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Hello Will Smith, remember Charlie?
January 2015 - terrorists entered the offices of the satire paper in Paris and killed 12 people for a joke.
I remember that day vividly, for I was a student in Paris at the time. January 2015 was the start of a movement that we all said we would never forget, that we have all forgotten.
You probably have memories of people’s Facebook profile pictures with frames, black pictures, and slogans of “Je Suis Charlie.”
Charlie Hebdo was a popular french paper that published a lot of satire and dark humor. Dark humor is ingrained in French culture. It’s how people get over themselves and the difficult things of life. It’s also how we used to do politics.
There is a French saying: “Il vaut mieux en rire qu’en pleurer,” meaning it is better to laugh about it than cry about it. That is valid for every subject. Race, homosexuality, poverty, war, illness, politics, religions, you name it, we laughed about it.
My friends and I were all from different backgrounds, races, and origins. We made jokes about each other all the time that today would be more than frowned upon. We all laughed. We were close. They made fun of me for being a jew, too. I laughed with them. We were close. We were not fans of the society we lived in, so…
