to fight white supremacist terrorism.
Re: “all lives matter,” Hilary Clinton spoke those words in a Black church this week, exhorting blacks to forgive and presumably forget. http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2015/06/why-it-matters-that-hillary-clinton-said-all-lives-matter-in-a-black-church-this-week/
“those who said “Je Suis Charlie” […] spoke for white people who understood the massacre to be of universal significance because the killers were militant Muslims and most of the slain were white.”
I said “je suis charlie” – the event had a deep impact on me – hard to pinpoint why.
I live in the US now, but I grew up in France – watched Cabu on an after school TV show as a kid – recognized in Charlie Hebdo a French lefty sensibility born out of the late 60s that defined many of the adults that surrounded me (teachers, neighbors, parents) – but in the end I’m not sure why.
“Je suis Charlie” wasn’t literal to me – it was meant in solidarity – like saying “I am Spartacus” (remember the killers called out the name of the cartoonist before executing them) – like saying “nous sommes tous des Juifs Allemands” (an obscure reference in the US, I apologize – it’s explained on Wikipedia).
But I’m tired of people on this side of the Atlantic belittling the grief I felt – if anything since the Charlie Hebdo attacks I am more empathetic towards those who are victims of violence – in Charleston – in Nigeria – in Syria – on the waters of the Mediterranean. My mind quickly goes beyond the cold facts laid out in the news, glimpses what the human beings behind story may be feeling, may have felt.
That’s the power of grief – it can make you more empathetic – more attuned to the pain of others – – and it’s what too many commentators, such as you Kim, refuse to understand. It is this potential, that lies within grief, that discourses like yours undermine.
Grief can have various effects—but to suggest that it always provokes empathy, or that it did uniformly in this case, seems pretty blinkered. Revenge narratives are really popular, and martyrs are very often used as a means of escalating violence. As Bert says, anti-Muslim rhetoric has been very common following the CH murders. That’s really not Kim’s fault, nor is it the fault of other folks who have pointed out that grief has been used in some cases to ramp up violence. If you don’t like it when grief is used in that way, it seems like you should argue with those using it in that fashion, not at those pointing out that it can be so used.
“Grief can have various effects—but to suggest that it always provokes empathy, or that it did uniformly in this case, seems pretty blinkered”
What I said was:
“That’s the power of grief – it can make you more empathetic” (I said “it can” not “it does” or “it necessarily will”)
“It is this POTENTIAL, that lies within grief”
po·ten·tial
p??ten(t)SH?l/
adjective
1.
having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future.
“a two-pronged campaign to woo potential customers”
synonyms: possible, likely, prospective, future, probable; More
noun
noun: potential; plural noun: potentials
1.
latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.
“a young broadcaster with great potential”
synonyms: possibilities, potentiality, prospects
Yes, I know what potential means.
You said it had that potential. I was pointing out it has other potentials as well. You blamed Kim for undermining the potential empathic nature of grief. I explained to you that Kim didn’t undermine anything, but that grief often causes people to be aggressive jerks in itself. A point that you are on your way to amply demonstrating in this thread.
The families of the victims of Dylann Roof came out with a statement almost instantly saying they forgave him. You could see that as empathy coming out of grief…but it seems like it’s more about a community that had already embraced forgiveness as an ethic acting on that ethic even in the face of trauma. There haven’t been any calls to forgive the CH murderers, that I’ve seen.
Empathy isn’t even a good thing in every case, I’d say. It’s often used as a way to identify with particular people at the expense of others, and thus justify violence. Dylann Roof felt he was empathizing with beleagured white people; that’s a big part of what led him to shoot people. Using empathy as a way to shout down political discussions or analysis—I don’t see that as being especially virtuous or helpful.
Alex, I deleted that. I’m not having you ranting on this thread about how I’ve betrayed you or whatever. That’s not Kim’s problem. Cut it out.
Perhaps copy pasting the definition was a cheap shot – to be called blinkered and have the point I was trying to make grossly misrepresented (“to suggest that it always provokes empathy, or that it did uniformly in this case”) upset me to say the least.
I felt you were being the aggressive jerk – and I say this in peace – by way of explanation – I apologize.
But the point I am trying to make is that rarely, is the empathetic potential of grief is discussed these days – instead those trying to address the aggressive violent responses to grief seem to belittle the grief of some (like those mourning the victims of the Paris attacks) because other mourners are not sufficiently recognized in the public sphere, a fact I do not deny. But the calculus that too much emotion directed towards one event detracts from another, I disagree with.
Grief can amplify your ability to empathize (with more people, with people of different circumstances). To always be suspicious of grief as racist or xenophobe takes away from that potential.
Perhaps you will call me naive, but I think this view has a greater political potential for change than the one most often expressed these days.
Noah:
“Alex, I deleted that. I’m not having you ranting on this thread about how I’ve betrayed you or whatever. That’s not Kim’s problem. Cut it out.”
Noah, you are aware that you’ve just shot yourself in the foot>?
And why are you protecting Kim? Why do you protect bad people and attack good people?
Mmm. For what it’s worth, Ben, I would never belittle anyone’s grief, at least intentionally. My point in the paragraph you cite was that, here in the U.S., I have observed “Je Suis Charlie” to be a very white phenomenon. Further it is one that is almost always mixed in with the notion that the art of the dead was beyond reproach (particularly at a time when it was spreading like wildfire) or, worse, inarguably laudable.
But anyway, I think empathy is overrated. I’m really glad you feel empathy for the victims of violence in Charleston in Syria. Frankly, so does everyone with a modicum of human decency. Meanwhile, what you seem to underestimate is the power with which mainstream culture reinforces the extreme rhetoric and hate crimes we denounce. I think people need to spend less time identifying with victims and more time identifying the fact that hate crimes don’t occur in a vacuum.
What I have tried to express, here and elsewhere, is my frustration with comics culture’s seeming inability to assess a threat. The so-called PC police are routinely characterized as a menace to art. Meanwhile, not so long before Neil Gaiman imagined his own death at the PEN gala and Art Spiegelman appropriated Black Lives Matter, Fukitor was marketed to comics fans as “quirky” and “downright crazy.” Like, what’s wrong with this picture?
Edit 3rd paragraph *the point I am trying to make is that the empathetic potential of grief is rarely discussed these days – instead those trying to address the aggressive and violent expressions of grief belittle the grief of some (like those mourning the victims of the Paris attacks) because other mourners are not sufficiently recognized in the public sphere, a fact I do not deny. But the calculus that too much emotion directed towards one event detracts from another, I disagree with.*
Sorry cooking lunch for my son as a write
Kim I agree with most of what you say expect that empathy is overrated. It seems the basis to me for addressing the issues you point out. I feel there isn’t enough of it these days. People are pretty damn cold.
One of the strong aspects of the piece is when you try to understand the confederate flag by trying to understand what it represents to an African American by drawing from your own experience with the sign in the parking lot.
Isn’t that work of trying to understand an experience foreign to you by using your own a work of active empathy?
Alex, for pity’s sake, I don’t categorize people into “bad people” and “good people.” That’s a way to justify hatred. Pray you avoid it.
Noah the cover of the first issue of CH after the attacks read “all is forgiven”
If you are so cynical that you only chose to see the supposed penis hidden in the image that’s in you
Ben, it’s not that I think empathy is useless. It’s just overrated.
Ben, I think grief, and public grief, can be a powerful political tool. It helped create a major change in political attitudes towards the confederate flag, for example. But like most things it can be used for good or ill. That’s true of empathy as well.
Your cynicism confounds me.
Hah; I’ve heard that before.
I don’t think it’s cynical to be wary of empathy. I think it’s necessary. If you don’t think through who you’re sympathizing with and why, you can end up contributing to injustice rather than fighting it.
As just one example, think about lynching. Lynching was consistently justified on the grounds that black men were attacking and raping white women. That was a myth—but nonetheless people took care to express elaborate empathy for the victims of black violence, essentially justifying lynching. But of course, white women were not in fact being raped; the empathy was directed at people who didn’t require empathy, all in the name of murdering people who hadn’t done anything wrong.
Empathy can be a powerful lever for justice. But it can be used for injustice too, and often has been.
Oh, and good point about the CH cover. I think it’s somewhat ambivalent (as you sort of suggest) but still, I stand corrected.
