But we Americans need to put our own house in order.Report, I dont understand your comment. Go ahead and point the finger at French racists. This is why I dont think the discussion about the freedom of expression makes sense. So please, tell me where you are getting this from? In 1967, it was adapted into a successful play of the same title by Cecil, Felicity Douglas and Basil Dawson, who had previously co-written another hit adaptation of his novel Alibi for a Judge. I am baffled by Saccos comments. You are not helping me by censoring cartoonists, you help me by taking concrete action on behalf of my group.Report, Im not censoring cartoonist. "TheBestNotes on The Color Purple". What about the global oppression of Muslims, not to mention the actual body count? Also, watching that video makes me really wonder: whats the point of making fun of a minoritys religion? Analysis Sofia and Celie have begun working on a large quilt that Celie wants either to give to Shug or to keep for herself. If the point of this post was to have a nuanced discussion about a complex problem in the world, well maybe I am not so charitable to others (though I do try to be and apologize for not being so always) but I think we are missing some important points about racism and hate speech against oppressed minorities. The debate then is: where does free speech begin and end, where should we draw the line? Well different ones for different questions. Quilting is a perfect symbol of the artistry But what is gained by making fun of their religious practices? How Do You Use Various Social Media Platforms? Who got Celie pregnant? The reason this is not a text book case is because CH is the victim of those who are disadvantaged in society, not those with power. There is fantastic work on this particularly on the confusion between Sikhs and Muslims, etc. and Sofia are quilting. Harpo obviously continues to be influenced But you still would not necessarily be disagreeing with the point I made in that post.Report, You realize that this amounts to a triviality, right? What does it matter that X also lampoons others, even those in power? God also is everywhere, she says, and loves the world. To win her favor, he brings her a box of chocolates. We should honor them not try to use them as pawns in goofy fake academic activism.Report, Darius, I take it that courage means saying something that is unpopular in that one might be harmed in doing so. Sofia and But we are not in a vacuum. Shug Avery was a woman. Why those features in particular? Granted, though I would point out that this does not have an important context in terms of political power and wealth. Celie's mother dies of sickness. If they did things like that repeatedly, we would probably be right to call that newspaper racist even if they were only making fun of prominent black figures or extremist black figures. not threatened by Shug, but intent on seducing her because of her reputation as My point has consistently been that the work that CH does perpetuates racist stereotypes. Those who claim that it is racist or Islamophobic to mock the Prophet Mohammad, appear to imagine, with the racists, that all Muslims are reactionaries. They were racist and to pretend that they werent racist is to deny a very important fact. Celie thinks she will serve him some of Shug's urine in his water glass I think a good example of a raced religion that is pretty much accepted as a raced religion is Judaism. UPDATE(1/10/15 2/1/15): Ive gone through the comments and gathered up links submitted in response to the OP, and added some seen elsewhere: Patrick Savida (Universit de Poitiers) Charlie Hebdo: un courage democratique (in French) (via Nick), Nigel Wartburton (Philosophy Bites) tweets and links(via Nick), Bob Kirkman (Georgia Tech) Charlie Hebdo, Chris Bertram (Bristol) Charlie Hebdo (via Brian Weatherson), Samir Chopra (Brooklyn College, CUNY) Kill All The Cartoonists; God Will Sort Them Out, Justin E.H. Smith (Universit ParisDiderot ) Finding Something to Say about Charlie Hebdo (via S), Stephen Law (Heythrop College, University of London) Whats the point of lampooning religion? Its so obvious.Report, I cant start to fathom the disanalogies between the KKK and Charlie HebdoReport, Here, you can start counting the overwhelming number of anti-racist, anti-fascism, pro-immigrants cartoons found in the magazine these last years. Satire is the ultimate method by which reason can address power. There is more to this, as I will get to later. Lets also remember the context of deep Islamophobia and colonialism in France, if we are going to look at other contexts. This is often expressed as hostility to Muslims or to Islam itself. Now, mocking the powerful is important for a healthy democratic society and for that I applaud all who do. he vows to kick her out and disown his son. Saying that they were not involved in noble work, or comparing them to Rush Limbaugh (who we have more than enough evidence on to conclude he is racist in the first sense), is simply to infer from the fact that they were part of an institution that perpetuated racist stereotypes and contributes to white supremacy, that they themselves had racist beliefs and sentiments. Its hardly a trivial point, its the heart of the issue philosophically: if you claim to endorse free speech, you have to draw the line that gives that concept contentand that line has