another score against racial profiling.
In fact I had almost missed that – there is something rather illogical in December’s response insofar as Muslim is not a race, so the profiling as an act by a single white male really did not go to the religion at all.
The reason, if december recalls, was typically in the past sniper attacks have been by single, white males acting out of frustration.
In this case, it was a Black American male with a young, I suppose brainwashed, Black Jamaican protege. A bit of a cult issue.
And I reiterate my challenge to december to come up with evidence that Mavlo was Nation of Islam and explain why Nation of Islam is Muslim in this account – never mind I would like also to have any evidence there was any connection with John Allen Muhammed’s NoI past and the actual current activities. I do not recall evidence he was an active member.
Well, if you say only Muhammed was a Black Muslim, then I stand corrected. Whether or how his NoI background somehow contributed to his crimes is something I am not prepared to argue. It’s simply one more example.
You have added a new requirement of being “active.”
You say The Nation of Islam is completely different from Islam. I thought they read the Koran, so were similar to that degree. I seem to recall Malcolm X and/or Elijah Mohammed visiting various Muslim leaders in other countries, so perhaps they saw a closer kinship than you do.
Well the motherfucking example has to make some goddamned sense, now doesn’t it, or is your bigotry on this issue without bounds?
John Allen was NoI, indeed IIRC a 5%ter on the radical fringe, not a Muslim. No Muslim organization accepts the NoI and above all the 5%ers as Muslims.
NoI is an organization more than a religion, the qualification active is of note since this fellow (a) was a member of the org, not a born and raised Muslim (b) the org itself as mentioned is and was a socio-political organization along Black Supremacy lines rather than proper religious org.
Thus Malcom X left it when he informed himself about Islam.
They do not read the Quran in any genuine sense of the word and their org is in no way based on Sunnah. They are in no way Islamic by any sense of the world. NoI and its radical fringes base their ‘religion’ off of the writing of Elijiah Mohammed as their quasi-prophet.
The entire thing has little to do with Islam, other than taking some of the names and symbolisms. It is a racialist organization by its precepts in direct contradiction to Quranic precepts.
Listen you, Malcom X visited the Islamic world on his fucking pilgrimage to Mecca and then left the bloody goddamned organization declaring it was not what true Islam was. You can easily find out about this informaiton through any of the multitude of information sources including his autobio or even the bloody film by Spike Lee which gave a reasonable interp of his autobio.
I will repeat for your bigotted pea brain, no international Islamic organization recognizes NoI as Muslim. This has been discussed before in threads you fucking took part in for motherfucking sake of all that is intelligent.
December is invited to review but these links alone (some random results, selected for a breadth of opinion) to help him understand that no informed Muslim accepts NoI as anything but at best a heritical sect:
http://baalawy.freeyellow.com/sects.html
http://digilander.libero.it/islamic/noi_fatwa.html
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/#noi
I reread your OP. I still don’t see any example cited to prove what you called “blatant racism” in our society other than that e-mail. And I didn’t quote anything from the e-mail. Other than that, great reply, CC.
gobear and others have adequately expanded on what the point of the e-mail was - that treating everyone as an equal terrorist threat is inane and a recipe for disaster. I don’t see anyone in the e-mail or this thread suggesting that we limit profiling for terrorists to anyone who looks like young Arab males.
Lowe’s is having a sale on narrow brushes for making those finer points, CC.
The more I look for it, the more I’m fascinated by how easily people can completely ignore the most significant points of another POV. You hear something you don’t like, <delete delete> and erase it from short-term memory - then you don’t have to deal with it!
Case in this point:
Phoenix Dragon’s lovely post to another thread, referenced at the end of page one, linked to here, which seems to have been thoroughly ignored.
IMHO thoroughly undermines the fallacy of the OP EG, not because that letter is a strawman so much as a hasty generalization.
Criminy, I’m NOT talking about allMuslims! Read carefully and slowly. And that is not what I am arguing. Read my posts agains because you obviously are focusing on the words “Muslim” and “profiling” and nothing else.
Profiling by ethnicity and religion alone is useless, but neither should they be ignored. Four people out of millions is not a valid statistical sample, but four out of 19 is a lot more representative (Guess the number of hijackers on 9/11). I’m not interested in harassing the nice man from Indonesia or the old lady from Ahmedabad, I’m interested in finding people who want to hijack planes and ram them into buildings.
