Brilliant and piercing discussion! Besides the most salient themes, a few other points that resonated with me: how and why immigrants from Muslim-majority nations are among the strongest supporters of laïcité; the exhaustion that many non-American liberals feel at the constant donning of the identitarian-leftist lens on policy discussions; the nuanced critique of social mobility in France as a more useful and effective way to understand the integration challenges rather than only broad appeals to nationwide laïcité-induced systemic racism.
On a different note, when Caroline first mentioned the almost victim-blaming-like view from US mainstream media, I did not immediately register it. During the original Charlie Hebdo shooting I was an overwhelmed undergrad back in India and less attuned to global news, so I only knew about the facts of the incident and not the rhetoric here. For these recent events, on the other hand, my knowledge and understanding came from The Economist (a news source I have been more frequently consulting recently compared to NYT/WaPo). After hearing this conversation, I looked through some recent NYT/WaPo articles and was indeed quite struck by some of the asking-for-it undertones. The sad irony.
Brilliant and piercing discussion! Besides the most salient themes, a few other points that resonated with me: how and why immigrants from Muslim-majority nations are among the strongest supporters of laïcité; the exhaustion that many non-American liberals feel at the constant donning of the identitarian-leftist lens on policy discussions; the nuanced critique of social mobility in France as a more useful and effective way to understand the integration challenges rather than only broad appeals to nationwide laïcité-induced systemic racism.
On a different note, when Caroline first mentioned the almost victim-blaming-like view from US mainstream media, I did not immediately register it. During the original Charlie Hebdo shooting I was an overwhelmed undergrad back in India and less attuned to global news, so I only knew about the facts of the incident and not the rhetoric here. For these recent events, on the other hand, my knowledge and understanding came from The Economist (a news source I have been more frequently consulting recently compared to NYT/WaPo). After hearing this conversation, I looked through some recent NYT/WaPo articles and was indeed quite struck by some of the asking-for-it undertones. The sad irony.