historically, in the philosophical, legal, and political spheres, been defined as the point when speech becomes harm and thus an infringement on anothers freedom. There are other examples, but I think it is pretty clear that Western media focuses on whites more so than on others. The Color Purple Summary and Analysis of Section 3. Sin nombre, of course we have all seen that. If, however, they came to power in these Western countries and imposed Sharia law, they would then cease to speak to power. Unlike Old Mr. ___, Tobias is As I mentioned above, particularly in the west, Islam is a raced religion and so our cultural images of Muslims are not really divorced from our cultural images of people who come from those countries and cultures we think are Muslim. return MonthArray[intMonth] This particular image makes the prophet (?) Darker people are generally called terrorist, white people disturbed individuals; terrorism means ramp up the war on terrorism, disturbed individuals means offer mental health services to them.Report, Because the his/her thing is driving me crazy, Im a he. The debate is NOT: should we have free speech? Let them draw racist cartoons but lets not call that work noble.Report, Also, you keep avoiding the hard ones. in a semi-comic vein. Also, even if Sacco or anyone else has a nuanced view of Muslims (seeing that Islam is not a monolith) they could still have (and very likely do have) racialized images of Muslims that fit the description of the cartoon since the cartoon hits on a lot of markers. world does not hold the same opinion. Your whole defense is about offense. The Color Purple: Novel, Summary & Analysis | StudySmarter Celie's father wants Nettie to himself and says she is "too young and inexperienced." According to Celie's father, why will Celie be a better wife to . I say that Islam is a raced religion (and, indeed, all religions are raced) because religions do not exist in some vacuum independent of other cultural factors. She writes with disdain, however, that . What Ill tell you is that #2 sucks, and if #2 is the One True Freedom of Speech, all this would show is that the One True Freedom of Speech sucks.Report, Here is an actual quote from a CH cartoon: It is hard to be loved by morons. To be sure, it must be a pretty powerful (externalist) one, since it has led him or her to flat out reject reports above, such as mine, of not having had this concept of Islam prior to this thread. Now, with respect to Charlie Hebdo, I still think it is best to think about it within the context of France in which case I think the case can be made (and has been) for them to be punching down.Report. I never said they hate people or anything else that might suggest racism in the first sense (as far as I can tell). Active Themes. He arrived in Paris, coincidentally, right after the attacks, to give a series of lectures. If caricatures were in the first place targetting fanatics, not muslims, and if the caricatures in fact resemble the fanatics (if only through the proxy of the Prophet), then this cant possibly be a genuine form of racism. I take the perpetuating stereotypes stuff from sin nombre to be right on. The administration would have cut financing and shut them down. But its also very often a red herring waved by simplifying minds to avoid debating the merits of a religion, or at least of the governance of its most harmful followers. Further, its not obvious to me that it is all things considered wrong to make martyrs of the cartoonists even if their work was racially insensitive. Islam is not a race. The ability to kill conspecifics from a distance with projectile weapons distinguishes homo sapiens from all other species in the animal kingdom. Lionizing CH is harmful because it perpetuates these awful images of Muslims and because it plays into the clash of civilizations narrative (that Grad Student seems to be arguing).Report. What kind of a business does Harpo start, and where does he open it? Maybe theyre wrong, but thats the debate.Report. As we are mortified by the slaughter of those writers and editors in Paris, its a good time to come up with a less hypocritical approach to our own controversial figures, provocateurs and satirists.. Again, caricatures of Mahomet and muslims were mostly if not exclusively targetting fanatics. I dont think thats distasteful. See guidelines for writing about novels. Ideally, we would neither criticize nor praise Charlie, and focus entirely on condemning the murderers. Where does she go? Word Count: 391 During an evening of working on a quilt together, Sofia inquires of Celie why men eat. In the case of Muslims, then, I do not think the gap between race and religion is so big (and in fact it is equivalent to being anti-Semitic where Jews are still discriminated against even if they are atheist Jews or non-practicing Jews). I guess Jihadist websites also play a role in recruiting these people. On the second sense, clearly yes. Whose baby does Celie say it is? Asked Sofia to be her maid Why did Squeak go to the warden? We are also owed an argument for why Sacco has authority over the content of his own concepts and utterances sufficient to place a significant burden on the argument that Islam is racialized. The punching down argument is complicated. If it were simply degree of harm that was important the law would be awfully arbitrary. Also, are you saying that you