So I’m looking for angry, political, young, male Muslims probably but not necessarily from the MidEast, since Collounsbury pointed out the collaboration of French converts.
Again, I think we should act as the Israelis do and ask each passenger questions and focus on intent and travel patterns as much as on country of origin and religion, but country of origin and relgion should not be discounted either.
Find me a Minnesota Lutheran among any of the 9/11 hijackers–THOSE are the guys I’m trying to find.
[quote]
Originally posted by December
You say The Nation of Islam is completely different from Islam. I thought they read the Koran, so were similar to that degree. I seem to recall Malcolm X and/or Elijah Mohammed visiting various Muslim leaders in other countries, so perhaps they saw a closer kinship than you do.
The Nation of Islam has no connection to the world religion of Islam. Malcolm X made his pilgrimage to Mecca and Egypt after he split with Elijah Mohammed and the Nation of Islam and became a Sunni. He was actually delayed from entering Mecca and had to satisfy Muslim officials that his conversion was sincere. Black Muslims are not recognized as Muslim in the Muslim world and are not permitted to enter Mecca. The belief system of the N.of I. has very little in common with true Islam and is based on the teachings of Elijah Mohammed, not the Koran.
You need to let this one go, december, trust me, you’re way off base. Nation of Islam != Muslim.
In an effort to fight my own ignorance, and in order to (I hope) encourage non-heated discussion of the subject in a neutral context, I would invite those posters with knowledge of Islamic thought and non-mainstream groups to my new GD thread What defines Islam (Nation of Islam and other non-mainstream groups)?
<nitpick>
I thought the “profile” involved male Muslim extremists.
I also thought it was common knowledge that Sirhan Sirhan is, and was, a Christian.
</nitpick>
I actually wasn’t talking about anyone in particular. So much bullshit had been spewed and continues to be spewed here that I did not feel like going back to parse it all out and assign attributions. But it’s big of you to step forward and acknowledge your stupidity!
Out of one side of your mouth you say “profiling is wrong” while out of the other side you say “we can’t ignore the fact that there is much more danger from middle east terrorism than from white guys.” Forgive me for closing your loop prematurely, but if we focus on middle easterners we are engaging in profiling.
You have clarified this to say “I am looking for angry, young, male Muslims.” Are you still contending that this is not profiling?
Further, you fail to recognize the error of the OP (and yourself continue to commit the error of taking a selected sample of incidents of outcome X (violent act) where value A (“Muslim male extremist”) was present in the equation, and then claim that the coefficient for A is extraordinarily high. You are forgetting to account for values B through I in the equation. Thus, while you are “looking for angry, young, male Muslims” you appear not to be looking for terrorists from other groups.
Ridiculous, lucky captain rabbit king. The point of my argument with the OP and now with you, is that one cannot take a selective sample and draw conclusions about the likelihood that the quality you have selected for will predict violence. I suggest considering everyone with equal regard because a broader sample of violent acts reveals equal opportunity for a wide array of individuals from different backgrounds.
How do you check a face for intent, by the way?
I would have to agree with jackmannii. Just because this stupid email is being passed around, it doesn’t mean all of society suffers from “blatent racism.” I mean, that’s like saying all of society has a tiny dick, because everyone gets those stupid “ADD THREE INCHES TO YOUR PENIS!” spams in their mailbox! 
Profiling is a useful tool for narrowing down the suspect pool in a crime. [bu]Racial profiling is the problem. Focusing merely on MidEast origin is unproductive and far more likely to trap the innocent than the guilty. But it should also not be excluded as a factor.
We should not screen people merely because they are Muslims. Like I said, I have no interest in harassing little old ladies from Jakarta and businessmen from Bosnia. But I would definitley look a lot closer at a young Muslim man with a low-paying job but a lot of stamps in his passport in a short time than I would at someone else.
If you think that Lutherans are an equal threat, you go ahead and screen those Minnesotans.
Rhetorical device, sugar.
If you want a WMD in Minnesota, I invite you to come to a potluck in the basement of any given Lutheran church. You’ll see some hotdishes that’ll make you want Hans Blix there filing a report.
