It is hard sometimes to discuss issues which personally affect you as an individual. Even though I am a Unitarian-Universalist, I am also the son of a Muslim immigrant from Turkey. I consider racist images, such as the one depicted here, to be revolting and sickening. It makes people forget about all the professors,doctors, restaurant owners, engineers, entertainers, writers who are of Muslim heritage and it focuses only on the small minority who engage in terrorist acts.
It is for this reason that I wrote the following letter-to-the-editor in response to an editorial cartoon that was published in that same newspaper, "The News-Record," last week:
"As the son of a Muslim immigrant from Turkey, I would like to say that the editorial cartoon published March 28 about the not-so-recent Danish cartoon flap upholds the ridicilous notion that all Muslims are terrorists and barbarians.
But, rather than go through with the predictable liberal rhetoric about blatantly offensive this is, I suggest that you have the courage to publish Ted Rall's cartoons which depict the war in Iraq as an act of imperialist aggression.
If you are going to publish extreme right-wing cartoons to appease your fringe Yosemite Sam readers, why not publish extreme left-wing cartoons to appease readers of "The Nation" and those who think Hillary Clinton is a closet Republican?
If this isn't possible, perhaps you should change the name of your newspaper to "The Rhinoceros Times_Daily Edition," Tilly Gokbudak.
The News-Record is a daily newspaper in Greensboro, NC. The Rhinoceros Times is a conservative weekly paper which also comes out in Greensboro.
My main point here was that if an editorial board is to show no concern because a cartoon might be culturally offensive to a given minority then it also show no concerns for a cartoon's political content.
Though I am not as liberal as Ted Rall (I consider myself to be centrist-progessive), I think he has made insightful political comments about the war in Iraq. I know of very few mainstream newspapers which have published his cartoons though. Clearly, in my view, not only was the published anti-Muslim cartoon racist, but there is also an inherent double-standard at work here.
Which begs the question: "What liberal media?"
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