There is a universal imperative to true love and empathy as expressed by the major religions and humanism (this is coming from an atheist) that isn’t reflected in your example.
Yes in a rhetorical way empathy can be used for bad – but that isn’t really empathy. The two shouldn’t be confused.
Ambivalent indeed- “all is forgiven” plus yet another middle finger.
I know this makes me lower than vermin to some on this thread, but middle fingers matter, just like the bodies of women matter as images when they are used to justify lynching or interventions in (decidedly repressive and patriarchal) Muslim countries.
I am convinced that CH, like post-revolutionary France, believed in equality, liberty, and brotherhood (sic). But it’s not confusing to make a connection between CH’s depictions of and affronts to Muslims, and the history of France in North Africa. Plenty of North Africans made that connection after the attacks, and they held protests to express that. Go ahead, tell me they all hate freedom.
Major religions advocate for love, I think. Empathy is not the same thing. “Do unto others” is different from “feel sorry for others” or “emotionally resonate with others”, in my view.
I think it’s dicey to say, this is real empathy and that over there is not. It makes it seem like my empathy is righteous and has nothing to do with that evil empathy over there. I think it’s better to acknowledge that empathy can have real downsides, and that feeling empathic is not in itself a good. As with everything, context and criticism are pretty important.
Alex, I just deleted another. This is not a space for you to talk about your problems with HU, or whatever it is you think you’re doing. Please stay off this thread; I’ll delete any more comments from you here.
I see your point Noah – but either way I continue to be shocked at the callous remarks made by well intentioned individuals in regards to the grieving expressed in the wake of to the attacks in Paris in the form of “je suis charlie.”
I think a few of your and Kim’s remarks to my post have that flavor. You called me an aggressive jerk when I answered your misreadings of my point – harsh words for what amounted to a cheap shot – I never personalized it – like calling you an aggressive jerk.
I think Kim’s piece is interesting and very much in the line of Judith Butler and Teju Cole – and they are doing important work – but it’s the only line of thought that some people on the intellectual left use to think through tragic events anymore. Lost in this intellectual construction too many forget that there are real emotions and pain felt and expressed during these events.
And it can lead to pretty insensitive behavior –
fwiw, this blog has had a range of responses to the CH shootings. The whole discussion is here.
Thanks Noah for the response – I’ve been reading your website for a while and I’ve been aware of how the Charlie Hebdo issue was discussed.
@Bert Stabler
Sorry I missed your post earlier – here are a few comments and questions:
– Yes France has a dark colonial past and I suppose Charlie Hebdo doesn’t exist in a vacuum apart from that history. But I am sure you know who presented and supported Charlie during the PEN: do you feel you have a better understanding of French colonial history than Alain Mabanckou and Dominique Sopo (president of SOS racism)? For that matter do you feel you have a better understanding of that history than the Charlie Hebdo journalist and cartoonist that you called naive? What are your credentials in speaking so surely of this issue?
-Do you ever wonder why Mabanckou and Sopo took the time and energy to defend Charlie Hebdo in the US where it was attacked so virulently after such a tragic event? Do you ever stop to think what those American commentaries sounded like to French people whether they lived here or heard about it on the news in France?
-As an American, and therefore citizen of the most powerful country in the world, why do you choose to lecture another country about its colonial past with such a tone of superiority? I know you are well aware of the United States’ role in the sad histories unfolding right now throughout the Middle East, and throughout he world.
These are dark times for the United States and it’s citizens: the people have to face what was done in their name since 9/11, and they have to face the ongoing violence directed at its African American population. Using France as punching bag seems to make some Americans on the left feel better about it – momentarily – but it won’t do much to solve the problems at hand.
fwiw, “comics culture” had a range of responses to Fukitor, too
Wow! That’s a cheap shot if I ever saw one, Ben.
Robert Stanley Martin says: June 26, 2015 at 7:16 am “There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I suspect much of the difference is that bourgeois Americans with pretensions of being “cultured” tend to see France and the U. S. South very differently. The French are idealized as “sophisticated” and so forth, and their cultural products are automatically given the benefit of the doubt. White Southerners are just a different breed of “those people,” invariably viewed pejoratively, and valued only to the extent they treat themselves with contempt. There’s a lot of odious bullshit in the culture of the U. S. South, but there’s a lot of odious bullshit in French culture, too.”
^This.^
Briefly; I’m from North Carolina, and it’s been a heavy-wincing week or so for me on the internet. Annoyance (embarrassment) at people defending a symbol that’s been irreparably soiled, annoyance at SC government for not taking it down the day of the incident -if it’s only a raised finger facing North, even if that’s all and no racism or Skynard fandom, today is not the day, not that any day is- a lot of lose talk in the other direction about “The South” (itself a term so poisoned forever that I wince internally every time I see it) and Confederate this and that and actual related use of the terms “traitors” and “treason” like it’s still 1870. I breathlessly await the hillbilly jokes sure to follow. :(
…Circa 2003, I saw the president of some Arab-American organization comment that the very first thing he thought when he heard about the thing that happened in New York was “Oh God, please don’t let it be one of us.” That man is a brother of my heart, and I would like to meet him and shake his hand.
So…you know lots of Americans used CH as an excuse to gin up anti-Muslim sentiment, right Ben? Like, there have been these draw Muslim events, where people got shot, and which have been used as a way to terrorize Muslims pretty directly. If you gave a rat’s ass about America’s imperial issues, you might have mentioned some of that. But you don’t. You’re just being opportunistic, and using your supposed “empathy” for America’s various victims as a way to kick people you disagree with. Your pose of empathic reasonableness, never especially convincing, has moved into self-parody. Thanks for illustrating all my points with such clueless enthusiasm, though.
Ben,
You might be interested in Sara Ahmed’s book, The Cultural Politics of Emotion. She is a card carrying member of the intellectual left, (a group in which I’m included) and she deals with many of the concerns you express. Specifically, she maintains that emotions can and do foster social justice. She does, however, maintain that individual emotions (emotions as experienced by a person) cannot be isolated from what she describes a larger, emotional economy that all too often redounds to the benefit of the powerful.
To your substantive points, such as they are. There have been plenty of French commenters who have pointed out that French colonial history matters. There are plenty of reasons that someone in France might not bring up those issues. These are not abstruse points. This post is actually about America’s history of racism, so shouting “you’re another” as if no one had thought of that is really pretty thoroughly disingenuous. Pointing out that it’s kind of crappy to change your avatar to a Muslim caricature is not in fact ignoring America’s imperial position.
And you know why America invaded several random nations and killed tens of thousands of people after 9/11? It was in the name of grief and empathy.
I didn’t mean it as a cheap shot – one question is rhetorical – the rest come from a genuine sense of puzzlement.
Either way reading BU’s comment, I realize this may not be the space to voice my dissatisfaction at how France has been portrayed in recent months.
I sympathize with how you feel BU – it was well expressed.
I was always aware of the negative power of grief Noah – I was already living in the US when 9/11 happened – I was in anti war protest – I was cognizant of the beast that had been unleashed – I realize it’s still with us.
If you think I’ve moved into some sort of self parody – if you think my aim is to kick people, I don’t think you quite understood what I was expressing throughout the comments – maybe due to my own limitation as a writer – maybe due to the limitations of the internet as a venue for these kinds of discussions – whatever the reason I don’t think I’ll succeed in making you understand. Maybe if we were face to face you wouldn’t feel compelled to call me an idiot and we could just buy each other a drink. We end the conversation disagreeing but feeling enriched by the exchange.
As it is I don’t see things improving – so I’ll leave it at that.
Brother [virtual handshake]. HU’s a tough room for certain kinds of dissent, but these are good people reaching for truth and the right thing, and it behooves us to remember that always. It’s a complex world and worthwhile truth pretty much automatically has nuance. Good criticism is a search for truth, and I’ve certainly seen that search going on here for years.
It’s — interesting how the arrest of young Muslim fellow about ten minutes drive from where I’m sitting less than a week after the murders in SC has not gotten much play nationally. He is alleged to have been planning a shootup at a gun show the next county over. I just think it’s been a bad sad week for everyone, is all.
