I am a little late on this one, but it seems as if very few people have said what I'll say. This post is about an aspect of Newt Gingrich's comment that Obama has a "Kenyan, anti-colonial" world view. MANY people have pointed out that this is partly about suggesting that Obama might have been born in Kenya. What gets more of my attention is the "anti-colonial" part. Is Gingrich saying that opposing colonialism is bad? it sounds like that to me. Specifically, is he saying that the Kenyan anti-colonial struggle was wrong? I'd like to see someone grill him on that.
Also, of course, as far as I can tell, Obama is very far from being some kind of anti-colonial crusader. He isn't putting tons of pressure on Israel about the Palestinians; he is not doing that with the British about N. Ireland; and there are other similar situations.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Responding to opponents of the "Ground Zero Mosque"
Part of this is a bit late, but there is something I’d like to mention about anti-Muslim bigotry.
This is about a response to opponents of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” I’m not sure how many people have figured it out or been told about it, but it can’t hurt to get the word out some more. When the opponents say that the people behind the community center/mosque should build it someplace else to put an end to the controversy and not offend people (i.e. relatives of people killed on 9/11) there’s a great response I thought of a few days ago. Compare their request with the request that Rosa Parks move to the back of the bus (in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955). She didn’t and those behind the Mosque/community center shouldn’t be pressured by people to back down over where to build it.
There is something similar in N. Ireland’s recent history. In 2001, for about 3 months residents of a loyalist area tried to block Catholic children from going to a Catholic school just inside the area. Some parents and their children took a different route to the back door. Many/most took the normal route to the school, even though the loyalists hurled a lot of verbal abuse and objects at them. I found a flyer in Belfast not long after that which compared their decision to take the normal route with Rosa Parks’ action.
This is about a response to opponents of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” I’m not sure how many people have figured it out or been told about it, but it can’t hurt to get the word out some more. When the opponents say that the people behind the community center/mosque should build it someplace else to put an end to the controversy and not offend people (i.e. relatives of people killed on 9/11) there’s a great response I thought of a few days ago. Compare their request with the request that Rosa Parks move to the back of the bus (in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955). She didn’t and those behind the Mosque/community center shouldn’t be pressured by people to back down over where to build it.
There is something similar in N. Ireland’s recent history. In 2001, for about 3 months residents of a loyalist area tried to block Catholic children from going to a Catholic school just inside the area. Some parents and their children took a different route to the back door. Many/most took the normal route to the school, even though the loyalists hurled a lot of verbal abuse and objects at them. I found a flyer in Belfast not long after that which compared their decision to take the normal route with Rosa Parks’ action.
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