You’re right that religion is not a race. The problem is that when it comes to too many people’s reactions to Muslims, what it really boils down to is, sadly, “That brown dude must be Muslim” and then the “brown dude” (or dudette) is maltreated. It’s ostensibly because the bigot in question doesn’t like the other person’s religion, but in reality it’s just another way to pick on someone of a different race.
The mode of thinking is so close to racism as to be indistinguishable from it.
If people want to be pedantic then fine, the correct word is bigotry, and racism is a subset of that, but I’m pretty sure that everybody here knows what the people in this thread mean when they say “racsim”. Maybe some are just being pedantic or maybe they have some other agenda beyond being the grammar police.
Terrorism is a crime. You think these people could be charged with a crime? Do you think they should be charged with a crime?
Vocabulary police. I didn’t critique conjugation.
Indistinguishable? Hardly. It’s easy to distinguish disliking someone because of what social construct they’ve arbitrarily been labeled with by the white patriarchy due to birth and an ideology one chooses to believe.
The thing is the “Dat’s Racist!!!11!!” card is so well worn it’s becoming meaningless.
I’d idly wager few of the people going to that mosque are WASPs. And I do think that’s a factor in the Othering of Islam.
What is this country coming to, when a group of armed, intolerant, ignorant good-old-boys can’t get together and intimidate innocent people that they don’t like the looks of, without being criticized on the internet? This country ain’t what it used to be.
Ramira, I strongly recent your implication that people like me who strongly dislike* religions, including (and in a few ways especially) Islam, but strongly condemn discrimination against individual Muslims and attempts to restrict their religious expression, are somehow complicit in any slippery slope toward Nazi-like behavior against Muslims.
*“Hate” is a bit too strong a term for what people like me feel toward religion or any particular religion. If you think that your use of the word “hate” excludes people like me, but INCLUDES people whom even I would agree really are contributing to the slippery slope toward Nazi-like behavior, well l, then I agree with you. But I think it would be hard to make that distinction – and they way you phrased it, it sounds like you could, for example, blame someone who “hates” Young Earth Creationism (and therefore supports Darwin’s ideas on natural selection) for the awful racist excesses perpetrated c. 1880-1950 in the name of a Darwin-inspired eugenics.
The gunmen are terrorists, using the implied threat of violence to intimidate Muslims in an attempt to make political change negative toward Muslims.
How many people have been killed in the USA by terrorists since 9/11? Of those, how many were killed by foreign terrorists, how many were killed by domestic terrorists of an Islamic bent, and how many were killed by domestic terrorists not of an Islamic bent?
If a group of armed Muslims gathered outside a Christian church or a Jewish synagogue announcing that they want to show force, people would be screaming “terrorists” and DHS would be investigating.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Do you really mean that you’ll continue siding with the bigoted assholes if, for example. they conclude that the Muslims haven’t gotten their message and decide to reenact Kristalnacht on the local mosque?
It’s people who aren’t siding with them NOW that will empower the crazies to start building the internment camps later.
It’s not just the legal aspect, Bric…oh, hi John. It’s possible to terrorize and intimidate by simply exercising free speech, as long as explicit threats are avoided. It become easier still if your target is a tiny and feared minority.
I can imagine several scenarios in which armed protesters would be met with a police response. Outside an abortion clinic, for example. And would we even be having this conversation if a group of armed white supremacists gathered outside a black church?
Legally exercising a right is terrorism now? Eventually the printed word will be considered terrorism if it can be misconstrued by anyone as an attempt to imply violence.
Are the Black Lives Matter zealots terrorists for assaulting and berating white students at a library?
Perhaps you would care to show us where this right to intimidate peaceful people at a place of worship is found?
Have you a milder label you wish to apply, and have us emulate? They aren’t “terrorizing”, they are just “making them a little nervous, so they mind their manners”?
‘When choosin’ Sharia Law y’all otta be patriotic an select the domestic, Southern Baptist variety. Bubba hu Akbar!’
-Morons
Muh muh muh MY Sharia!
You must be a big fan of broken socialism if you dont support hard twerking americans exorcising there rite to freeze peach you might as well lay down and roll over for barack whose sane oblahblah who wants to impose his secret muslin sangria law on america