Basically, what Alex Buchet said in his first couple comment. This attempt to somehow link the Charleston shooting with the Charlie Hebdo cartoons is both reaching and reactionary. Bonus points for putting together Dylan Roof and *Art Spiegleman* as somehow part of some common white entitlement.
Also, contrary to what O’Conner sets out as a working assumption in this piece, as has been explained numerous times by now, Charlie Hebdo is not a racist publication, and it absolutely is not acceptable for Anglophone leftists to keep trotting out the same tired attacks on CH without acknowledging the context they come out of. (There’s even a website that explaining this: http://www.understandingcharliehebdo.com/ )
Now if one wants to critique Hebdo’s cartoons as not succeeding as anti-racist cartoons and of coming too close to the racist images they try to parody, fine. (i’ll note that would be a similar critique to the one that Spiegleman made of Crumb’s infamous white supremacist parody 20 years back.) But, please, acknowledge that as a starting point rather than continue attacking a mendacious straw man of Charlie Hebdo.
I’ll note that I hadn’t seen O’Connor’s earlier screed on Spiegleman before reading this piece https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2015/05/an-open-letter-to-art-spiegelman/
While it does not make me more sympathetic to her position (if anything, it makes me even less sympathetic), it does explain why Spiegleman is dragged into this argument. Of course, putting Spiegleman on a continuum with Dylan Roof is still out of line. I’m tempted to fire back with a few choice “you exist on a continuum with…” arguments with regard to Ms. O’Conner, but I’ll try and avoid rhetorical tit for tat this time.
CH uses racist caricatures of Muslims to mock and insult (some) Muslims. I don’t find the arguments that that’s categorically not racist to be very convincing.
Fair enough, Ben. Thanks for commenting.
As Bert says, one context for CH’s cartoons is the way in which French liberalism and a national identity built around atheism and anti-clericalism might possibly have something to do with French imperial adventures in Muslim countries.
I’m glad Ben had a chance to get in touch with his feelings by shouting at me for not mentioning the 400-year history of genocide in the U.S., the indisputable background for the Charleston shooting, when we were discussing the relationship of that shooting to another country with blood on its hands.
I not only compared the CH shooters to Dylan Roof, but I said their actions were immoral and unjustified. But if you want me to grovel before the altar of French cultural supremacy, then sure, It’s all about your feelings.
@ Noah
That’s not what Bert said. He said post-Revolutionary France in general and CH in particular both believe in liberty, equality, and fraternity; and he said there’s a connection between CH’s depiction of Muslims and the history of France in North Africa. The transition from that to calling “French liberalism and a national identity built around atheism and anti-clericalism” a product of “French imperial adventures in Muslim countries” is all you.
Maybe Bert even agrees with what you’ve written, but it’s not what he wrote.
The background here, of course, is that the French version of liberalism is the only serious competition for the Anglo-Saxon one – that is, for those values that are so important to American, English, etc liberals that they can’t afford to admit they’re culturally specific – and therefore has to be discredited. The intellectual xenophobia would be embarrassing under any circumstances, and because the cultural influence of America plus our smaller cousins is now so overwhelmingly stronger than France’s, its expression is also a form of cultural repression. (So is banning the Confederate flag of course, but there’s difference between wanting to make the residually Confederate part of America American and wanting to make France American – when people we don’t like do the latter, we call it imperialism.)
For those who are interested in France in some respect other than wanting to kill it, the French demographer Emmanuel Todd has interestingly argued that defenses of CH in terms of the French secular tradition are in fact covering up a different agenda: The demonstrations on January 11 had proportionally fewer participants in historically secular regions of France than in the regions where Catholicism remained strong through the middle of the 20th century.(http://www.amazon.com/Qui-est-Charlie-Sociologie-religieuse-ebook/dp/B00WX2BVH4)
“country with blood on its hands”
Redundant.
???? Who said I wanted to kill France? I certainly don’t think France is any worse in terms of its imperial heritage than America is. I don’t think I said its liberal tradition was the product of its adventures in North Africa either; just that the two are related.
I think the relationship between liberalism and imperialism is pretty broadly Western. Islamophobia is as well. I don’t want to make France into America. But pretending that somehow France’s history of imperialism isn’t relevant to CH because America is mean…I dunno. I don’t find that especially thoughtful or anti-imperialist. But I guess folks can differ.
Yeah…I’m sure you’re writing in good faith and all, Graham, but I did not say imperial adventures produced French liberalism. I said they might have something to do with each other. Changing the words gives you the rhetorical outrage needed to leap to grinding your owns axes about American imperialism vis a vis France. Which seems like a fine axe to grind! But maybe think about whether grinding it at me makes sense when you have to substantially distort my statement to do it.
I agree that the various forms of torture, bloodletting, and policing enacted by British, American, Spanish, and French are different, and uniquely tied to our various forms of both religion and secular humanism. Do these distinctions matter to ravaged, murdered, disfigured, decimated colonial populations/ Perhaps not much. But I think that the French actually do have uniquely interesting insights on American myopia and brutality, and,conversely, Americans can have some sharp insights on French forms of racism and imperialism.
Institutions are notoriously opaque to themselves. Obviously many people can’t imagine that French people with good intentions might actually cross a boundary of ethical depiction- even when crossing those lines was central to those French artists’ mission. But the reason Kim O’Connor’s invocation of the color line is meaningful is because a) white people often only to take other white people seriously in dialogue (versus, say, protesting Senegalese), and b) white people often give other white-identified people the benefit of the doubt, versus other people who might not share a European worldview.
‘but I did not say imperial adventures produced French liberalism. I said they might have something to do with each other. Changing the words gives you the rhetorical outrage needed to leap to grinding your owns axes’
I’d say claiming the change in words matters there gives you an excuse to dismiss what I said. (If you really think it makes a difference, I invite you to redact my comment. Change ‘calling… a product of…’ to ‘saying… had something to do with…’. Nobody who hasn’t already read it will ever know!)
‘
Graham, the whole point of your post is that I’m intolerant of the French and think that French liberalism is entirely corrupt in comparison to American liberalism. But I never said anything of the sort. So, yes, I’m dismissing what you said, because it doesn’t have anything to do with any position I actually hold. If you’d quoted me accurately, the structural instability of your bizarrely constructed strawman would be more apparent, but quoting me correctly wouldn’t change the fact that your shadow-boxing with a fantasy.
I said French liberalism and Charlie Hebdo’s championing of secularism has something to do with France’s imperial adventures in Muslim territories. Do you disagree with that?
I mean, I think American liberalism has quite a bit to do with American imperialism, and always has. American liberal values (like, say, feminism) are frequently and incessantly used as an excuse to bomb other people, especially recently Muslims. Are you saying French liberalism avoids these callous errors, and is pure as driven snow, and therefore any suggestion that CH’s use of racist Muslim caricature is racist must be an example of American insecurity and cultural blindness? I really don’t think you believe that. And if you don’t believe that, why are you arguing with me?
@ Noah
Sorry, I accidentally posted the above before I was finished. Continuing:
‘I don’t think I said its liberal tradition was the product of its adventures in North Africa either; just that the two are related.’
Alright: ‘Related’ how, exactly?
‘I don’t want to make France into America.’
Well, of course not. You just happen to think that instead of having ‘a national identity built around atheism and anti-clericalism,’ the French should… well, be doing something else.
Or maybe not. Maybe I really am misreading you here (and in the previous remarks I remember seeing by you on this subject), in which case I’ll apologize with all due chagrin and humility. That’s easy enough to establish: Just say (write) that there’s nothing wrong with a ‘national identity built around atheism and anti-clericalism.’
@ Bert
‘Obviously many people can’t imagine that French people with good intentions might actually cross a boundary of ethical depiction- even when crossing those lines was central to those French artists’ mission.’
I wonder (seriously) if you could name an instance where you yourself “cross[ed] a boundary” you shouldn’t have, with “good intentions.”
Though it’s not clear to me how, if you’re saying the CH artists’ crossing the boundary into racism – or the extent to which they did – was a bad thing, and you’re saying they did that intentionally (“central to” their “mission”), you can also say their intentions were good.
