I am really fucking angry
Okay - so some guy from NPR got fired for saying that when he sees people on airplanes "in Muslim garb" he gets nervous, and he said it on a new outlet other than NPR.
Sorry folks - NPR is NOT about spreading fear. NPR is about telling stories. Usually letting people tell their own stories. So of course they fired him. If you were Muslim and he was assigned to report your story, would you trust him to do it fairly? Or would you feel his prejudice?
I was told this morning that this situation is not about racism because Muslims are not a race, it's a religion. Okay - that's the best counter argument you have? To fight semantics?
I had told this person that I have a Muslim friend, and that when I see her in "Muslim garb" I smile and quicken my pace for a hug. In response I was told that it's part of their "doctrine" to befriend "infidels" through deception.
WHAT THE FUCK?
So you are telling me my friend is not my friend because SHE is racist? Or are you telling me my little 56 year old, 5'1" lady friend who makes me vegetarian food and helps me to organize my papers is plotting to kill me or blow up my school? My friend from a big Iraqi city who shares my sense of sarcasm? That friend who I laugh with about how when she came to America she brought everything she owned (pots, pans, rugs, utensils) because she'd been taught that America was a wilderness with some mountains, streams and deer?
Yeah - no.... not so much. I could pick her up and hurl her across a parking lot. I'm a big huge obnoxious ex-New Yorker who towers over her. I'm supposed to be nervous because she wears "Muslim garb"? I should make others nervous so they stay away? (So I get more homemade hummus a pita bread?)
Furthermore, people like this one I engaged are exactly the sort of people who spit on my friend. In a mall in Colorado. While she was holding her baby girl in her arms. Is this person saying that my friend deserved that? What kind of person DOES that?
Finally - letting ones self responds to others in fear or nervousness only perpetuates the fear and nervousness. It doesn't grow understanding, it doesn't grow compassion. Prejudice LEADS to 9/11, not away from it. Prejudice doesn't heal, whether you call it racism, bigotry, intolerance or fear-mongering. It doesn't make anything better. It just fans the flames.
Sorry folks - NPR is NOT about spreading fear. NPR is about telling stories. Usually letting people tell their own stories. So of course they fired him. If you were Muslim and he was assigned to report your story, would you trust him to do it fairly? Or would you feel his prejudice?
I was told this morning that this situation is not about racism because Muslims are not a race, it's a religion. Okay - that's the best counter argument you have? To fight semantics?
I had told this person that I have a Muslim friend, and that when I see her in "Muslim garb" I smile and quicken my pace for a hug. In response I was told that it's part of their "doctrine" to befriend "infidels" through deception.
WHAT THE FUCK?
So you are telling me my friend is not my friend because SHE is racist? Or are you telling me my little 56 year old, 5'1" lady friend who makes me vegetarian food and helps me to organize my papers is plotting to kill me or blow up my school? My friend from a big Iraqi city who shares my sense of sarcasm? That friend who I laugh with about how when she came to America she brought everything she owned (pots, pans, rugs, utensils) because she'd been taught that America was a wilderness with some mountains, streams and deer?
Yeah - no.... not so much. I could pick her up and hurl her across a parking lot. I'm a big huge obnoxious ex-New Yorker who towers over her. I'm supposed to be nervous because she wears "Muslim garb"? I should make others nervous so they stay away? (So I get more homemade hummus a pita bread?)
Furthermore, people like this one I engaged are exactly the sort of people who spit on my friend. In a mall in Colorado. While she was holding her baby girl in her arms. Is this person saying that my friend deserved that? What kind of person DOES that?
Finally - letting ones self responds to others in fear or nervousness only perpetuates the fear and nervousness. It doesn't grow understanding, it doesn't grow compassion. Prejudice LEADS to 9/11, not away from it. Prejudice doesn't heal, whether you call it racism, bigotry, intolerance or fear-mongering. It doesn't make anything better. It just fans the flames.