Sam Grant-Williams

2/1/15
English Composition II
Writing Project 1
Response Paper: I Am Not Charlie Hebdo

The article I Am Not Charlie Hebdo by David Brooks is an attempt to analyze, criticize, and
respond to the growing tone of martyrdom in response to the terrorist attack against the Charlie Hebdo
satirical magazine. He makes the point that if the controversial cartoons were published in America that
they would have been rejected by both the editors and the public and heavily criticized. The authour of
the article states that in these particular cartoons the illustrators had crossed a line from satirical to
offensive and that if they had not been killed by the terrorist they would have faced heavy criticism
around the world. The key point of the article is that the victims of the terrorist attacks should not be
viewed as 'martyrs' for free speech and that their deaths should serve as a warning that we must be
constantly aware of ever changing cultural boundaries which satirist must pay homage to in their
work. David Brooks argues against an increase in laws to deal with offensive speech because we don't
need repressive legislation - we need responsible social barriers!
As I was initially reading this article I felt that David Brooks language was rather insensitive to
the fact that people had been killed. I felt he was saying the magazine poked the sleeping bear so it's
not surprising they got mauled to death and my internal response to the first paragraph was oh, you
just don't get it but the more I read the article the more I felt like maybe I just didn't get what David
Brooks point was but as I read on and then re read his article the more sense he made.
I agree wholeheartedly that there is a fine line between being satirical and being culturally
offensive or just plain racist with free speech potentially bordering on hate speech. Brooks makes the
point that the satirist job is to walk on a knife's edge, Satirists expose those who are incapable of

laughing at themselves and teach the rest of us that we probably should. He goes on further to say:
Healthy societies, in other words, dont suppress speech, but they do grant different standing to
different sorts of people. Wise and considerate scholars are heard with high respect. Satirists are heard
with bemused semirespect. Racists and anti-Semites are heard through a filter of opprobrium and
disrespect. People who want to be heard attentively have to earn it through their conduct. I
thoroughly agree with this latter passage.
To sum things up, while I still believe he was insensitive to their deaths, David Brooks makes a
compelling argument about personal responsibility in regards to the usage of free speech especially in
terms of forms of media such as cartoon images.