Free-speech defenses of the cartoons masked prior anti-immigrant editorializing.

Evidence

The Danish cartoon controversy illustrates how this frame of Islam and violence operates, and how it serves to desensitize western audiences to the mass killings of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. In 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (J-P) posted twelve depictions of the Prophet Mohammad, which were solicited by its cultural editor. One of these cartoons featured the Prophet with a bomb on his turban. This cartoon not only depicts Mohammad as a terrorist but Islam as being imbricated with violence from its origins. This argument was a staple of the Right, but made its way into a liberal newspaper in Denmark in 2005. The cultural editor claimed to be motivated by the desire to defend free speech even if that meant offending Muslims. Shortly before this, J-P had published a series of editorials and op-eds that were anti-immigrant and that portrayed Islam as a dangerous and belligerent religion. The cartoons therefore didn’t come out of nowhere. Anthropologist Peter Hervik has argued that the logic of J-P’s cultural editor derives from what is called “entitlement racism,” which involves “the right to offend and to humiliate” in the name of liberal principles. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 346

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces Hervik’s concept of ‘entitlement racism’ — the right to offend and humiliate in the name of liberal principles.
• XREF: Connects to the complaint-about-immodesty and moral-panic literature on how egalitarian-sounding principles (free speech, modesty) get weaponized as class/identity markers. — connects to: Free speech defenses of racist cartoons mask ‘entitlement racism’; Free speech defenses of satire can ramp up rather than defuse religious tensions; Liberal free-speech defenses can function as entitlement racism

Broader Connections

• Free speech defenses of racist cartoons mask ‘entitlement racism’ #corroborates (1.00)
• Liberal free-speech defenses can function as entitlement racism #corroborates (0.95)
• Free speech defenses of satire can ramp up rather than defuse religious tensions #corroborates (0.75)