Simply put, the problem I have here is that a great amount of the criticism I am seeing directed at these cartoons is coming from people of colour. In my case, simply because of the directions my whims have taken me, the criticisers are also by and large American. And I have a huge issue with the white people I've seen defending Charlie by telling black Americans they can't recognise racism when they see it because they're not French. It's just too easy and glib and frankly patronising an answer, and not one black Americans are used to hearing in far too many similar forms.
I'm not saying there's no chance nuance is being lost, of course. And I'm aware that as a white Englishman I can't speak with no greater authority on racial theory as espoused by non-white people than I can on the satirical history of our Gallic neighbours. I can say that the position that using the imagery of racism to mock racists is still hugely problematic is a common-held and entirely considered one, though, and that in everything I've seen - including some of the links Tomsk offers- that stance is being ignored or straw-manned so that black people can be lectured for "not getting it". Pointing that out isn't "Anglosplaining", it's simply noting that an argument has been made that I'm not seeing anyone refute. Various deconstructions of the French humour mechanism that generated these cartoons are on offer, but as to why drawing a black woman as a monkey is cool if you're doing it to mock racists, I'm still none the wiser. [1]
There's also the issue of Islamophobia to consider (the degree to which one cannot help but be racist if one demonstrates Islamophobic tendencies is an exercise I leave to the reader). The suggestion Charlie is Islamophobic is far from limited to non-French people; even current/former employees of the magazine have taken exception to its treatment of the religion after 9-11. I read an article this weekend that I'm desperately trying to locate from a former Charlie
Lastly, it should be remembered that one can hold explicitly anti-racist stances and still produce racist material. Indeed, this is essentially inevitable. Even worse, it can be more common for those of us on the left to do so than others, because we make mistakes whilst trying to engage with the problem whilst others ignore it entirely (I saw a depressing synecdoche for this on Twitter a couple of months ago when a black woman explained most of the racist tweets she got were from progressives, because they try and show solidarity in offensively incompetent ways, whilst at least the conservatives just completely bypass her). Hell, I've based this entire post on the theory that I have a half-decent working understanding of why so many black Americans are furious over these cartoons, which itself might be presumptuous of me to the point of racism. [2]
In short, I can completely respect an argument that says Charlie Hebdo is dedicated to the fight against racism. I can respect an argument that says given that fact, we shouldn't rip apart its missteps in this regard, and recognise that taken holistically CH is a force for good (though as a white guy I don't get to decide how much anti-racist work counteracts even one racist cartoon). But defending these specific cartoons is a much harder job than I've seen anyone inclined to do so willing to admit to, and that job doesn't even seem to be being seriously attempted because their so-called defenders are more interested in building a hierarchy of authorities on recognising racism. Which, as I've noted, just so happens to have a bunch of predominantly white people at the very top. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
[1] See also the Suey Park/Stephen Colbert controversy last March, in which Colbert's twitter feed was jumped on after he mocked the Washington Redskins franchise's refusal to change its name by announcing he would "show the Asian-American community I care by starting the 'Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever'". My point here is not that Suey Park was clearly in the right, but that the argument that satirising bigots by appropriating their rhetoric (linguistic or visual) is something those on the shitty end of that bigotry can have a problem with. That's what needs addressing here, not whether this kind of appropriation is more common in France than elsewhere.
[2] It strikes me that at least some of the back-and-forth here stems from the conflation of "being racist" and "being a racist". I'm only interested in the first formulation, and a lot of the defences mounted on behalf of the magazine is that their staff clearly aren't racists. To be clear, I am criticising the cartoons, not the artists. I am insisting that everyone on the left - myself included - is capable of being racist, not that we're all racists. This is hardly an original point, but since I'm on the subject I shall bring it up once more: one consequence of our culture concluding racists are terrible people is that it's led most of us to assume we can't be racist, because we're clearly not a racist. The truth of course is vastly more complicated.
13 comments:
Thank you for posting this; it eloquently sums up some of the problems I'm having with both sides of the argument.