Oh…yeah, I don’t think there’s something wrong with a national identity built around atheism, per se. Anti-clericalism is a little dicey, because building your national identity on hating people tends to go bad places. I mean, national identities are always kind of a problem; nationalism is really volatile and violent. But I certainly don’t think that French national identity formation is somehow categorically worse than England’s Protestant national identity, or America’s national identity (which is largely based around being able to bomb anyone else into oblivion if we feel like it.)
The conversation around CH tends to go, “they’re Islamophobic”; “no they’re not; they criticize all religion”. I think that glosses over the way that secularism in France has a pretty long history of being defined against an often Muslim other, and in which secular liberalism in France has a long history of being used as an instrument of colonialism. But the alternative to that definitely isn’t to say, “France should be more like America where we’ve transcended colonialism and Islamophobia!” Because obviously we haven’t done either of those things.
@ Noah
‘I mean, I think American liberalism has quite a bit to do with American imperialism… American liberal values (like, say, feminism) are frequently and incessantly used as an excuse to bomb other people, especially recently Muslims.’
“To do with” is a (usefully?) ambiguous phrase, but I don’t think you were merely saying that some people use French liberal values as an excuse to do bad things.
‘Are you saying French liberalism avoids these callous errors, and is pure as driven snow, and therefore any suggestion that CH’s use of racist Muslim caricature is racist must be an example of American insecurity and cultural blindness?’
I’m on record in the comments on this blog, in the early days of the controversy – pretty sure it was still January – saying some of CH’s caricatures are racist. But (I said this too at the time) anti-racism can itself be a tool of power – and often is – and it’s not clear to me that using racist imagery to attack the pieties of the powerful is an unconscionable tactic. (Certainly few people today have much of a problem with using classist tropes to attack power, see every joke about dumb conservative rednecks.)
I’m pretty much not okay with sneering at rednecks. fwiw.
I don’t think American liberalism is *just* an excuse to do bad things. Using liberal values as a way to bomb people is absolutely central to the American imperial project. It’s not incidental, it’s not “oh some people misuse these good ideas.” Liberalism is the ideology Americans (liberal and conservative) use as a way to demonstrate their superiority and the justness of killing lots and lots of people. We’re always murdering our way through rafts of people in the name of democracy. So yes, I think that the connection between French liberalism and French imperialism is intimate. It’s intimate in America too.
Okay, if you think it’s cool to use racist imagery in the name of attacking the powerful, I do in fact disagree with that. Mostly because racist imagery is always attacking those who don’t have power, pretty much; that’s what racism is about. Using racist imagery of Muslims to attack Muslims and saying it’s cool because liberals object to racist imagery assumes the thing it’s trying to prove; i.e., that one is attacking the powerful in the first place. But this is an argument that has little to do with whether I’m intolerant of the French. Your particular apology for racist imagery is quite common in the U.S., and I think it’s nonsense here as well.
‘But I certainly don’t think that French national identity formation… America’s national identity’
I doubt you have much positive to say about “national identity formation,” period. But your critique of France’s is itself based on American assumptions, even though you’re smart enough to express your preference for cultural pluralism as “hating people tends to go bad places.” (From “anti-” to “hating” – now that’s quite a rhetorical leap.)
‘nationalism is really volatile and violent’
As opposed to what? Capitalism?
‘But the alternative to that definitely isn’t to say, “France should be more like America where we’ve transcended colonialism and Islamophobia!” Because obviously we haven’t done either of those things.’
Obviously. But I suspect you think that the good guys among us have the better understanding of how to go about it.
“Mostly because racist imagery is always attacking those who don’t have power”
Of course – that’s almost a tautology – but that doesn’t mean it can’t at the same time be an effective attack on those who do have power.
“But I suspect you think that the good guys among us have the better understanding of how to go about it.”
This is pretty amusing from someone who flaunts their expertise so consistently and sneeringly as you often do. But yes, I think I’m correct. You think you’re correct. It’s almost like people think they’re right when they say, “I think I’m right.” Are you arguing for some sort of absolute relativism now or what?
Capitalism is volatile and violent too. But you weren’t taking a stand for French capitalism, unless I missed it. (Though there are good aspects to capitalism too of course.)
Defining national identity through opposition to some group is really hard to separate from hating that group. That was the case in Britain, certainly, where Anti-Popery pretty much meant hating Catholics. Certainly the case in Germany too. And of course American national identity tends to be formulated around whiteness, which means hating black people.
And yes, of course, I’m American and writing as an American. And yes, I have a preference for cultural pluralism insofar as I would prefer that people not be killed over racial and religious differences. You’re arguing for cultural pluralism too, though, yes? Americans, don’t criticize a France you can’t understand— that’s cultural pluralism, and even cultural relativism, that is. Unless you’re arguing that we need monlithic French rule and are hoping for a Gallic monopower? If so, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.
“Of course – that’s almost a tautology – but that doesn’t mean it can’t at the same time be an effective attack on those who do have power.”
The Confederates used racist imagery to attack people in power. John Wilkes Booth was inspired by racist imagery, and hey, he took out the leader of the country. Death to power!
Opposition to power absent some kind of actual ethical commitment is not necessarily a good thing. IMO.
@ Noah
I’ve never claimed expertise on anything here.
‘Capitalism is volatile and violent too. But you weren’t taking a stand for French capitalism, unless I missed it.’ Well, what are you taking a stand for?
‘Opposition to power absent some kind of actual ethical commitment is not necessarily a good thing. IMO.’ Nobody said it is. But you’re just kicking the can down the road: Racist tropes can be effectively used to attack power for ethical purposes. (Though of course that doesn’t negate the effect of reinforcing racial hierarchy.) Anti-racism isn’t the only ethical value that matters.
‘You’re arguing for cultural pluralism too, though, yes? Americans, don’t criticize a France you can’t understand— that’s cultural pluralism, and even cultural relativism, that is.’ Well, if I am, at least I’m not turning hypocrite as soon as I meet a non-pluralistic culture. I would say I’m arguing tolerance: You don’t have to like other culture’s values, but there should, at least, be a very high threshold before you presume to say you’re right and they’re wrong.
‘Unless you’re arguing that we need monlithic French rule and are hoping for a Gallic monopower?’ This made me smile. It’s like wishing the surviving Bengal tigers would rise up and eat the entire human race. You wouldn’t like it if it happened, but it’s so far removed from the realm of possibility that you (I) can contemplate the positive aspects with a kind of wistful sympathy.
“Well, if I am, at least I’m not turning hypocrite as soon as I meet a non-pluralistic culture. I would say I’m arguing tolerance: You don’t have to like other culture’s values, but there should, at least, be a very high threshold before you presume to say you’re right and they’re wrong.”
That’s all lovely, but it also seems to be assuming that there’s some sort of firewall between France’s culture and ours. Like, Western imperialism is not this thing that only exists in France. And in fact supporting French islamophobia is a big way, recently, that America has embraced Islamophobia. You’re arguing tolerance of racism, and not just of French racism; of American racism, because in these arguments the two go together. Tolerance of intolerance doesn’t actually work as tolerance, unfortunately. Accusing others of hypocrisy doesn’t change the fact that your own moral position is helplessly confused (though of course, everyone loves to do it anyway.)
You claim expertise all the time. You’re doing it here; you’re saying you understand France better than I do. Which may well be true. But if you claim that isn’t what you’re doing, you’re just being disingenuous. (Or maybe I misunderstood you and you claim no particular knowledge of France. Maybe you object to discussions of French imperialism because you doubt it exists. but that seems unlikely.)
I’m taking a stand for anti-racism, mostly. I don’t in fact think you can have an ethical racism. I haven’t ever seen one; CH certainly doesn’t embody it. If you have an example, go for it, I guess. Anti-racism isn’t always ethical or anything, by any means, but racism as some sort of daring thumb in the eye of the man is a much-loved meme, and one I think is pretty much entirely bullshit.
I do think people should be slow to criticize other cultures in general; it’s generally best to fix your own problems where you can. Unfortunately, Islamophobia has been pretty effectively globalized in terms of Western imperialism, which is part of the reason CH is such a big deal in the U.S. context. CH won a big fancy literary/journalism award in the US, in case you missed it. The local context just is not the only context here, and insisting that you’re not allowed to criticize France’s history of imperialism and islamophobia default means that you can’t talk about America’s imperialism and Islamophobia in discussing an issue that’s become pretty central to those debates.