dont think of Judaism as a raced religion so someone who is an atheist cannot be a Jew? Decrease of French welfare allocations. Where were the calls for solidarity with Mexico with the recent massacre of students for example. Second, by trivial I meant not at all comforting to people who live in that country. Im also bothered in general because we take the deaths of whites so much more seriously than anyone elses deaths, which why many of us in the US have need to take to the streets to remind people that black lives matter. his children, for he has never felt loved by his father. That means people think of Muslims as backwards, a stereotype that isnt helped given current world economic divisions of rich and poor. What does Celie try to help him understand? Haven't gotten on Bluesky yet. Here in the US we have a problem with stereotypical depictions of young African American men. Harpo is an essentially good man, but he drives Sofia, his first wife, away by trying to get her to "mind" (or obey) him. This is true even if the intention of the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo was to go after fanatics. The radical organization that doesnt believe in property rights? Note that if we didnt had it there would probably be much more people complaining because the ones who really need it would end up in extreme poverty. This is very misleading. //--> Because the government could just keep deciding to draw the line however it wants by giving crappy philosophical arguments because it doesnt constitutional checks. Perhaps I have not been very clear about this, but its not that the cartoons offend anyone that matters to me. I still stick to this and still think you are equivocating on this concept since you ignore the importance of systemic racism. Through healing Shug, Celie is really healing herself. There is no public ridicule of Muslims, though they are probably exposed to some racism, as are other ethnic minorities here Finnish people are not saints but there is certainly nothing approaching Charlie Hebdo. What does Pa do to Celie? I did not read it and know it only from the reports since the attack. hand on his pants. This page is not available in other languages. Im not sure I understand if you are offering a critique or what. Your link gives the impression that CH were only interested in mocking Islam. This isnt fake academic activism and they deserve no more honor than any other person who is murdered.Report. However, Ive been very disappointed by the quality of most (not all!) The Color Purple: Shug Avery Quotes | SparkNotes She also If this is how Sin Nombre is using the phrase (which would make sense), then your claim is as false as it is obfuscatory.Report, I dont think your abstraction holds, David. and says he is good in some things, bad in others. Who did Harpo beat? And in Europe its been fairly commonly expressed, including by fairly senior politicians, that various speech acts ought to be discouraged, or condemned, or occasionally even restricted legally, precisely because of the risk of violence that they invoke. But that doesnt lead me to believe that everyone makes such mistakes. This is a complicated issue and I take it that it wouldnt be on this blog if it were just another mass shooting in the world. Why was Harpo trying to get bigger and eat more? - Brainly.com being done. Next, Albert's brother, He insults Shug and shames Albert for bringing her into his house. a "loose" woman. Thats the point: libel, defamation, inciting violence are where the U.S. draws the line between free speech and harm. Many European countries and Canada often draw the line in very different ways. First, my original point is that they were racist and not speaking to power as they insulted Muslims. This is not libel, defamantion, or an attempt to incite violence. Her hair is The Sofia/Harpo subplot continues The Color Purple Letters 11-21 Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes And it is sometimes not appropriate, nor particularly funny, to deliberately provoke Muslims by publishing cartoons of the prophet that they view as blasphemous, offensive and insulting., Thats in case anyone still doubts that there are genuine issues about, and threats to, free speech in play here. As Stanley called it, the power of monarchs. Sacco is asking for the argument. Those who suggest that mere cultural sensitivity will resolve the problem have not, to my knowledge, provided any significant evidence to back this claim aside from calling everyone who disagrees with them an Islamophobe. I would say that the spread of global white supremacy and the instituting of systemic racism is only possible because of the control of resources, so if thats what you mean then I agree.Report, Glen Newey (Leiden) Rival Sanctities.Report, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_01/when_defense_of_the_other_runs053668.phpReport. Celie are working on their quilt on the porch. The pope is the representative of the dominant traditional religion of the majority of French citizens. In the cartoon these are words which are put in the mouth of the Prophet. They then ceased to speak to power as soon as they attained power. She tells her that Albert is not all that bad; she then retracts her statement Now to your challenge. Shouldnt that matter? Thank you colleagues for reminding me why there arent more minorities in philosophy.Report. To