Bear with me this is my first thread! So today I’m walking my dog through the Legislature grounds as I often do, and there’s a little crowd gathered near the legislature building and a man speaking with a microphone. Naturally I am curious and I stop for a few minutes to listen.

He was talking about offensive cartoons of the Prophet being published and how it contributes to increasing Islamophobia. He was very well spoken and I thought he made some really good points, such as if there were caricatures embodying stereotypical traits of Jewish people or

Indigenous people, people would outcry that those caricatures contribute to xenophobia. Or if something very sexist or misogynistic of women was posted, people would be upset. He went on to speak about free speech, acknowledging he very much supports it, and commented that many

In the crowd come from countries where there is no freedom of speech allowed, so it’s very important to them. But these cartoons paint an ugly caricature version of Muslims and it increases Islamophobia. He went on to reference the Indigenous woman

Joyce Echaquan in Quebec who had to endure the most vile racist comments in her final moments as she died, To make his point about the dangers of these types of vilifying caricatures. I listened for a while as he was a great speaker, until it seemed to wrap up and I turned to

Leave. As I was walking a way someone yelled “wait!” I turned around and saw this woman clambering over a snowbank, waving at me. There was something so earnest in her movements, to see her in knee deep snow in her long dress, frantically climbing this pile of snow. She came

Up to me all breathless and snowy, handing me a small flyer and a ROSE, with a big smile. “Thank you for listening”. She just had this air about her that I can relate so much to, you know when you’re so passionate about something and you just want people to hear you out?

Anyhow this made me think a lot and I spent a little time reading up on the situation in France with these cartoons. And you know what I’ve landed on? If an entire community is saying, Hey, please don’t print this, it’s really offensive. Then I think we shouldn’t! I am

Constantly telling ppl to not dress up as an Indigenous person for Halloween, or wear a headdress or war paint, because that is offensive to the indigenous community. I don’t see this issue as being any different. I don’t want to hear the freedom of speech defence on this one

Of course you are FREE to say and do these things but it would be respectful to listen to a community saying, please don’t. It’s very hurtful to us, and it spreads this toxic negative discourse about us that contributes to increasing xenophobic sentiments towards us.

Anyhow just wanted to share this with you all, it was a moment of reflection and one of the things that makes me grateful to be in Edmonton. #yeg #islamophobia