I'm getting frustrated with the fact that any criticism--no matter how apparently level-headed--of CH and their work seems to be getting construed by people identifying with the Je Suis Charlie hashtag as being a form of victim-blaming; whilst on the other hand being uncomfortably aware that I lack the necessary context (either as a French person or as a minority that has been possibly attacked by one or more of CH's cartoons) to decode whether much of their work is, actually, actively offensive to some sections of society (as opposed to, say, merely somewhat tasteless).
It seems to me that things are rather more complicated than either side is making out.
I'm glad you liked it. It's interesting you use the word "attacked", actually, since I think a large part of the confusion over this issue is that people are conflating the idea of cartoons aimed at offending/insulting minorities with cartoons that will offend minorities but which had the intent of offending/insulting someone else. That is to say, I don't have a problem with the argument that CH never intended to attack minorities, but that doesn't mean those minorities who feel attacked must therefore be wrong.
That's why there's emphasis on 'possibly' in my comment (although maybe not enough). You're absolutely right that there's often a huge disconnect between intent and result; author is dead, yada yada.
I wasn't criticising; just taking an opportunity to talk more.
No worries, sorry if that came across as a little defensive! I had trying to avoid falling into the conflation you subsequently described, and was aware that I perhaps wasn't entirely successful.
I don't have more to say here, it just amuses me that this post now has more comments than views.
Thanks for the thought-provoking response. It certainly beats being accused of liking Roy Chubby Brown!
Nowhere have I written that English-speakers are incapable of commenting usefully on Charlie Hebdo. Indeed, I am sure there are many Americans, black and white, who could do so far better than I could. Hence why I didn't write an opinion piece (and not because I have no time to do such things any more, no no no). Anglosplaining refers to English speakers who call out CH as racist without any understanding of the context or meaning of the cartoons, and in my opinion that aptly describes a large number of the commentaries that have appeared.
You have also deftly shuffled my point about the English-speaking web in general onto black Americans in order to build your own hierarchy of authorities which can then be used to dismiss French views as "lecturing black people". Of course, you are much more attendant to American debate online than I am, but most of the criticism I have seen has come from white liberals trying to prove their liberal credentials with anglosplanations (hmm, not sure that word works so well) - the leftier-than-thou tendency I alluded to in the title of my post.
It should hardly need saying that informed and considered opinions from any quarter are to be welcomed. Clearly I believe that, as most of the links I selected were written by English speakers. But French opinions do carry more weight, all other things being equal. If I presumed to write an aggressive opinion piece on, say, Japanese painting, I would make damn sure to do my research on Japanese culture before I dared to do so, not to mention learn the language or hire a half-decent translator. And I would probably still live in fear of Japanese people pointing out, with bullet points, why I'm an idiot. French people have effectively done this background work already simply by being French, hence why they are better placed than non-French people to comment in the immediate aftermath of the murders.
On the point about specific cartoons, I'm not clear which you're referring to as you focus on offence to black Americans rather than the more topical option of Muslims. The one cartoon you mention does raise a legitimate question of whether it is justified to use racist imagery to mock racists. I don't know the answer to that and neither do you. Perhaps the only person who does is the politician depicted. But you and I both know that this cartoon is not notorious because it raises such difficult questions, it is because far too many people glance at it and publically scream OMG RACIST without bothering to understand what it is really saying.
I agree the Stephen Colbert example raises the same issue, but that just shows the importance of shared background knowledge: the fact that most Americans are in on the joke of the Colbert Report gives space for such issues to be discussed. Only the very ignorant would accuse the show itself of being on the side of racists. This is clearly not the case with CH in the English-speaking world.
I thought the commentators on the Quora page did a good and erudite job of defending CH's satire cartoon-by-cartoon. Unfortunately this is a never-ending task and an obvious trap:
ATTACKOR: This cartoon is MASSIVELY RACIST!
DEEFENDOR: (patiently) Actually what it's saying is X ...
ATTACKOR: And this other cartoon is MASSIVELY RACIST!!
