Anti-Muslim Bigotry

(this is an old post, originally done 4/15/09. On one hand, I am concerned about changing the URL for the post by changing the title; on the other hand, the more I thought about it, the title was not just something people might slander me with, but was offensive enough that I should change it, even if that meant starting over)

(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)

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UPDATE 4/24/09 As I said, I had trouble coming up with a good name. Although not as good as what I was hoping for, what would have been better than "Muslims" would be "Anti-Muslim Bigotry." But considering that the URL is connected, I don't like changing post titles, and if anyone gets the wrong idea from the title, when they read the post they'll see where I'm coming from.

There is one significant gap in what my blog has been talking about, in fact I even left it out of the thing at the top of the blog which describes the blog. And that's anti-Muslim bigotry. I am opposed to that, and have sort of done a little bit of work on it, and you could almost count the expressions of support I've made for the Palestinians in this blog and other work I've done on Palestine (half of which was actually in connection with Ireland) as opposition to that bigotry. But there isn't much of a connection to Ireland (until very recently, the muslim population was basically non-existent, and today it's probably something like .5-1% of the entire population, so there's not as much material to work with (unlike, for example, Jews, who have much more of a history there). UPDATE 4/16/09 I forgot that although Muslims are a tiny part of the population, there has been some incidents of bigotry (two of which I did mention here) and also republicans and nationalists are pretty good at opposing that stuff.

But addressing anti-Muslim bigotry is important. It's a serious problem and can also lead people to embrace other bad ideas as well. In that sense my blog's focus on other bigotries is also aimed at rolling back anti-Muslim bigotry, since if we stop people from becoming racist, they'll be less likely to believe what a significant chunk of anti-muslim bigots say- if they become racist and think the Nazis have got a point about that, they'll probably also be more likely to give serious consideration to what the Nazis say about Muslims. So, to one degree or another, possibly a small one, this blog has been addressing that bigotry.

(I'm also concerned about all other forms of religious bigotry, and the comments below are meant to include them too, I focused on Islam because there doesn't seem to be much anti-Buddhist sentiment and Hindus are a smaller part of the US population then Muslims)

I think that's about it for an introduction. Below are some comments I left for a post on David Corn's blog, here.

"A couple more thoughts on calling America a Christian nation:

1. When people say it's a Christian nation, that seriously undermines the idea that all are treated equally regardless of their religion. I mean, something similar was said about how N. Ireland was Protestant, and things, even today with lots of progress, are still not very good for Catholics, and they used to be horrible for catholics.

It's a stretch to say that Muslims in America are treated like Catholics in the North were for decades until recently, but they are treated pretty poorly and Jews have had a rough time to.

It's just one more reason to not call this a Christian nation, since some people get the message that non-Christians don't belong here or can be discriminated against, that sort of thing. Even when the statement is accompanied by saying we welcome all religions, that's a contradictory message and a lot of people go with the bulk of what's being said, that it's a Christian nation.

2. Although Wall didn't say this, I think some of these people point to the Founding Fathers, and those people can be shut up or exposed by explaining the following. Considering how some of the founding fathers were not Christians (or Jewish, since these people sometimes say "Judeo-Christian") but were more or less agnostics, it seems like it would make as much sense to call America a white male nation, and only the white supremacists say that.

Tom"