Category: Global

UN Women Interview: Cartoons can help

Recently, I was interviewed by the United Nations initiative, UN Women. Their mission is to help women around the globe, as “the global champion for gender equality, working to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential. We are trusted partners for advocates and decision-makers from all walks of life, and a leader in the effort to achieve gender equality.”
It was such an honor to be interviewed by them. I hope my work can in some small way help women around the world.

We’re All In This Together: Dialogue without hatred, in the fight against hatred

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I have hope. Some may consider me naive. My socioeconomic class and skin color have helped me live a relatively easy life, free of negativity; perhaps that’s why I can be optimistic. But I am also a woman, and have felt sexism and misogyny because of my gender. I have chosen to push past it?—?I don’t ignore the hatred, but I try find a way in my cartoons to expose it, talk about what it is and why it might exist. All with the hope of creating awareness, change, and making things better.

If nothing else, this period will be a time for Democrats and left leaning folks to bond. But all Americans, no matter the political stripe, have to be vigilant to be sure hate does not win over. If someone expresses hatred in the form of bigotry, sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, we speak out.

Those things are not America, and the majority of us believe that.

Each of us must try to find a way to make change?—?no matter how small?—?either in our work or in our community. It’s about positive individual steps, right?

And I’ll try to keep drawing cartoons that speak to this, try to expose what I see, create dialogue without hatred, as we move FORWARD as a country.

For France

France is like my second home, I have many friends there, cartoonists and others. And as a country, the French are so welcoming to cartoonists, I always feel at home when I am there. I have been going since I was sixteen, when I studied french in Aix-en-Provence not far from Nice where over 80 people were massacred. It breaks my heart that they are constantly the target of these attacks.
I know many other countries are targets,  as well–it’s just horrible.
I cannot find the words. For France, for Nice

Global Cartooning: A forum in Caen

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A gathering of 35 cartoonists from 16 countries took place from September 11-13th in Caen, France at the Caen Memorial Museum, and I was honored to be among the invited to participate in the events and public debates. It was a wonderful event and many conversations were had about the role of political cartooning in a world run by the internet.
Here is a video from France 3, who asked the Spanish cartoonist Kap and myself to draw and discuss the immigration crisis.
Over the course of the three days, we debated the limits of free speech and the importance of understanding one another globally. Many were in agreement that just because we have free speech does not mean we have to use it to its limits in every case.