BBC Trending: Is this manga cartoon of a six-year-old Syrian girl racist?
"I want to live a safe and clean life, eat gourmet food, go out, wear pretty things, and live a luxurious life⦠all at the expense of someone else," reads the text on the illustration above. "I have an idea. I'll become a refugee."
The image and caption were posted by a right-wing Japanese artist last month. Now, more than 10,000 people have signed a Change.org petition in Japanese urging Facebook to take it down. The petition, posted by an account calling itself the "Don't Allow Racism Group", claims that several people have reported the illustration and demands that "Facebook must recognize an illustration insulting Syrian refugees as racism."
Although the Japan Times reported that Facebook did not take the picture down, saying it did not go against community guidelines, the artist herself removed the picture. But she remains defiant about her motivations for posting it in the first place. Toshiko Hasumi told BBC Trending that she believed the people signing the petition were left-wing activists. "I draw many political mangas [Japanese comics] which are not favourable to them," she said. "This is why they targeted me."
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday October 09 2015, @06:16AM
It's just a convenient way for people to avoid having to use their brain. Why go to trouble of acknowledging a viewpoint different than your own when you can just attribute it to bigotry? If someone questions prayer in public schools, they must be anti-Christian. If someone questions Israeli government policy, they must be anti-semitic. If someone questions the H1B visa program, they must be xenophobic. etc.
The idea of a six-year-old girl fleeing a warzone merely as cover for a devious plan to milk government-provided services in another country is not racist. It's just plain idiotic.