William Lewis: in my usage, at least, speaking to power is what one does when one speaks critically of a group which credibly threatens harm to those who so speak. Anyway, Finland is a very small country, 5.5 million people. It appears to be content-neutrala purely procedural complaint about intolerance and the failures of the free marketplace of ideasbut in fact is substantively political, The only way to determine the ethical status of such an entity might be unethical, Philosophers are far more likely to suffer from depression than to write about it but depression does raise questions that philosophy can help us answer, They reflect a commitment to reasoned inquiry, openness to new evidence, and respect for both the achievements and the limitations of our current understanding, The idea that philosophy must be good in order to be valuable contributes to an exclusionary attitude that seeps into our unarticulated assumptions about who and what philosophy is for, and thereby shapes our professional practices in ways that we may not always be aware of, The EUs Artificial Intelligence Act would ban certain forms of AI, including predictive policing, The narrative that there was no political philosophy within analytic philosophy before Rawls is a lie that keeps us in a self-imposed tutelage. How Should You? What is really racist is the idea only nice white liberals want to challenge religion or demolish its pretensions or can handle satire and ridicule. The Color Purple Study Guide Letters 1-31 Flashcards | Quizlet If things were vice versa, Id be surprised if the comparative balance of media coverage of the two incidents werent largely inverted (which is however not to say that people would be paying just as much attention to the counterfactually lethal Colorado bombing as they are to the actual events in Parisand of course this kind of plausible potential asymmetry could well be explained by reference to the systems of racial intolerance that youre pointing to; its just not at all clear that this is the main factor at issue given the actual outcomes in Paris and Colorado). This is more than about 12 people dying horribly because a lot more people die horribly in all over the world. It is simply an idea (albeit a stupid one). I am sympathetic to Sin Nombres arguments throughout this thread, and am pretty disappointed by most of the responses that he or she has received.Report, Serene Khader: Tell sexist or racist jokes around them and then just excuse yourself because you tell jokes about all people. The comment about suppressed reservations deserves more clarification, since I think it connects to an important misunderstanding between sides in these comments. with a mustache and slicked back hair; however, he picks his nose and wipes his The focus in these letters is mostly on Harpo. I am mostly made that point out of anger because I dont think a lot of people here were taking the racism claim seriously and because the news media largely ignored the bombing, which is horrible and at least partially attributable to white supremacy. While they might be lampooning radicals, it is sad state of affairs to note that many people unfortunately identify all Muslims with radicals. Surprisingly, what our work suggests is that *nothing* is something you can hear, The goods of focusing on canonical figures in philosophy: a community of readers, a corpus accessible across the globe, a common language to converse about many things we might only begin to understand, Every spring, I suffer the Summer Illusion, building up big plans and hopes. I find this frustrating and an indication of systemic racism. Thats quite a generalisation. With that precedent on the books virtually no political speech is safe from future legislation.Report. To pretend that they are anything more is either to be unaware of ones own privilege (not uncommon), to be unaware of Frances very long and racist history with the Other, or to be unaware of the sort of work that Charlie Hebdo publishes. You are saying that Americans shouldnt criticize French racism and punching down without acknowledging their own. the cartoons lampooning Muslims are not speaking to power., Id say a sufficient condition for speaking to power is that you are murdered for doing so.Report, Yet, as the staff of Charlie Hebdo was aware, there surely is a difference, in France, between mocking the pope and mocking the Prophet Muhammad. She mentions that Harpo has been consuming a large amount of food lately, despite not. The fact that countries in Europe ban certain speech that isnt deceptive and isnt a direct imperative to act in a violent manner just because of the content or historical associations is all the relevant information you need. Shug has given them her yellow But when offenses are policed by murder, thats when we need more of them, not less, because the murderers cannot be allowed for a single moment to think that their strategy can succeed.Report, No, my problem is not with blasphemy nor with the importance of saying unpopular views. But such clear false analogies make that a lot more difficult.Report. To David Wallace. I found Ross Douthats article in the NYTimes very helpful (http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/the-blasphemy-we-need/). Another way of putting the disagreement is if debate over what counts as free speech can involve debate over whether to