People in glass houses

Yahoo! News: Anti-mosque protests on the rise, say Muslim advocates

CNN--Cafferty File: Good idea to build a mosque at Ground Zero?

Let's face it: if America was made of glass, we would have shattered that baby years ago (theoretically, of course).  Seems to me that there's a bigotry problem here in the U S of A, and this is just a (somewhat) friendly reminder of what exactly our founding fathers bought into when they ratified our Constitution.  

Religious controversy in the US has picked up where blatant racism left off, although in this particular case the two are actually closely linked.  I hope anyone who reads this also clicks the supplement links I provided above, not so much for the journalism, but for the comment section at the bottom of the page.  The Internet is both a blessing and a curse--I have beheld some of the most eloquent demonstrations of free speech, and then I have seen this, the hateful drivel that is spewed anonymously in public forums by the uneducated, the un-cultured, and the un-American. 

So some American Muslims want to build a mosque, in addition to a nondenominational community center, two blocks away from Ground Zero.  Unfortunately for the right-wing extremists, the very first amendment to our federal Constitution says they can build one wherever they choose.  But when people have on the blinders of ignorance, all they seem able to produce are ridiculous statements that "Muslims should not be allowed to live in the US", "this mosque will give way to an uprising of radical Islam", and my personal favorite, "we should be dropping nukes on all of them!".  Even the pampered princess of the religious right Sarah Palin publicly dished out her two cents to the Islamic community on Twitter, the worst thing to ever happen to the Internet: "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing."  Huh.  Someone please remind me, what public office does she hold that gives her the authority to do anything regarding this issue, or regarding morality in general?  Maybe she should have made sure her daughter kept her legs closed--having a child out of wedlock was punishable by stoning back in Jesus' time.  Moving on.

The anti-Muslim community's backlash against religious freedom has grown into quite the example of the fear-mongering and misinformation that has become the Republican platform.  People are so paranoid and ignorant that they have just started lumping together all Middle Eastern races into the "terrorist" demographic.  Reality check: there are Muslims whose families have lived in the US for centuries.  Believe it or not, Muslims from Iraq and Afghanistan make up the lowest percentage of American Muslims, with those of Indian and Pakistani descent making up roughly 60% and African Americans making up another 25%.  So it's pretty fair to say that these people were minding their own business the morning of September 11, 2001, just like you and me, and sharing in the shock and mourning of our nation as we dealt with the biggest blow to our nation's pride since Pearl Harbor.  Blaming the entire ideology for the senseless and radical acts of professional organized criminals is just as ignorant as me blaming all Christians for the genocide of the Aztec nation and the virtual eradication of almost every other indigenous tribe in North America--but bigots just can't see the forest for the trees.  They're acting like the NYC Muslims are going to launch an attack from the very roof of this new mosque, when in reality they share nothing with the 9/11 terrorists other than the label of Islam, which is obviously subject to some radical thinking that these Americans do not condone.

Our nation was founded on principles of equality and freedom for all, and even though it's turned into a tangled mess more than once since 1776, the fact remains: our founding fathers really didn't give a hoot what the people believed or didn't believe--they envisioned a society in which everyone did their own thing in peace and without fear of persecution, without dragging deities into the logical government system.  George Washington (my favorite president) and Thomas Jefferson (my other favorite president) treated religion as a subject of academia and nothing more; while they knew it was an important topic for the populace they served, they also knew the damages it caused by separating people from one another in hatred and misunderstanding.  Washington called for people of all religions, even atheists, to apply when he was looking for Mount Vernon staffers, and Jefferson resented efforts by the Christian church to convert him and birthed the idea of separation of church and state.  What we have now is exactly what they discouraged, but the circumstances of our conflict with the Middle East has made tolerating each others' differences much harder. 

Bottom line: the "moral" Americans have very selective standards of which religious practices are acceptable and which are not.  They took the weed from the Rastas, but allowed the KKK to organize and spread terror through the streets, as long as they kept the volume down and pretended it was just a parade.  Now they want to dictate where worship sites can be built?  How large of an anti-Muslim area around Ground Zero will suffice for these people?--oh right, many Christian extremists believe that mosques shouldn't even be allowed on American soil.  Thought like this simply isn't American.  I guess we know who the true patriots are--those who actually open their arms to what our forefathers believed in.

