Islamophobia doesn't exist....
And, here are the stats...
Here's a thought: The 70% of Americans who oppose what amounts to an Islamic Niketown two blocks from ground zero are the real victims of a climate of hate, and anti-Muslim backlash is mostly a myth.
According to the FBI, hate crimes against Muslims increased by a staggering 1,600% in 2001. That sounds serious! But wait, the increase is a math mirage. There were 28 anti-Islamic incidents in 2000. That number climbed to 481 the year a bunch of Muslim terrorists murdered 3,000 Americans in the name of Islam on Sept. 11.
Now, that was a hate crime.
Regardless, 2001 was the zenith or, looked at through the prism of our national shame, the nadir of the much-discussed anti-Muslim backlash in the United States. The following year, the number of anti-Islamic hate-crime incidents (overwhelmingly, nonviolent vandalism and nasty words) dropped to 155. In 2003, there were 149 such incidents. And the number has hovered around the mid-100s or lower ever since.
Sure, even one hate crime is too many. But does that sound like a anti-Muslim backlash to you?
Let's put this in even sharper focus. America is, outside of Israel ,probably the most receptive and tolerant country in the world to Jews. And yet, in every year since 9/11, more Jews have been hate-crime victims than Muslims. A lot more.
In 2001, there were twice as many anti-Jewish incidents as there were anti-Muslim, again according to the FBI. In 2002 and pretty much every year since, anti-Jewish incidents have outstripped anti-Muslim ones by at least 6 to 1. Why aren't we talking about the anti-Jewish climate in America?
Because there isn't one. And there isn't an anti-Muslim climate either. Yes, there's a lot of heated rhetoric on the Internet. Absolutely, some Americans don't like Muslims. But if you watch TV or movies or read, say, the op-ed page of the New York Times — never mind left-wing blogs — you'll hear much more open bigotry toward evangelical Christians (in blogspeak, the "Taliban wing of the Republican Party") than you will toward Muslims.
posted by GayandRight @ 9:03 AM
2 Comments:
Good post.
I use my Facebook page to try to educate people about what we call the totalitarian political ideology called Islam, and I've been a little disconcerted that gays so frequently side with Islam, so I post things like the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkugB4cbkAw
Islam is not a race, it is a total authoritarian legal structure when fully implemented that is incompatible with freedom period. In short, it is a threat that was regognized as such by the founding fathers of the USA:
"The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise." -Thomas Jefferson
If Islam was a philosophy that one could believe and practice without it impeaching any one else's right to do the same, I don't think that people who are anti Islam would be so. If the historic aims and stated purpose by Mohammad and his followers were seen as able to coexist, who should care about Islam. It makes no room for coexistence just ask some of my Hindu friends.
May our freedom to choose our own individual path never be compromised.
Fred,
Surely one could say "Islamophobia doesn't exist" based on crime statistics, but I think that misses the point of the issue that is causing so much publicity in the States. That issue is not the so-called Islamic Niketown near ground zero.
Go further, to the US Constitution. Does a church have a right to build there or not? If the answer is "yes" then let them build. And protect their right under the Constitution. If the answer is "no" then why?
In the US people have the right to burn holy books, burn their own flag, and freely spew hateful bile, no matter how distasteful.
So the whole argument of crime statistics misses the issue that is important.
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