DEEFENDOR: (sighs) Actually that's an attack on the National Front. What have you done to fight fascism recently?
ATTACKOR: And this third cartoon is MASSIVELY RACIST!!!!
DEEFENDOR: Oh shut up
ATTACKOR: They are RACIST ASSHOLES and so are you!!!!!
Personally I'm disinclined to defend specific cartoons, both through my own lack of knowledge and because I find many of them to be in poor taste. I'm more interested in the reputations of the cartoonists themselves, which the Anglosplainers have besmirched with glee. I take your point about "being racist" vs "being a racist", and if only the cartoons were in the dock, that would allow a more interesting debate. Sadly they are not and it makes sense for "defenders" to defend against the most prevalent attacks.
As for Islamophobia, I don't think it is pathological to depict the prophet or lampoon Islam per se, providing Islam is not singled out as a uniquely evil religion (again, context and intent is important, as here lies the difference between CH and Jyllands-Posten). Indeed to declare such satire off-limits is very dangerous as Kenan Malik described. Having said that, I will read the piece by the Charlie Hebdo employee with interest.
Nowhere have I written that English-speakers are incapable of commenting usefully on Charlie Hebdo. Indeed, I am sure there are many Americans, black and white, who could do so far better than I could. Hence why I didn't write an opinion piece (and not because I have no time to do such things any more, no no no).
Fair enough. The combination of using the word "Anglosplaining" and the link complaining of American know-nothingism seemed to be implying that, but clearly I read too much into it.
You have also deftly shuffled my point about the English-speaking web in general onto black Americans in order to build your own hierarchy of authorities which can then be used to dismiss French views as "lecturing black people".
Of course, you are much more attendant to American debate online than I am, but most of the criticism I have seen has come from white liberals trying to prove their liberal credentials with anglosplanations (hmm, not sure that word works so well) - the leftier-than-thou tendency I alluded to in the title of my post.
I'm not sure I am constructing my own hierarchy, though perhaps that's the end result of what I'm aiming for. Fundamentally, my point is that whilst you've experienced this as an argument between the French and white lefties, the first act in any shouting match over allegations of racism should be to dig out commentary from people of colour. Ideally here we'd want French people of colour, but I had no luck searching for such before responding to you, which is why I referenced American black people. Basically I wanted to see whether there was a consensus that they thought their white allies were posturing, as you do (because I did wonder that myself). Once it became clear that there were people of colour furious about this, though, the fact that white liberals probably don't understand French satire became massively beside the point. I like slamming idiot white guys as much as the next smug pseudo-intellectual, but my priority is to avoid saying anything that does damage to the cause of those I try to be an ally to. Which of course is exactly where I think these cartoons go wrong.
My point isn't that being a person of colour trumps being a white French person (hence why I don't really see this as me constructing my own hierarchy), rather that when you have one group with (seemingly) no experience of French culture with those with (seemingly) no experience of discussing racism, the playing field is perhaps fairly level. And as I said, I hadn't seen the arguments of people of colour being recognised and addressed, which is a real problem. I understand that none of that changes the fact that the people you're targeting are probably thoroughly ill-equipped to comment on any of this. But it's a problem when we focus on the weakest arguments of our opponents rather than the strongest ones (and Gods know, I'm as guilty of that as anyone, not least when writing this blog), and that goes triple when focussing on the arguments of those who want to help the oppressed rather than those of the oppressed themselves.
French opinions do carry more weight, all other things being equal. If I presumed to write an aggressive opinion piece on, say, Japanese painting, I would make damn sure to do my research on Japanese culture before I dared to do so, not to mention learn the language or hire a half-decent translator. And I would probably still live in fear of Japanese people pointing out, with bullet points, why I'm an idiot. French people have effectively done this background work already simply by being French, hence why they are better placed than non-French people to comment in the immediate aftermath of the murders.