‘Accusing others of hypocrisy doesn’t change the fact that your own moral position is helplessly confused (though of course, everyone loves to do it anyway.)’ Your tolerance stops as soon as there’s a disagreement on something you actually care about, and I’m the confused one? (‘Confusion’ is of course the favorite counterattack of the simplistic; and of course ‘simplistic’ is the favorite counterattack of the confused, but we can’t both be right.)
‘Tolerance of intolerance doesn’t actually work as tolerance, unfortunately.’ Feminist Islamophobes would agree with you.
‘I don’t in fact think you can have an ethical racism.’ Neither do I. I’m saying that just because something is racist – that is, unethical in one respect – doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t ethical in other respects.
‘You claim expertise all the time. You’re doing it here; you’re saying you understand France better than I do.’ “Expertise” implies exceptional knowledge. You can point out that somebody else’s knowledge is inadequate without claiming that your own is anything special. And I’m not even saying your knowledge of France is inadequate or less than mine. I’m saying you’re biased, not ignorant.
‘CH won a big fancy literary/journalism award in the US, in case you missed it.’ I’m also on record, again on this blog, saying that CH was immediately co-opted as a symbol by the French establishment (I could have said the European establishment, and the American, insofar as it held our attention for more than five minutes) after the attacks – of course some of the CH staff have said the same – and that Neil Gaiman et al. are either disingenuous or fooling themselves in saying that that award was simply a matter of defending free speech.
All right; well that was mostly just either sneering at me sans new arguments or agreeing with me. So I think I’m done.
Sorry to re-emerge so intermittently.
@Graham:
‘I wonder (seriously) if you could name an instance where you yourself “cross[ed] a boundary” you shouldn’t have, with “good intentions.”’
Oh sure, I have lived a long and often embarrassing life. I have insulted people unfairly because I thought I was superior. I imagine that goes for lots of people.
On the other hand, I have not repeatedly waved around images denigrating Muslims in print.
Which is what the whole debate boils down to. Folks seem to insist that either it’s not okay to denigrate Muslims, or it’s not okay to kill people. You know, maybe both are bad, and the former seems to be a more important point to argue. Not because it is as serious a crime (at least in this particular instance), but because it is apparently a far more subtle point for some people to come to terms with.
CH does not publish anti-Muslim images. It publishes anti-Islam images. If that sounds like nit-picking, I assure you that the difference is essential to CH’s survival. It has often been sued for hate-speech based on images, and each time has been acquitted because the tribunals established that the targets of the images weren’t people, but ideologies.
To my mind the problem with using racist (or anti-Islam) images to stick it to the man is that the damage to those with the least power (those identified with that race or religion) exceeds that of the damage to the powerful. Yeah, I just made a utilitarian argument. Anyways, I think Kim makes several good points here, especially with regard to the political valence of identification.
Alex–
Just because someone’s managed to get a bit of sophistry past a judge doesn’t make it valid. In the United States, racists were able to get the separate-but-equal argument past our Supreme Court in 1896. In 1955, after seeing how it had played out in decades of practice, the Supreme Court unanimously repudiated the argument.
If one is a person of faith, one is inevitably going to take an attack on that faith as an attack on one personally. Christians are going to take an attack on Christianity as an attack on them. Jews are going to take an attack on Judaism as an attack on them. Muslims are going to take an attack on Islam as an attack on them.
This is not to say that one cannot be critical of something in the Qur’an without attacking Muslims. Or the Torah without attacking Jews. Or the New Testament without attacking Christians. But those cartoons are not specific to some point of the faith’s doctrine. They demean the symbols of the faith as a whole. An attack on the faith as a whole includes the faithful.
I notice you don’t use the word faith in your comment. You use the word ideology. It’s an interesting choice, and I have to wonder if it reflects a general disdain for religion. Religious faith is not the same as affiliation with a political philosophy. To the faithful, it’s something much more profound.
@ Alex
‘CH does not publish anti-Muslim images. It publishes anti-Islam images. If that sounds like nit-picking’
No, “nitpicking” implies that there are actually nits there to pick. An attack on Islam, per se, is an attack on Muslims. CH was acquitted in court exactly on the grounds that its cartoons weren’t – in the court’s opinion (not mine) – an attack on Islam, but more specifically on terrorism and religious fundamentalism.
By the way, something interesting in the context of this discussion: http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/life/religion/french-have-more-favorable-attitudes-toward-muslims-post-charlie-hebdo/article_0ebf6695-71b6-526d-805d-2086f0ef9e58.html
Robert, in neither France nor the USA does anyone have to bow down to the sensitivities of any religious minority or majority. Attacking, for example, the wearing of the burquah in France is attacking the subjugation of women in the name of religion.
“Faiths”, to use your preferred word, are ideologies.
Graham, in respect of your view of the courts’decisions — you are wrong. Proof is that the great majority of religion-oriented suits brought against CH (and all won by CH) were by Catholics, when matters of terrorism and religious fundamentalism did not come into play at all.
And no, an attack on Islam per se is not an attack on Muslims; not in a society where the separation of Church and State is enshrined since 1905.
Muslims are welcome to live in France and practice their religion. They may not dictate their absolutist views to secular citizens.
By the same token, nobody in France may hold up ethnic, religious, or gendered minorities as objects of hatred. This the courts have consistently acquitted CH of doing. Q.E.D.
An aside to Noah — I understand your opposition to anti-clericalism. But you have to understand the millenia-long history of Catholic oppression in France, ferocious, corrupt and blood-stained, that justifies a continued vigilance on the part of us secularists.
BTW I was raised a French Catholic, so I know whereof I speak.
Alex–
I never said anyone had to “bow down” to anything. My view is that people should be respectful–and note I said “should,” not “have to”–and that it’s obnoxious not to. If you’re being obnoxious, you can’t blame people for being offended.
Drawing racist caricatures of Muslims is an attack on Muslims as a racialized group. CH drew racist caricatures of Muslims with some frequency. The fact that it labeled those caricatures as religious extremists is beside the point, because racist caricatures have meaning which exceeds the label. The fact that a court doesn’t have a very good understanding of how images work just means that court is wrong. (Though I don’t think censoring political cartoons is a good idea in general—but that’s my American biases showing, probably.)
If you drew a blackface caricature and labeled it, “black nationalist extremists”, you’d still have drawn a blackface caricature. You could claim you were attacking a particular ideology alone, but that would be bullshit, whatever your intentions might have been.
And I did ask you not to post on the thread again Alex…but the last seems to have generated a reasonable discussion, so I’ll leave it. Please don’t go back to your former tone. Thanks.
O’Connor:
“Often, I think about the bathos with which champion of free speech and New Statesman cover boy Neil Gaiman imagined his own death at the hands of Muslim terrorists when he attended a literary gala at the Museum of Natural History:
Hanging above us as we eat is a life-size fibreglass blue whale. If terrorist cells behaved like the ones in the movies, I think, they would already have packed the hollow inside of the blue whale with explosives, leading to an exciting third-act battle sequence on top of the blue whale between our hero and the people trying to set off the bomb. And if that whale explodes, I realise, even an oversized flak jacket worn over a dinner jacket could not protect me.
To fantasize about your own grandiose, unlikely death is a luxury of whiteness.”
To which I respond:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
London has been the object of terrorist attacks for decades. I remember working at Harrod’s department store in 1977. Over one two-week period the store was evacuated 4 times after bomb threats.
And I think the writer has failed to note that Gaiman was mocking his own fantasising…but really, as a Jew in Europe, he has every reason to keep his eyes open. Jews are targets again.
Neil Gaiman lives in Minnesota. He relocated to the U. S. over 20 years ago.
” But you have to understand the millenia-long history of Catholic oppression in France,”
France is a country where there’s been a certain amount of bloody oppression in the name of anti-clericalism and atheism too, though. The Terror is a thing that happened. You could argue that folks might want to be vigilant about that as well (I’d argue they should in America.)
The Terror lasted 2 years. The Church’s oppression lasted for a millenium. No comparison.
Robert: The Museum of Natural History is in London. It has been the object of repeated threats from Salafist/Wahabite Jihadists, who consider the teaching of evolution to be blasphemy. When I was last in London, in 2009, I had to undergo a rigorous search before being admitted to the Museum.
