Tag Archives: bigotry

That Old-Time Islam…

Perfect prank for a Sunday sermon.

Two young Dutch men wrapped a bible in a cover that identified it as the Koran, and proceeded to do “person on the street” interviews with random passers-by. They had the unsuspecting subjects read selected passages, and then asked them for their reactions to what they had read.

The chosen passages were mysogynistic, brutal and judgmental. There were admonitions to women to be submissive, the old standby about homosexuality (“If a man lies with another man” that probably would have given the prank away here in the United States, considering how often homophobic Christians cite it), and a number of passages instructing believers to take punitive actions against nonbelievers or transgressors–cut off their hands, etc.

The reactions to the selected passages were what we might expect. The readings rather obviously confirmed prior impressions of Islam held by the unsuspecting passers-by, who were shocked when the fake cover came off and the “Koran” was revealed to be the bible.

The prank confirmed two suspicions that many of us hold about citizens of Western democratic countries, definitely including our own: that we hold stereotypical and biased attitudes about Muslims and the Koran; and that very few “Christians” have actually read that bible they constantly thump.

You can watch the “man-on-the-street” interviews here.

Comments

Turning Over the Rocks?

In response to yesterday’s blog post about residential “sorting,” one of this blog’s regular readers sent me a report about a study that confirmed that sorting, but also confirmed a disquieting element of contemporary American life:

According to Shanto Iyengar, a political scientist at Stanford University, often the most divisive aspect of contemporary society is: politics.

“Unlike race, gender and other social divides where group-related attitudes and behaviors are constrained by social norms,” writes Shanto — with co-author Sean J. Westwood of Princeton University — in the recently published report Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization, “there are no corresponding pressures to temper disapproval of political opponents. “

The study’s conclusions mirror my own research, and I’m persuaded that they are accurate, but I think the quoted paragraphs raise a different–and even more troubling– question.

Is our brave new world of Internet interactivity and social media eroding those “social norms”?

I recently had this discussion with the editor of a local “niche” paper. He was bemoaning the tone and content of comments left on the publication’s website, and posited that the ability to speak without having to identify oneself–the ability to remain anonymous or at least feel that you are shielded by the medium–has weakened those social norms, and thus our reluctance to share unpopular and socially disfavored opinions.  The expression of bigotries has become less constrained. (The recent Facebook rant by Charlotte Lucas is just one of hundreds of examples.)

There’s no doubt that online nastiness is at its worst when the discussion is political, but it is also increasingly–and distressingly– common to come across racist, homophobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic sentiments as well.

The real question, I suppose, is: has the Internet simply operated to shine a light on the nastiness? Has the advent of this new communication medium operated to “turn over the rock” so that we now see things that have always been there, but have been less visible?

Or has the ability to go online and find fellow bigots who will confirm your resentments and displaced hostilities actually increased their numbers?

I don’t know. But I worry….

Comments

Words Fail….Again

NOTE: HAVING INTERNET PROBLEMS. HERE’S TOMORROW’S BLOG. IF YOU DON’T HEAR FROM ME FOR A DAY OR SO, I’M WORKING ON MY ACCESS….

This post from DailyKos mirrors two others I’ve seen, reporting the response of several Texans (!) to the use of a term derived from Arabic to describe a dust storm.

  • Hateful hubbub arises over haboob. The word, from the Arabic for “strong wind,” and, in particular, a dust storm in North Africa or the Arabian peninsula, has been used by meteorologists to describe such storms in the United States since the 1950s. But after KCBD News Channel 11 in Lubbock, Texas, posted a photo on its Facebook page with the caption “Haboob headed toward Lubbock,” some Texans went crazy:

“Since when do we need to apply a Muslim vocabulary to a good ole AMERICAN dirt storm?? …I take great offense to such terminology! GO BACK TO CALLING THEM DIRT STORMS!!”

“It’s called a dust storm..Texas is not a rag head country.”

“Never had a haboob until we got that Muslim boob for POTUS.” […]

America is doomed.

If this were an isolated instance, or even limited to Texas, it would be embarrassing, but this sort of assholery is everywhere. Including Congress.

It’s bad enough that people are this ignorant and bigoted; that they feel compelled to publicly express that ignorance and bigotry is really more than I can take.

Comments

Is Change Finally Coming?

Yesterday, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce announced its opposition to HJR6, which would amend the Indiana Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The Chamber  joined Eli Lilly & Company, Cummins, and a wide variety of others in opposition to a measure that would make Indiana a poster child for homophobia at a time the rest of the country is moving in a far more progressive direction on marriage equality.

What’s particularly heartening about the announcement is the cultural/political change it signals. Not so long ago, business interests and the so-called “country-club” Republicans would have simply gone along with the rabid right wing of the party. They might not have agreed, they might have muttered under their breath, but they wouldn’t have gone public with their disapproval.

Similar signs of revolt are emerging around the country, even in some pretty unlikely places.

This, for example, is a political ad from TEXAS, where crazy was invented and still thrives. (See: Ted Cruz, Louis Gohmert.) Where “good old boys” like Tom Delay  gerrymandered GOP dominance. Where you couldn’t be too far right.

TEXAS.

Maybe the tide IS turning….

Comments

Creating God in Our Own Image

I am perpetually bemused by people who know exactly what God thinks–and are  immensely comforted by the discovery that God thinks just exactly the way they do. 

Wow–who’d have guessed!?

The most recent example I’ve stumbled upon comes from American Family Association’s Sandy Rios, who delivered this truly jaw-dropping diatribe on her radio program:

I would not want to be in the shoes of any of the left right now. I would not want to be in Barack Obama’s shoes. I would not want to be in the shoes of homosexual activists. I say that with humility and with fear for them because God will even the score, he will sort things out, he will be God and he will not be mocked. Whereas they think they are getting away with breaking all kinds of moral laws and mocking everyone in the process, they just don’t know God, they don’t know who they are up against and we do. And that should bring out some mercy in us because I wouldn’t want to be—what did that old evangelist say: ‘it’s a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.’
Unlike all us sinners, you see, Sandy Rios knows God. 
The monumental arrogance and self-delusion displayed by those who purport to know the mind of a deity they themselves describe as all-knowing and all-powerful is certainly mind-blowing.  But what really gets to me is the nature of the God these people have created in their own image: small-minded, vengeful and partisan. Hardly the sort of God worth worshipping.
I don’t mean to be snarky or dismissive, but if God exists, I’m pretty confident she will reward charity, inclusiveness and loving-kindness rather than prejudice and hate. But then,  I must hasten to say that I can’t really know.
Unlike Sandy Rios, I haven’t chatted with God lately.
Comments