Some people are not as ready to embrace racist and xenophobic depictions in media as Americans are. I mean, the history of some of these depictions goes a lot further than Charlie Hebdo. Cartoons have been used to demonize every group for the last century or so (Jews, Chinese, Africans, Russians). So maybe he's not as ready to embrace this freedom of speech because it sometimes
hides far more sinister attitudes. All these folks ignorant of cartoons and demonization really shouldn't gang up on spangled for giving an opinion which isn't all that rare for anyone who understands what has hidden behind them in the past. Here are some examples:
The Irish:
Meaning: Subhuman, simian-like, not like the beauty in the rest of Europe. Images like this were used to justify the mistreatment of the Irish for nearly 50 years in North America.
The Chinese:
Meaning: Thieves, here to plunder the white man's wealth, undeserving of the white man's job. Images like this were used to deport millions of legal immigrants.
The black man:
Meaning: White America's go to reference for ignorance, the lesser being, the white man's slave. Imagines like this were used to justify discrimination for 200+ years.
The Jew:
Meaning: Europe, North America's and Islam's go to source for conspiracies. Images like this were used for centuries to justify the oppression of Jews wherever found. They really were the Western world's most hated people, and it was in part because of this demonization in media.
As you can all plainly see, some of these images hide something sinister behind them, people shouldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that they're depictions seeking to demonize and attack
other cultures. I'm not in anyway supportive of what happened at Charlie Hebdo, but I won't pretend like what they were doing was
harmless to race relations. If Al Sharpton's alleged
doublespeak when it comes to race is hurtful to relations between cultures, and races, then so was Charlie Hebdo.