Whoops! I made a big mistake. The Museum in question was in New York. My apologies to Kim and Robert.
“The Terror lasted 2 years. The Church’s oppression lasted for a millenium. No comparison.”
But it’s secularists who are currently in power. Surely the excesses of secularists might in that case be worth thinking about occasionally.
I had to undergo a rigorous search before getting on a plane recently. Security theater is, one could argue, on a continuum with Gaiman’s melodramatic fantasy.
Oh, the excesses of secularists are closely monitored over here, don’t worry. But they’re not posing bombs, you know? Not like the Catholic extremists who firebombed a theater showing ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’, killing a man.
The Catholic groups marching against France’s new same-sex marriage laws got quite violent, rioting and attacking counter-demonstrators. You won’t find any examples of secularist violence as you will for Catholic, Muslim and Jewish extremists.
(Yes, there are violent Jewish organisations in France– the Betar and the Ligue de Defense Juive.)
“You won’t find any examples of secularist violence as you will for Catholic, Muslim and Jewish extremists.”
Sort of depends on what you mean by secularist violence. Again, rhetoric around liberalism and the benighted religiosity of Muslims is a big component of America justifying dropping bombs in the Middle East. The draw Muhammad events were very belligerant and threatening, and resulted in deaths.
Sorry to reemerge as well: I would just like clarification – not trying to kick anyone – or scream at anyone – truly – trying to get an understanding of what people’s thoughts are on this:
On the issue of racism vs anti-Islam: racism pertains to race – anti-Islam pertains to religion (not all Arabs are Muslim, not all Muslims are Arab). Which also explains why many Arabs came to Charlie Hebdo’s defense and counted among its staff people of North African origin (Zineb El Rhazoui wrote for them on the topic of religion – she had been a pro-secularism activist in Morocco).
How do you account for this if you believe CH to be racist?
Is it possible that calling CH racist reinforces the notion that Arab and Muslim are one and the same, a troublesome notion in and of itself?
Well, I was referring to France. Although much of what you say applies there, too, since France took an active part in the 1st Gulf War and the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, not to mention its campaigning in Mali and the Central African Republic against Jihadist armies today.
But in the States those anti-Muslim events are not presented as a secularist crusade, but mostly as a Christian one.
Ben, pointing out that CH used racist caricatures doesn’t mean that no Muslim or Arab person could find anything of value in CH. Lots of black people like Little Nemo and Tintin. Doesn’t change the fact that blackface caricatures are racist.
I think CH’s use of racialized Arab caricatures to signify Islam conflates Arabs and Muslims, myself.
“But in the States those anti-Muslim events are not presented as a secularist crusade, but mostly as a Christian one.”
They sort of blur into each other, or can be inflected differently. There’s definitely an atheist anti-Muslim stance in the Anglophone world (Sam Harris, Chris Hitchens, etc.)
I wouldn’t put Hitchens in the same boat as, say, Coulter, though.
Incidentally, I’ve gone back over the 13 articles HU has posted about CH and they break down thus:
10 negative
2 neutral
1 positive
Granted, the comments section sees a more balanced range of opinion. But Noah, I think you should acknowledge that there’s at the least an editorial bias on this matter at the Hooded Utilitarian.
“that CH used racist caricatures doesn’t mean that no Muslim or Arab person could find anything of value in CH. Lots of black people like Little Nemo and Tintin.”
My question was asked earnestly – I referred to their religious correspondent being from Morocco – someone vested at a higher level in CH than movie goers are vested in a Disney film.
If CH conflates Arab and Muslim do you not run the same risk by calling them racist?
Again I’m trying to be thoughtful and call on your best and most thoughtful answers but you seem a bit dismissive of my questions.
“If CH conflates Arab and Muslim, do you not run the same risk by calling them racist?”
I should add: without qualifying their racism since most people are simply going to hear from what you are saying: anti-Islamist caricatures are racist therefore Muslim and Arab are one and the same?
Muslim and Arabs are not one and the same, but caricatures which conflate Muslims and Arabs conflate Muslims and Arabs.
I wrote about how Islam has been racialized in the west here.
@ Alex
‘BTW I was raised a French Catholic, so I know whereof I speak.’ Or maybe you just have a grudge. (You can’t throw a rock in the English speaking parts of the internet without hitting one of your American analogs – kids who grew up in oppressively conservative Christian families who have now swung to the opposite extreme.)
‘I wouldn’t put Hitchens in the same boat as, say, Coulter, though. I would! Well, not quite – Coulter’s jokes are funnier.
And Alex, I don’t aim to make HU unbiased. I try to include different opinions, but HU was never meant to be some sort of objective icon of neutrality, presuming such a thing could even exist.
Again I asked a specific question which you are evading –
“”If CH conflates Arab and Muslim, do you not run the same risk by calling them racist?”
I should add: without qualifying their racism since most people are simply going to hear from what you are saying: anti-Islamist caricatures are racist therefore Muslim and Arab are one and the same?”
See, you don’t like it when I am dismissive, but then when I try to gently answer your questions without being confrontational, you don’t understand me, and insist I be confrontational.
But sure, if you insist; no, pointing out that CH uses racist caricatures does not make me the real racist, anymore than black people pointing out racism makes them racist for noticing race. You’re making a stupid, offensive, and very familiar argument under the guise of just asking questions.
So you’ve been answered. Okay?
@ Noah
‘The Terror is a thing that happened.’
Barely. Total deaths: 42,000, and some of those were for hoarding food against capped prices, while Paris was in danger of mass starvation. (The obligatory Mark Twain passage: http://www.bartleby.com/71/0530.html)
@Jones My comment was about the marketing of Fukitor, not people’s reactions to it. An important distinction, I think.
Well to clarify I was wondering about how you feel that statements that CH is racist are understood in the public sphere given the current climate where Arab and Islam already get confused as one and the same.
I wasn’t saying that it’s racist to point out racism. Just wondering how you feel these statements are understood in the broader public.
Again I wasn’t claiming any of your positions are stupid, nor making a moral or ethical judgement on your position – just trying to understand – I don’t think your bad evil person, making bad evil remarks and I’m not trying to put you down.
Truly trying to ask a question I feel is both pertinent and important and hoping for an interesting answer.
(continued)
Oops, that link only contains part of the relevant text. Here’s the beginning:
‘…the ever memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villainy away in one swift tidal wave of blood – a settlement of that hoary debt in proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell.’
@iamcuriousblue I’m not trying to explicitly link Charleston and Charlie Hebdo (and I’m certainly not attacking the latter). I wrote about them together, not to establish a false equivalence, but because I see a lot of similarities in the conversations surrounding the two events, particularly with regard to freedom of speech. Another similarity is that the threats represented by (or emerging from) the events are widely misunderstood.
Believe it or not, I don’t write pieces like this because I enjoy people like you “explaining” to me what Charlie Hebdo is #actually about. I write them because, to me, the world doesn’t readily break down into unimpeachable people and racist murderers. Spiegelman’s appropriation of Black Lives Matter, for instance, was gross. That is not to say I think he harbors hatred for black people deep in his heart. I don’t know that I’d describe racism as a continuum or a spectrum or whatever on which he and Dylann Roof fall. I don’t think it’s that easy to quantify. But anyway the point is not to label Speigelman as a Bad Man. The point is that racism is not just a phenomenon among nightmare people, or Southerners. And also that people who perceive themselves to be champions of one thing can also be, perhaps inadvertently, champions of something else.
I don’t know if it’s the limitations of 140-character thoughts or what that makes people so skeptical of the idea that a person can feel more than one thing at a time. I can denounce murder and be critical of Charlie Hebdo at the same time. I can respect Art Spiegelman while criticizing his actions. I can have a Twitter handle named after a Neil Gaiman character and believe that he has gone completely off the rails. In comics and elsewhere, conversations about political correctness are often perceived as a sort of witchhunt. Labeling people as bad (or burning comics or whatever) is not what PC (as always, for lack of a better term) is really about. People are resistant and defensive when faced with their own complicity because they’re afraid of a label that no one’s trying to impose…and a censor that doesn’t exist. This leads to a sort of willful oblivion that is more malignant than plain ignorance.
“Well to clarify I was wondering about how you feel that statements that CH is racist are understood in the public sphere given the current climate where Arab and Islam already get confused as one and the same.”
