“Laugh and the world laughs with you.” Everyone knows that you have to be able to laugh at yourself. It is a hallmark of being a “good sport” and a member of the team.
But what happens if you are not exactly accepted as a member of “the team”? What happens if you are part of an ethnic or religious group that is demonized, discriminated against, incarcerated without justification, and subject to hate crimes and violence in the society in which you live? And what if those with the most power in your society—the lawmakers, judges, police, corporate leaders, media, and so on—often laugh at you in ways that are cruel and dehumanizing? Such a situation certainly shifts the stakes and the effects of laughing at yourself.
When caricatures of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper back in September 2005, the rationale was that if Muslims...
