I realize I'm preaching to the choir but I have to say it...

I’m almost as sick to my stomach at the bigotry that’s been going on as I am of the plane attacks and crashes.

There was this lady interviewed on TV saying “they shouldn’t be here”. A perfect example of the idiot she is and the idiots who feel the same way.

There was a recording at an Arab residence on their machine with threats.

ACCESS, a Michigan Arab paper received bomb threats.

An Arab home in Seattle was shot at.

An Arab boy was beaten on the playground. Way to teach the kid. Those taunters will grow up to taunt others just because they are different.

People, these “A-Rabs” have as much right to be here as you or I. It doesn’t matter if you are an 8th generation American or a 1st generatioin American. You have no special claims.

Islam doesn’t teach terrorism. Just because you are Arabic or Muslim doesn’t mean you hate America or wish people would die.

Those who taunt and harass are no different than those 19 guys who hijacked those planes. It’s hate against people for no justifiable reason.

I’ve already lost one friend due to this attitude. I just couldn’t take his rants anymore and told him that I didn’t want to talk to him anymore until he changed.

This is not being patriotic. You are being un-American with those thoughts. That’s NOT what this country was founded on or the principles we hold.

You are just as bad as those dancing in the streets in Palestine.

Oblong:

Please consider revising your posting to say:

Also: for those of you who think “if you weren’t born here, you shouldn’t come here”: I have no respect at all for you. I wasn’t born here, yet I came here. And more importantly than that, I served in uniform until I retired.

I daresay that many of those uttering the remark about “not born here” not only have not served, but can not pass the screening to serve.

The President of the United States urged people to not act in a bigoted fashion.

More: During the national prayer service, the Christian priest began his prayer with “the God of Abraham and Muhammed.”

During that same prayer service, a Muslim imam began his prayer with “God, you have said it and Your words are true.” He then read a portion from the Holy Quran which stated God’s stance on those who delight in the deaths of the innocent. In case you haven’t gotten the drift by now, He’s not in favor of those folks, according to the Quran.

The NYC Fire Department’s Chaplain also died during this disaster. I would say that department lost a good Christian man. Sadly, what’s coming out of the woodwork now is a lot of bad Christian people.

Put the bigotry aside.

I have a question in reference to this all. What should one do when confronted with this kind of bigotry? I am not talking about the heinous, life-threatening bigotry that will get news coverage. I’m talking about the day-to-day shit, people who who say outright stupid things along the “they shouldn’t be here” lines; people who will use this tragedy as yet another “point” in their hateful rhetoric. Say, for instance, the person uttering these inanities is a friend, and you do not want to put an end to the friendship, yet you do not want this to go unchallenged. Say, for instance, the person in question doesn’t read these message boards and would miss the point even if she did. What would you do?

i can’t find the exact quote right now, but there’s something in the bible about all people being equal under god, no jew nor gentile, no greek nor roman. something like that.

that’s how america should be right now. no jew, no christian, no muslim. no yankee nor southerner. no east nor west. we are all americans; we are all affected by this.

the men women and children who died were all american. i’d be willing to bet that some of them were arabic, but to the terrorists, they were americans.

(by “some of them were arabic” i meant americans of arabic descent.)

I used to work with a bloke who, quite proudly, said, “I’m a racist. I hate abos.[sup]1[/sup] They’re all bloody lazy drunks.” That’s verbatim.

Since I had to maintain some sort of working relationship with this twerp - it’s a small office, it’s not like you can dodge someone you disagree with when there’s only 13 or so people in the place - I didn’t deck him or start a verbal stoush.

First time he said it, I told him he was wrong, and that I didn’t appreciate knowing I had to work with someone who held those sort of views. The second time, I repeated that he was wrong, and asked him how he’d feel if he was part of a race that was marginalised and abused in its own country, that had a shorter life expectancy, a massively higher child mortality rate etc. The third and future times - and he’d got much milder by then - I walked out of the room or ignored him when he started spouting this crap.

It took a while but, to borrow a term from jarbabyj, Captain Obvious did eventually bitchslap him, and he quit it.

What do you do? Take a stand, whatever way you can. Every little bit helps and, even if someone only shuts up while you’re around, maybe someone else won’t have to hear it.
[sup]1[/sup]Not very polite term for Australian aborigines.

Well, actually given that this is NY and a major tourist attraction I’m sure some them Arab and not American, as well. In fact there were probably hundreds if not thousands of foriengers, along with native-born Americans, along with naturalized Americans, from hundereds of different contries and dozens of differnet faiths.

But your right, that’s not what the terrorist were thinking about.

When someone says “they shouldn’t be allowed here” aroudn me, I usually respond with, "You should’ve said “you shouldn’t be allowed here since I’m one of the ‘newcomers’ too. Come to think of it, so were your ancestors–why were they allowed here?”

But I have a low entertainment threshold. Might not work for you.

you’re right. and really, this is a matter of them having been human beings, not just americans. but this crime was directed towards our country, and it does have a sepcial sting to know that it was our countrymen who died. directing abuse towards even more of our countrymen, people who were not involved in the terrorism but just happen to be of the same race as the perpetrators, it makes me sick.

and, like you say, considering that this was new york, how many of those rushing in to help are probably first or second generation american? i just don’t know how to express my absolute disgust with the very idea of turning on fellow americans at a time like this.

my s.o. actually supports the idea of having internment camps like we did during wwii. he says we have to do whatever we can to prevent the loss of more american lives. when he said that, all i could do was turn to him and say, they’re americans, too.

LifeOnWry said:

For obvious reasons this will only work with some people, but in the proper instance you can respond:

“I agree that groups terrorists come from should leave.” Pause for a moment, then: “So all white males like Timothy McVeigh, OUT!”

A few of 'em might even get the point.

I don’t agree with this. He didn’t say “Those palestinians dancing in the streets” He said “those dancing in the streets in palestine” which implies that it was not everyone there.

Erek

Mswas: Just requesting a little clarification and emphasis; especially as some of the news reports were making it out to be all Palestinians dancing in streets.

p.s. I’m fully aware it wasn’t everyone there. I’m also pretty big against painting an entire group with one brush. Check some of my postings this week.

One of my previous jobs was being a maintenance man for a subsidized apartment complex.
There were 6 Muslim families living there and I loved working in their places. The rooms would be clean and when I was done fixing whatever broke, I was always invited to sit at the kitchen table and was always offered apple cider in a silver teacup! We would sit and usually their children would translate the conversation back and forth. In most of the other places, I was lucky if I could get the tenants to pry themselves away from the TV long enough to tell me what the problem was.
I tried to refuse the apple cider once when we were really busy, and I could tell that they were actually upset, so I sat down and never tried to refuse their hospitality again. These are the things I think about when I hear people slur Muslims and I try to correct them the best I can.

August, a friend who works as a telephone guy says the same thing when he does jobs for Arabs.

I also stand by my statement about the people dancing. There was nothing in there that was misleading. I used the word “those” to specifically point out that it was not everyone.