exorcizamus te

12 people were murdered. no scratch that, 16 people have now been murdered (the 12 people in the office and the 4 hostages in the shop) and more than 11 people injured and it was horrible to see that people's first reaction on tumblr was pretty much "charlie hebdo deserved it" because let's be honest saying "i'm not justifying the attack BUT..." (as many people have been saying) is essentially victim blaming which i was pretty sure up until now tumblr was violently against. we the french are mourning for our loss - please at least respect that and think about the lives lost before the politics of it.

but let me - along with the many (mostly french - shouldn't that be a clue??) bloggers who have already made this point - make something clear. charlie hebdo is not a racist, homophobe, xenophobe, islamophobe and is most definitely not extreme right wing. get your facts straight - it's a satirical newspaper made by left wing people. they talk shit about everybody. and the cherry picked cartoons that the #jenesuispascharlie bloggers are bringing out are mocking people who actually are racist or have said some pretty bad things for example the leader of the front national marine lepen and the prime minister manuel valls. but even though they're left wing they still print satire about francois hollande who's from the main socialist party of france, which just goes to show that they print stuff about everybody. they're not racist, they're calling out people who are like marine lepen they're not homophobic they're mocking people who were part of 'la manif pour tous' (which was against gay marriage) they're not islamophobic or anti-semitic they're ridiculing all religions.

the point of charlie hebdo was to provoke people, to shock them and get them talking - there's no such thing as bad press - but above all to make people laugh, what a crime!. granted, some think that their articles are often in bad taste and that's fine, think what you wish. but please don't demean their deaths and tarnish their lives with false accusations. 

my family lives in france, in fact a lot of my family lives in paris. one of my cousins lives with her husband and two sons 10 minutes away from where the gunmen stayed in the warehouse. i'm terrified. i'm terrified for my family and i'm terrified for everybody living in france right now

but the point is, it would be hypocritical of me to argue for the freedom of speech of charlie hebdo and then turn around and say that the #jenesuispascharlie posters aren't allowed their opinion. however, i think it would be appreciated (understatement) by the hundreds of french bloggers if you actually educated yourself on the matter before posting false accusations.