I know someone is reading this right now, getting very angry, and would love to call me out for being too "politically correct".  In case you didn't get the memo: I am an American.  I don't get by on "political correctness".  I get by on the liberties bestowed upon me and everyone else in this country by some of the greatest minds known to politics.  I don't believe in "morality", I believe in humanity.  And, luckily for everyone in the crosshairs of the right wing, the Constitution is on MY side.

As your good friend Jesus once said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone.” John 8:7.           

Don't make me separate you two! The symbolism within the Tea Party vs. NAACP slap-fight

Newsweek: Are Tea Partiers Racist?

Politico: Tea Party "expulsion" reveals new rifts.

The recent childish bickering between the Tea Party and the NAACP has been interesting to watch, not because I think either of these groups are really relevant, but moreso because the issue of racism in America is a touchy subject at best, and one that has been shoved into a dark corner since equal protection under the law was implemented.

My personal philosophy on race is that we are naturally apprehensive of those different from ourselves, but regular contact with other races very quickly leads to acceptance.  I believe that impediments to racial tolerance are mostly the results of parenting and the xenophobic "wisdom" of the older generations in general, and only because they have been alive long enough to remember even older prejudices that used to rule our society.  I see it as a sort of backwards domino effect--as time goes on, racial prejudices will be passed down less and less through each new generation, and soon the problem of racism will be nonexistent.  The only catch is that human beings are always looking for a new target for hate, for example, large-scale race issues have died down since the 1960s, but now we have more discrimination and hatred against gays.  Such is life.

Back to the point: the NAACP threw the first stone, calling out the Tea Party on the racist phrases used both on their protest placards as well as in verbal jeers directed at minority politicians.  I agree with the NAACP on this--if you take the racism out of the Tea Party you can dig down deep and find their one true political platform: they dislike paying taxes.  Quite a profound philosophy indeed.  Next, the Tea Party came back with the retort that it was in fact the NAACP who were the racist ones, explicitly excluding whites and other racial groups while referring to themselves as "colored", an old-fashioned term considered by many to be a racial slur.  Although I can understand why African-Americans still harbor animosity toward whites, surprisingly, I must say that I agree with the Tea Party on this one!  There's a first time for everything I suppose, but to discredit the TP, many other people were on this bandwagon long before the Tea Party was even around.  And so the "he said-she said" battle commenced.

But how is it possible for both groups to be racist?  Very simply put, the two groups are attacking each other for the same reasons and not really realizing it.  Neither of the groups' public platforms or agendas include racist acts, and yet in both groups, a significant amount of their members, and often times the leaders, engage in bigoted speech and activity or simply allude to a racist attitude.  A good way to clear this up would be for both the leaders to come out publicly and say, "This group encourages full acceptance of all people, and any racist activity by a member of this group will simply not be tolerated".  Obviously neither of them are going to do this, because the truth is that they KNOW what kinds of things are going on in their rank-and-file, and excluding ALL the racists would significantly lower their number of supporters.  But the symbolism in this lies in how silly both organizations are being--and in the public eye too!  Underneath the bickering, the point is that there is no logical reason to resent members of another race, only childish finger-pointing and age-old hatred passed along by generations past.  Perhaps eventually they will realize that if you bring a bunch of racists together for a common purpose, odds are someone is eventually going to figure out what you are doing, and call you out on your intolerance.  I thought this was obvious but it seems these two orgs are just learning.

This battle began about a week ago.  So what's the score now?  To my extreme delight, it seems to be NAACP 2, Tea Party 1, as a certain TP leader brought the fight to Sacramento, my humble abode.  Former radio personality and now former leader of the capital city's "Tea Party Express" made national headlines on July 14th when he posted a blog entry containing a mock letter addressed to late president Abraham Lincoln, from "colored people".  The letter was completely tasteless, conveying a message that "colored people" didn't like working for the system and instead would prefer to be un-emancipated in order to stay on welfare forever.  Williams was "expelled" from his leadership position by the National Tea Party Federation after the post went viral, and while he calls is satire, it's obviously a slap in the face to African-American culture, and the biggest First Amendment fail I've seen in a long, long time.  Read the full letter here and see for yourself.

Racism is a sad reality.  I really hope my theory is correct and it will eventually "trickle out" of our society's consciousness.  Until then, I'm gonna grab some popcorn, kick back, and watch these two organizations tear each other apart!

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