ft hood incident predictably inspires islamophobia w/racist overtones

[liminalia]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/493148/horror_at_fort_hood_inspires_horribly_predictable_islamophobia

Fox News host Shepard Smith asked Senator Hutchison on air: "The name (of Maj. Hasan) tells us a lot

Comments

[teaberryblue]

The worst thing for me is that it's not just being said on FOX, where I expect that kind of hateful behavior. It's being said on other networks that should know better. I just...this is making me sick. I live in New York and the hateful way people started treating Muslims after 9/11 has already left a terrible taste in my mouth. To see that this hate is now being perpetuated as easily over the crimes of a single individual is infuriating. I've seen just as much hateful language directed toward the military over this. But when something like Columbine happens, when the perpetrators are white people, there is a rush to show how they were different or sick. Here there is a rush to show how this man represents a terrible stereotype that is used to perpetuate hate.

[biggerbeans]

Fox is the worst thing to happen to news journalism since EVER.

[jade_rust]

Most days I just want to take Fox news by the shoulders and shake some sense into it. These last couple days I've wanted to take a baseball bat and beat some sense into it. Do the people who work for Fox even listen to themselves? Do they even understand that people who watch their show may be influenced by what they hear and believe the hateful bullshit? Granted, the only news station that talked about the Fort's shooting where it didn't have an undercurrent of Muslim fear was the BBC, but at least the other news stations weren't so blatant about it.

[arantzain]

There's really nothing I can say about this--I'm so heartbroken, not only for those who died and who lost loved ones, but for the American Islamic community.

[antikythera]

I don't remember a bunch of large Christian organizations being pressured to denounce Timothy McVeigh's actions.

Thank you for reminding me of that. I just had to toss it at someone on my Facebook who said something along the lines of "All Muslims may not be terrorists, but it seems lately like all terrorists are Muslims".

Hell, we don't have to go back as far as Oklahoma City. Remember that George Tiller guy? Who murdered him? Oh yeah...

[desertrosedark]

Hell, we don't have to go back as far as Oklahoma City. Remember that George Tiller guy? Who murdered him? Oh yeah...

And how many of those knee-jerk right-wingers who showed up at town halls this past summer with loaded guns strapped to themselves were not white? That behavior may not be in the same league as Oklahoma City or the murder of Dr. Tiller (and the ridiculous amount of threats and other harassment he got before he was murdered), but that sure swims in the same sewer.

[liminalia]

Not to mention that there's a racial dimension in which crimes get *called* terrorist acts and which are "senseless tragedies" or "random acts of violence". We don't know yet whether Hasan's actions were in any way motivated by a twisted understanding of Islam or whether it was straight-up PTSD or psychosis, but because his name is Arabic it must be terrorism, whereas a guy who shoots up his workplace over being fired is rarely called a terrorist.

[hanuueshe]

Well, the name of Major Hasan told me something: his name was Nidal Malik Hasan. Before that, most sources were reporting him as "a soldier with an Arabic-sounding name", which was causing me to reflexively beat my head against the nearest flat surface.