Ms. magazine, January 2026
A few days before Christmas, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo featured an abhorrent caricature of esteemed journalist, author, filmmaker and activist Rokhaya Diallo. The grotesque image (which we will not reproduce here) shows a half-naked Diallo dancing on stage dressed in a banana skirt. Her features were exaggerated in the manner of time-worn racist propaganda—contorting her nose, mouth and eyes for a minstrel-like effect. Next to the image was an audience pointing and jeering underneath a sign that reads, (translated from French) “The Rokhaya Diallo Show: She ridicules the separation of church and state all over the world.”
There is no question Diallo was targeted for her widespread international success and renown as an antiracist activist, as well as her prominence as a Black feminist voice decrying racial injustice, sexism and misogynoir in France and abroad. The timing felt insidious and intentional—the magazine chose to end the year with a harmful message to Black French women, as a holiday send off.
