Reply #139: How are the cartoons "racist"? [View All]

[VirginiaDem]

They're certainly not racist in the strict, traditional usage of the word. They don't claim that Arabs, Persians, et al, are inherently physically or mentally inferior or subhuman. I suppose you could make an indirect argument based on a very loose interpretation of the word "racism" that we are ignoring their complaints (and then rubbing it in) because we don't bother to understand them because we don't care because they are different. Whatever. I'm mostly just pissed off because they're telling me what I can and can't write/draw/say/download/discuss. But, hey, I'm that way.

It seems to me that at the heart of the rage is an opposition to depictions of Mohammed. That has been made clear over and over in interviews of the protestors/rioters/others. I think it's a stretch to say that reacting negatively to this is racist.

I was in grad school when the whole Rushdie controversy hit. At the time, the enraged Fatwa-ists had plenty of western supporters though over time I think society has agreed roughly that Rushdie was in the right. I expect that will happen here as well. We were called racists then as well, if memory serves; I don't remember it bothering me then, either.