The problem (as I say in the essay I linked) is that “Muslim” has already become a racialized category. CH uses racist caricatures; that’s one way you contribute to Muslim being a racialized category. Racialized categories always polarize discussion; it’s sort of what they’re meant to do. Would it be nice if criticism of Charlie Hebdo referenced the Rohingya more often? Sure.
Again, the link I gave you deals with this issue at greater length.
I wonder if the caricatures change valence for anyone if we consider that the term “anti-Semitic” designates a so-called “racial category” that includes Arabs as well as Jews. The hook nose, the bushy beard- those are racial signifiers.
Also, everyone just go read some Frantz Fanon. He’s an anti-fundamentalist to be sure, but he has some insights about violence and the European Enlightenment that shed a lot of light on historical trauma in the French colonies, but don’t justify the killing of cartoonists.
Noah:
“The problem (as I say in the essay I linked) is that “Muslim” has already become a racialized category. CH uses racist caricatures; that’s one way you contribute to Muslim being a racialized category.”
Wrong, Noah; YOU are the one who racialises Muslims. Don’t try to unload your failings onto others.
Noah:
“Would it be nice if criticism of Charlie Hebdo referenced the Rohingya more often? Sure.”
HAVE YOU GONE OUT OF YOUR MIND?
Are you saying that you could NOT be bothered to even attempt to read CH’s reporting on the Rohingya?
AT ALL?
Noah:
“And Alex, I don’t aim to make HU unbiased. I try to include different opinions, but HU was never meant to be some sort of objective icon of neutrality, presuming such a thing could even exist.”
In other words, posters can lie their heads off so long as this aligns with your prejudices. As they have.
Got it, Baas.
@ Bert
I’m not sure insights is the word I would use for Frantz Fanon on the Enlightenment, but certainly, everybody should go read him. I have a bad feeling that Michel Foucault is the St. Paul for the next thousand years, and that makes Fanon our Jesus.
@Noah also @Bert regarding how you felt I expressed myself earlier
Thank you for your answer – I asked in part because I’ve heard frustrations about the two being conflated expressed by French of Arab descent vis a vis the Charlie Hebdo debate. (And I’m not saying that this defacto invalidates your argument – I’ve heard a wide range of opinions expressed by French of Arab decent since January).
I think it might also be interesting to think about the differences in how term Arab is understood in France and the US (and I know there is a construction happening on international level within the western world.)
Several family friends from North African countries (they didn’t have French citizenship) who I knew back in France moved to the US before 9/11 happened. They did in part because most Americans didn’t really have a concept of Arab at the time, they understood them as Mediterranean, whatever that means. But what that meant was that they didn’t feel discriminated against. At the time the discrimination in France was very much racial – differences in religion while not irrelevant were not at the forefront of people’s minds (it’s might be important that I also state that these friends were engineers and computer programmers so also belonged to the upper middle class).
I also remember the Iranian neighbor who was loved in the building – in part because everyone looked forward to eating the food he would bring back from visits to Iran – things you couldn’t find in France and that he generously shared.
Of course 9/11 happened and things rapidly changed in the US – everywhere – and what grew out of it is definitely an troublesome understanding of Arabs as Muslim in the US. Now many French of Arab descent see the US as a very hateful place.
I’m not sure what the dynamic is like in France now – I haven’t lived there in 18 yrs – I go back home once or twice a year – just enough to realize I can’t entirely grasp how things have changed since I left.
I don’t particularly like it when people draw on personal histories like I just did – but I’m trying to express why categorical statements can be jarring to someone who’s lived in a country and has witnessed its contradictions, its good as well as its bad.
I must admit that I’m a little fearful of your reaction to what I’m posting. I hope you understand what I’m trying to get at.
And I think BU in part was expressing fear that he will have to live through that kind of dynamic in regards to commentary on the south in the aftermath of Charleston.
BU I hope I have not misspoken.
Perhaps a more compelling example of positive is my high school friend from Tunisia who got his french citizenship when we were juniors and now has a political career in France. He knew more couplets to the Marseillaise than I did – he was incredibly proud to be French.
Kim, I got that you when you said “Fukitor was marketed etc.” that you were talking about the marketing of Fukitor. My reading comprehension isn’t so bad that I could miss the third words in that clause [insert smiley face to signify self-effacement].
My point was just that you can’t indict “comics culture”– as in your “frustration with comics culture’s seeming inability to assess a threat” — on the basis of that marketing, when there were demonstrably parts of “comics culture” that (rightly) pushed back against that it. Seems to me like (that part of) the reaction shows that there are parts of “comics culture” perfectly able to “assess a threat”.
But maybe I’ve got the wrong end of the stick again, especially about what you mean by “comics culture”.
Kim: “This leads to a sort of willful oblivion that is more malignant than plain ignorance”
Very well put indeed. I would say that, for some reason, Europeans are a lot more oblivious when faced with racist caricatures than Americans. I’ve witnessed this many times on the Internet. And that’s also what explains the, to me, inexplainable ruling by a Belgian court stating that Tintin in the Congo is “gentle and candid humor.”
Alex, dial it down again, please.
You don’t do your cause any favors when you start to rant, trust me.
Ben, I think that many Muslims, from various backgrounds, were on their way to an at least provisional white identity before 9/11. Muslims have been way more policed in the U.S. after that,and the category has been much more racialized, unfortunately.
Agreed –
I hope you understood what I was trying to express in the rest of my comment –
I know I’m not the only French person who reading this site and it’s comment section felt slighted by commentary they felt may have been generalizing – one is quick to feel condescended when outsiders are telling you what your country is like.
All right, Jones. Maybe I should have been more specific. On the other hand I honestly would have thought by now it’s clear that I’m very much aware that comics culture includes more than one response to any given topic. I was referring to the fact that alt comics gatekeepers have come out hard against PC critics (very often fans, not even people practicing formal criticism), while very rarely, if ever, holding their peers to account.
fair enough
Ben, I have no problem with you drawing on your life experience- but, as you mention, life experience only goes so far. If the plural of anecdotes is not data, as the saying goes, one anecdote certainly is not data. And the “I have a black friend” anecdote from a white person (I am assuming you identify white, excuse me if I’m wrong) is something that anti-racists should treat very skeptically.
Your remarks about your politician friend reminded me of this Tory election poster from the 1970s: http://i100.independent.co.uk/image/29486-5m4se.jpg
Denying that this or that alleged image may somehow in theory be justified, but when a lot of people of color are offended, well, maybe an image is racist. Even if hook-nosed cartoons lampooning a venerated cultural symbol are okay with you, think about the fact that it was created precisely to piss people off- people who may not be as fully recovered from French colonial atrocities as white French people and their friends of color might be.
Sorry, “Denying that this or that alleged RACIST image” etc. etc.
Bret I never commented on whether the images were racist or not – I was trying to explain to you how it felt as a French person when you boil the issue of racism and Islamophobia in France down to colonialism and secularism.
I wasn’t trying to use the stories of people I’ve known, like my political friend, into this debate as a shield against being accused of racism.
I did it to show that when I think of France’s relationship to its Muslim population I have both good and bad stories that I carry with me – as most French people do. I have those in mind when I read histories, statistics and facts.
Because data and critical theory without context doesn’t lead to truth, and while you assume that’s I’m white, I assume you haven’t spend any significant amount of time in France – that at best you visited as a tourist.
It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a right to comment or form opinions – simply that you should be cognizant of how far your insights can go.
I guess its a lack of humility that I would reproach some american commentators. The same thing I reproach many French commentators who form opinions on the US from an Ocean away.
“I did it to show that when I think of France’s relationship to its Muslim population I have both good and bad stories that I carry with me”
Most white folks in America have good and bad interactions with black people, probably. But that doesn’t really change the fact that institutions and histories here are really quite racist. And when I’ve read discussions of France by POC and Muslims (historically and in the present) — they have some criticisms, you know?
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union criticized American race relations a lot. And Americans would say, well, they don’t understand race relations here, or they’re motivations are ugly. And Soviet motivations were often ugly, and their understanding was sometimes dicey. But they were nonetheless correct that America was really unforgivably racist, and their criticisms did in fact play an important role in applying pressure to change that. I don’t know that American criticisms will do the same in France (probably not I’d guess), but beside that, the analogy might be worth considering.