allow the banning of the niqab or the banning of Holocaust denial, then the shared commitment to free speech is empty, it is simply the disposition to utter sentences that lack any content. of Utah) To Fear Offense or Reprisals Is to Surrender OurValues (via anonymous 17), David Atkins When Defense of The Other Runs Contrary to Liberal Values (via Blain Neufeld), Seyla Benhabib (Yale) Piety or Rage? To swift: what follows from CH being racist is that we not honor the work of racists. )Report, See also http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/01/10/when-satire-cuts-both-ways/to-fear-offense-or-reprisals-is-to-surrender-our-values. (Well, aside from the point about the rather severe tension between the affirmation of freedom of expression and Frances decision to ban burkas. she always gives praise, and it is only because Celie does not have any sense. An analogy. (Is "Holes: Study Shows We Can See Them" next? so thin from her illness. Please stop reminding me of why philosophy has a white male privilege problem, because thats what these comments sound like.Report, A change in tactics since my real point is that these cartoonists were racist seems to be lost. by patriarchal role models. Same with communists, fascists, etc. I do not see how you substantiate your claim that this isnt punching down, and perhaps to further help the claim that this is punching down a map of all the mosques that have been attacked since the massacre: http://www.vox.com/2015/1/10/7524731/french-muslims-attacks-charlie-hebdoReport. She does not brook any discrimination from white people or physical or other efforts to control her by men, Sofia is sent to prison for fighting the (white) mayor and his wife. The situation here might be relevant to the discussion on this thread. Also, on strictly philosophical grounds, giving authority of interpretation to the author is shaky at best.Report. The Color Purple | Encyclopedia.com Both Albert and Celie jump to be of service to her when Harpo confides in Celie that he has fallen in love with a spunky, robust young girl named Sofia. Note the grotesquely exaggerated features (and think about ways Jews are streotypically drawn in racist cartoons about them). In the case of Muslims, because most peoples conception of a Muslim is some dark skinned person from the middle east in a turban, a big nose, beard, etc. I notice no one is taking up my earlier analogy about black stereotypes. As for your analogy with racist jokes against Obama , as far as I know, thats again strongly disanaloguous: here were focusing on religion, were not picturing muslims as monkeys, and most importantly, any human being was likely to be depicted with disgracious animal-like features by the cartoonists. Prima Facie, this looks like a simple problem of the suppression of free speech. The former comment was about the general tenor of the replies to sin nombre, which seemed to refuse to seriously engage or directly debate rather than dismiss SNs concerns. Anyway this is whats going on here: The standard of living of Muslims is not particularly low. for their existence. Why grieve their deaths and not the deaths of other unfamiliar people? Their putative white supremacist power did not protect them.Report, Now we are going to pretend theres no such thing as white supremacy. " July ", " August ", " September ", That is because you can engage in racist activities in the second sense without being racist in the first (I imagine most Americans, myself included, unfortunately are guilty of engaging in behavior that marginalizes racial minorities, but there is no good reason to think that most Americans hate racial minorities or think them inferior) What one has to do is define what one means by power, who has it, and why.Report. When Harpo asks Celie for advice about the same thing, Celie wonders why Harpo even needs to ask since the two of them seem so happy. Harpo complains that Sofia does not obey him; he has told her not to go to her sister's house so much, but she still goes. In the specific case of Charlie Hebdo, arguable instances of islamophobia can more charitably be interpreted as (i) directed against a creed they otherwise would be happy to ignore because (ii) it comes in increasingly radicalized forms among the youth, hence (iii) more accurately targetting fanatics and terrorists rather than believers and any race whatsoever. Among non-academics people often refuse to interpret charges of racism using the second meaning, even when doing so would be obviously the more charitable reading. I think, though, that maybe I am not making myself clear on what my problem is. Human political organization and social control tracks the development of projectile weapons. They frequently use racialized or sexist images to characterize Muslims. 10. But because some people have gone out of their way to make Charlie moral heroes, it secondarily becomes necessary to morally critique Charlie to justify a more neutral position. When I say that those doing the its bad but routine are mistaken this does not make me (or anyone else who agrees with me) guilty of supressing other peoples reservations. What is called offence to a community is more often than not actually a struggle within communities. No doubt Western imperialism played a significant role in the current levels of radical Islam, but it is not the sole cause. (And it might not!)