General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I do not condone killing ... [View all]cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)and what would be an appropriate response.
From your username, I'm going out on a limb and assuming you're black. So consider interracial relationships. To hardcore racists, their opposition is genuine visceral disgust born of a cultural tradition that taught them that blacks are morally deficient subhumans. It offends them, and they have a history of expressing that offense ranging all the way up to mass murder and other kinds of violent mayhem. And while that viewpoint is obviously not dead, it is a lot weaker than it was, largely thanks to courageous people that went right on offending them, including people that produced artwork mocking and satirizing their intolerance.
Or look at the struggle for LGBT rights. How many times have you seen the viewpoint expressed: "I'm ok with gay people as long as they're not showing affection in any way in public"? And plenty of them have suffered (up to and including death) for offending the delicate sensibilities of homophobes. Once again, a big part of the strategy for defeating this viewpoint has been to mock and satirize it.
I get your discomfort - most of the cartoons that I've seen have been pretty juvenile shock-value type stuff, and a lot of them straddle the line (and sometimes jump right over) of being racist caricatures. And France definitely does have a problem with nativist types that want to get rid of everyone that isn't a white Christian. But France is also a country like the US that has enshrined free expression of ideas as one of its highest civic virtues, so telling a French citizen that they can't express themselves freely is deeply offensive to them. They also has a long tradition of sticking its tongue out at powerful institutions like governments, churches and corporations. So it's not as if Muslims (or even extremist Muslims) are being singled out. The same publication just as crassly skewers the Catholic Church constantly, even though France is about (nominally) 2/3 Catholic.