James Baldwin’s “Equal in Paris” is one thing to read, maybe.
Fwiw, to me, European expressions of disgust at American racism are pretty much always welcome, because American racism is disgusting, and the more people who say so, the better. European horror at America’s Israel policy is a good thing too, in my view. None of that changes the fact that Europe is often very racist too, and that Europe can also be anti-Semitic in ways that the U.S. these days is generally not. But the fact that critics aren’t perfect or perfectly knowledgeable shouldn’t obviate criticisms, in part because no critics are perfect or perfectly knowledgeable anyway.
You say some interesting things but I remain skeptical overall:
I think many times when a country starts obsessing on another nation’s domestic problem it’s because there is some reality within their own borders that they don’t want to face.
In the late 80s and early 90s France was obsessed with American racism – every other cover of the Nouvel Obs was about American racism – every other news show a la 60 minutes was about it – but at the same time most French people refused to acknowledge or downplayed the racism that was directed at the children of Arab immigrants within their own borders.
It was very convenient – and quite frankly most of the discourse on American racism was sensational in nature and not particularly enlightening.
So I keep wondering what’s behind some American’s obsession about France’s domestic problems at this moment in time – and I’ve got some ideas – I don’t think it’s good.
America’s obsession with the CH shootings is because America is obsessed with the evils of radical Islam, and has been for quite some time. I don’t think there’s any particular mystery about it.
America isn’t obsessing about France’s domestic problems, though. America for the most part doesn’t care about France. The CH shooting happens to fit neatly into issues that America does care about, but it’s not like France shows up on the U.S. nightly news otherwise.
No – but jeez very few international make it on the nightly news – I mean most of America doesn’t seem to much care about the world period – unless we’re at war with them – and in general doesn’t even care about that or for that matter what happens within their own country!
But I don’t know, certain media outlets have been very of fond talking about French domestic problems:
-headscarves stories seem to come out every month in the NYT (while not bothering talking about the laws passed in other European countries)
-French economy gets lots of attention as being doomed – but not a peep when England fell behind Brazil in size of the economy – or the crazy unfair redistribution of wealth that is happening there.
-LePen and the FN are regularly obsessed about in the liberal press. (Marine was even given an OpEd in the NYT!)
-and we’ve just spent the majority of this comment threat talking about France and CH (OK fair enough cartoons are what you guys study) rather than Charleston
– and yes I realize I played a role in that.
Yeah; it’s just because it’s a comics site, and we’ve talked about CH before. HU’s particular interests shouldn’t be seen as reflective of American culture as a whole, I’m pretty sure. If they were, I’d have a lot more traffic.
France comes up every so often…but not as much as Greece, for example. I guess I could be wrong, but I really don’t think America’s especially more interested in France than anywhere else. Certainly less so than it is in England. Royals get a lot of coverage.
Fair – Greece, not so long ago Ukraine, certainly China captivates our imaginations…
But I’m not the only French person, or American with a personal connection to France, to wince at the way France is portrayed when it is talked about in the American media – right wing media since 2002-03, but in the last few years liberal media too.
From our exchange I get the sense that you and Bert are thoughtful individuals, who try hard to get to the heart of things.
Perhaps you could keep my last remark in mind when you read things about France or when you are forming your own opinions.
Anyway thanks for the exchange – it was difficult at times – but in the end enriching.
By all means, comment on American racism all you want, Ben. I comment on American racism in pretty much everytrhing I write, since I worked in a school in apartheid Chicago for ten years, and now I’m writing about prisons in school for my dissertation.
But I will not be intimidated about discussing white racism in other places. (Divest from South Africa? Stop bombing Gaza? You silly provincial Americans.) Though certainly Baldwin and Fanon can do it better than I can.
I am in school, writing about prisons for my dissertation. That makes slightly more sense.
And you shouldn’t be intimidated – I’ve just observed having lived in two different countries that when public discourses are constructed about another it’s not divorced of what is going within its borders – but that is rarely addressed.
And as I’ve been reminded a few times on this thread – we don’t form our opinions in a vacuum (but I was kinda aware of that already :) )
Either way it sounds like you’ve done/ are doing/ some pretty interesting and amazing things. I live in Chicago too – just a stay at home dad though – I feel we may know some people in common – maybe we’ll run into each other someday – if we do I look forward to the conversation.
“Ben says: June 28, 2015 at 1:17 pm And I think BU in part was expressing fear that he will have to live through that kind of dynamic in regards to commentary on the south in the aftermath of Charleston. BU I hope I have not misspoken.”
You have not, though I’d point out that I didn’t emphasize that I’ve already lived though it for my entire life, and this is merely the latest outbreak of a very old song that I’ve been sick of since Jimmy Carter first ran for president. The jokes, good God, the eternal rude ugly jokes that I believe, as much as anything else if not more, undermined and destroyed the presidency of one of the most decent men to ever hold the office.
This is my life; the jokes starting in again every time I travel outside my native region the second open my mouth. The actual job discrimination and textbook hostile working environment to which I was subjected for objecting to the ugly jokes.
It’s all a great huge minefield where even speaking up is a game rigged against me – the very prejudices I have to live with for an accident of birth rig the game against me with assumptions that I must have backwards opinions motivating me that I’m not being honest about, or at least that I’m one of the “sports”, the “Sherrif Taylor”s – exceptions that test the rule, and that I’ve got blinders on about the failings of my (genetic reject bigot) people.
It’s prejudice against me (and my sainted mother and a lot of good-to-great-to-average people lumped in with our despicable worst element as if we were all alike deep down) and it’s not okay.
Noah, sorry for taking it this far afield, but the topic certainly opens the door – and I think it’s a conversation worth having, if we all can only keep our cool.
“The jokes, good God, the eternal rude ugly jokes that I believe, as much as anything else if not more, undermined and destroyed the presidency of one of the most decent men to ever hold the office.”
I think class and regional prejudices are real things and cause harm…but Jimmy Carter’s presidency wasn’t destroyed by them. He may have been a relatively decent person as these things go, but he wasn’t very good at being President, unfortunately.
…Well, Dr. Carter’s really a whole separate conversation, and I don’t deny that for all that he clearly recognized that leadership is an inherent function of the Executive and made many obvious efforts to lead, he did fail in that part. I’m pretty sure, though, that the thick south Georgia accent coming out of his face was a non-trivial factor in said failure.
I like to say that the last time we had a Democrat living in the White House, it was Jimmy Carter. ;) I’d love to talk about it, but do we want to here?
Probably not!
Alex, that is really the end. Don’t comment here or anywhere else on the blog again, ever, please. Thank you.
Sorry not to have responded to your gracious farewell, Ben. Actually I’m in Urbana-Champaign now, but you should look up Jerome Grand- he’s my favorite French expatriate in Chicago.
Best wishes to you.
To get all meta: I think the discussion on this thread and site in general counteracts the how “the limitations of 140-character thoughts or what that makes people so skeptical of the idea that a person can feel more than one thing at a time.”
Even though “don’t read the comments” is usually the best policy, here on HU I find the comments can often expand or complicate ideas from the initial post in a good way. Sometimes the author is pushed into further explicating or rethinking something that wasn’t clear or was too reductive.
I don’t agree with every post and some inspire a strong negative reaction, but the context of “thinking out loud” does mitigate this. Not everything is necessarily complete or polished, and I don’t feel like the site or author expects me to tolerate bad ideas without question. HU can be damn provocative, but not poke-in-the-eye trolling.
Sometimes tone does matter. Not in terms of tone policing, but in terms of having an engaging argument rather than just a furious one.
One of my favorite HU habits is occasionally elevating a comment or series of comments to their own post. It not only informs readers the comments are worth reading, but also nudges comment writers to step up their game.
I realize this sort of thing is
To finish: I realize this sort of thing is time consuming for the host, but it makes for a much stronger site.
Well, thank you! That’s really nice of you to say.
Oh, he’s absolutely right – the comments tend to be so strong here as to almost overwhelm the articles in worth. Noah, you should be very proud of the community-building you’ve done.
Hey Noah – since it looks like I killed another comment thread, no harm in talking about Carter now if you want to…