Salon on Charleston vs. Salon on Paris

■ The pieces

• Salon (Kali Holloway, AlterNet): White America is complicit: Charleston, Dylann Roof and the country's real race war (June 20, 2015)https://www.salon.com/2015/06/20/white_america_is_complicit_charleston_dylann_roof_and_the_war_on_black_america_partner/
• Salon (Ben Norton): Our terrorism double standard: After Paris, let's stop blaming Muslims and take a hard look at ourselves (Nov 14, 2015)https://www.salon.com/2015/11/14/our_terrorism_double_standard_after_paris_lets_stop_blaming_muslims_and_take_a_hard_look_at_ourselves/

■ What they show

After the Charleston church shooting, Salon ran a piece by Kali Holloway (via AlterNet) arguing that white America as a whole was complicit in Dylann Roof's racist violence. After the November 2015 Paris attacks, Salon ran Ben Norton's argument that Muslims should not be collectively blamed and that the West should examine its own violence abroad. Critics read the two pieces as applying opposite standards of collective responsibility.

■ The other side

Both are signed opinion pieces by different authors. Holloway focused on systemic racism within the US, and Norton on Western foreign policy, so each frames responsibility around structures rather than ethnicity as such.

■ Why it's here

This exhibit is filed under Subversion, not graded as a lie. What subversion means →