The potato salad, though, is usually okay.
No, you are right. This ONE example does not prove any sort of relevence to blatant racism. However, when inundated constantly with Muslims = evil terrorists that are by default guilty until proven not so under intense scrutiny, then I argue that there is indeed blatent racism in our society today, and is in fact being practised as official policy in the US of A. As I said in the OP, this is but one example of a lot of ignorant shit flaoting around. Not to mention what the wonderful American media has been spewing. I know I am going to get jumped on for that… (hearing the words CITE YOU PINKO COMMIE BASTARD about to fall on my head)
However, my arguement was that ignorance like this is discrimination is prevalent almost everywhere these days, and that this is being enforced through doctrime and practice of the US media machine and government agencies. Pile on coming. Have fun.
Well, now you are introducing very worthwhile behavioral indicators that have nothing to do with race, ethnicity religion, or geographic origin. I have no problem with scrutinizing people who have contradictory bits of information such as world travel without the means to pay for it. But the OP was not a series of conclusions about 17 to 40 year old men with low paying jobs but a lot of stamps on their passports.
Okay, what kind of rhetorical device lets you check a face for intent? Sweetie. 
Actually, it’s like saying that all of society wants a bigger dick, because everyone gets those e-mails. And it’s TRUE!
Contrary to popular belief here in america, 9/11 is not the only terrorist attack to ever happen, and Al-quaida is not the only terrorist group. You seem to have an incredibly narrow-minded outlook on terrorism, focusing on one “vector” while ignoring others. As I noted in my previous post, in world-wide terrorism, muslims are not the primary contributor, nor are they a notably disproportionate contributer compared to their population. Look at the cites in my refered post, above (The CACNP cite, following with your apparent interest in this thread so far, cites only attacks involving the US and its citizens, and shows many groups that target the US more frequently than any muslim group). The only notable difference is that islamic groups can claim a higher body-count-per-attack, primarily due to some rather unprecidented successes (9/11 alone would put Al-quaida ahead in that respect) and tactics, but they also loose more of their members per attack than others do. They’re also not the only group to have high-body-count attacks (Hell, we had one born-and-raised here in America. Go US!). Despite that, the chances of one muslim person being involved in an attack is not really any higher than any other major ethnic group, and is much lower than many other easily identified factors.
Furthermore, your reason for supporting “muslims” as a factor seems rather ill-thought. Your example of “a young Muslim man with a low-paying job but a lot of stamps in his passport in a short time”, for example. A low-paying job yet lots of stamps in a passport is already a warning flag. How does him being a muslim change that in any way? The passport thing is a vastly more “solid” thing than his choice of religion. If you have to come up with some major “warning-flag” qualifiers to justify the muslim man as a risk, why bother? There are plenty of christian, or even athiest, terrorist groups out there, yet it’d be idiotic to consider those as factors.
gobear -
I admit that there is a risk from Fund. Islamic Terrorist groups.
however, they ain’t the only risk. Terroristic behavior has occured from militan Christian fundementalists and anti abortionists (who, IIRC set one bomb to go off roughly around when the emergency crews would arrive); the lone freaks, militia types etc etc etc.
and to continually defend idiotic crap like the OP quotes with “but we do run a risk from them” (no shit sherlock), then trying to point out behavioral types of things allows the implication of the idiotic email to stand unchecked.
Fundemental Islamic Terrorists do not look any different physically than some Christians, some Israelis, some folks from India, Fundemental Islamics who aren’t terrorists.
If it’s the behavior and other suspicious circumstances that should alert you, then look at behavior and don’t get into classifying them into a category wide enought to let in substantial numbers of other folks while letting other slip by (IIRC, the Lockerbie Scotland crash was masterminded by a FIT, who sent the bomb off w/a girlfriend who fit none of the stereotypes/characteristics.
In short - we should fear all terroristic activity. In order to best protect ourselves from that, we shouldn’t look to a decisive list of physical characteristics to offer ‘hints’ as to whom we should question more closely.
As a simplified concept if nothing else take a fucking clue from the drug lords, who realized that Hispanic males of certain ages were getting checked at borders more frequently than others, and started using those blonde Methodists as mules.