Stoopid Stuff

Muslim is the New Black

These have been hard times for racial hatred and bigotry in the US. From Mel Gibson to Michael Richards, a mere racist tirade can have very real negative consequences. But racism is deeply ingrained in the psyche of a particular portion of American society, so people have stuggled with finding expression for their hate.

Last summer offered some relief - a new codeword for anti-Latino biggotry. As long as one railed against "Illegal Immigration", you could spew a great deal of hatred and venom. You could propose all manner of harsh treatment for these "Illegals", from outright deportation without due process to concentration camps. But to the true American racist, this was unsatisfying. He wants to hate groups of his fellow human beings because of their nationality, their native language, their religion, and mostly the color of their skin. And he wants to express that hatred clearly, and even more, he wants a way to act on that hatred. So in this Politically Correct, Racially Sensitive world, what's a true bigot to do?

Thankfully, new opportunities have sprung up for those who like a little hatred and discrimination with their family values. First it was the Gays. Right wing christianists, in their desire for more intrusive, authoritarian government, discovered that it was perfectly acceptable to hate homosexuals. Even people of color joined them in their newly-discovered freedom to say the most vile, hateful things, and make the most dishonest accusations. The voices taking them to task for this are mostly in the gay community itself, and the bigots feel completely empowered in their hatred due to a few passages in the christian bible. Never mind that the same old testiment hatred also extends to slaveholding and wife killing. It's god's will to hate gay people. And the hate speech just gets more vituperative.

But even more so, events have conspired to give every American white bigot more freedom to hate than they have had since the heyday of the Klan. From 9/11 to Afghanistan to Iraq to the London Bombing to the Israel/Lebanon war, the dusky-skinned object of American villification and outright hatred are Muslims. In the five years since 20 Muslim men flew the airliners into the buildings, we have gone from "Arab Terrorists" to Jihadis to Islamofascists. To the point, now, where there has been a complete conflation of "Islam", "Muslim" and "Terrorist". And because we are "at war", it is perfectly alright to indulge in the worst kind of murderous, eliminationist rhetoric. To act in the egregiously foul and unfair fashion, from calling for Racial Profiling of Muslims to holding "pig races" to disrupt their worship. It is as if there is absolutely no limit to what one can do to hurt, insult or offend a muslim person, even if they happen to be Americans.

It's shocking, this gleeful intolerance and joyous hostility. It seems at this point that there is nothing a muslim can do that will not attract a good American Christian's outrage and bile. It might be a newly elected congressman choosing what holy book to pose with after the swearing in ceremony. It might be a peaceful American muslim community with a desire to build a house of worship on property they own. It might be something so small as a Senator's middle name - as in Barack Hussein Obama. But all this hatred and hostility is leading us somewhere. If you smell America in 1942, Stalin's Russia in 1926 or the choking, greasy black smoke from Bergen/Belsen camps, perhaps it's time to speak out.

Let's be clear. There are Islamic Terrorists who want to cause harm to America. We can argue about the root cause of their anger towards the west, but the fact of their existence and goals cannot be argued. But it is a small threat, one that can be managed by smart people enacting rational policies. But it is not the entire faith of Islam that we need to fear and hate. A muslim person is a human, with the same needs and desires as any other person. Sure, I have a disdain bordering on contempt for any religious mythology, but the people who hold these views don't deserve our hatred or our hostility. We are not at war with an entire religion. And they are not at war with us. What you are seeing here speaks less to who or what muslims represent, and more to the kind of people we are becoming.

posted by mikey @ 8:51 AM