Most of this I agree with in general, but then we're both straight white Western middle class men. For the painting analogy to hold we'd have to be talking about whether, say, English women have the right to complain about a Japanese man painting women in a way they find objectionable. If a painting is decried as sexist, it seems to me trivially true that the debate on that is best served by experts on painting and experts on sexism. And whilst being a woman doesn't make one an expert in sexism any more than being a person of colour makes one an expert on racism, it's clearly to people having those identities to whom you should look for the most intelligent commentary.
This intersection between two streams of knowledge is also why I look askance at your suggestion that simply being French means one has done the background work. It's just too self-evidently true that any number of white British people don't know the first damn thing about how racism functions and is perpetuated in this country.
In short, all else is not equal.
The one cartoon you mention does raise a legitimate question of whether it is justified to use racist imagery to mock racists. I don't know the answer to that and neither do you. Perhaps the only person who does is the politician depicted. But you and I both know that this cartoon is not notorious because it raises such difficult questions, it is because far too many people glance at it and publically scream OMG RACIST without bothering to understand what it is really saying.
I'm not claiming to know the answer, simply noting no-one defending the cartoon seems to even consider the question (though on a re-reading, the Quora article does confess to not knowing what to say on that). That's where this battle should be being fought, and whilst it isn't I continue to think the cartoon's defenders are ignoring what they are being told by people of colour in favour of dismissing non-French opinion. This isn't something that ceases being problematic just because there are white progressives who can legitimately be criticised for their response. I mean, I suppose we could be even more down on the people you're objecting to because their sucking up oxygen that could instead be taken up by those with something to actually say - and yes, I'm sure you're right about many people having a knee-jerk reaction they can't sensibly defend, see above RE finding the best arguments to tear down - but if you're being accused of accidental racism and you don't look up what the actual arguments arrayed against you say, then that's entirely on you.
Personally I'm disinclined to defend specific cartoons, both through my own lack of knowledge and because I find many of them to be in poor taste. I'm more interested in the reputations of the cartoonists themselves, which the Anglosplainers have besmirched with glee. I take your point about "being racist" vs "being a racist", and if only the cartoons were in the dock, that would allow a more interesting debate. Sadly they are not and it makes sense for "defenders" to defend against the most prevalent attacks.
I agree entirely with this, with the caveat that if I were more down on these cartoons than I am, I would argue that its important purveyors of racism don't get treated as heroes. I recognise though that that isn't where either of us here.
I agree with most of that, and to clarify I don't think being French is sufficient to make someone an authority on this issue, only that it's advantageous.
I also agree that French people of colour are better placed still to comment on the cartoons in an informed way. For the cartoon you have focused on, I've said already that the obvious person to consult is Christiane Taubira herself. In that spirit I tried to find any comments that she had made about it among the many articles dealing with the legal action surrounding the FN image which Charb was satirising. But despite an exhaustive 3 minute Google search in a language I don't understand too good, I came up blank.
However, I did find her official twitter account, where as Justice minister she is quoted on 8 Jan as saying:
"On ne peut pas concevoir la disparition de #CharlieHebdo. Ce serait une victoire pour eux."
("We cannot conceive the disappearance of #CharlieHebdo. It would be a victory for them [the terrorists]." - via Google)
Of course you could argue that this is a defence of the principle of free speech rather than the magazine itself. But then she also paid tribute to one of the dead cartoonists at his funeral. Here's the full video.
(She also attended the funeral of Charb).
Even though that speech stretched my mostly forgotten schoolboy French well beyond breaking point*, you don't need to understand much of the language for it to speak volumes about her attitude to the magazine. While I appreciate that it's not the specific defence of the cartoon you're looking for, it has put any doubts I had to rest.
(*) Alas I could not find a full transcript but there are some key excerpts here which you can Googlise should you be interested.
Thanks for going to the trouble of getting hold of all that, Tomsk. It's true that it might be tough to separate a defence of the magazine from a defence of the specific cartoon, and of course one might note that in the current political climate of France even a high-ranking politician who was offended might choose not to go on record saying so. But it's absolutely not my place to Taubira's honesty or motives on this matter, so fair enough.
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