| Anti-Muslim "Racism"? |  |
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 22, 2005
Posted on 11/22/2005 6:41:50 AM PST by SJackson
My talks at university campuses sometimes occasion protests featuring Leftists and Islamists who call me names. A favorite of theirs is “racist.” This year, for example, a “Stand up to Racism Rally” anticipated my talk at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I was accused of racism against Muslim immigrants at Dartmouth College, and pamphlets at the University of Toronto charged me with “anti-Muslim racism.”
Anti-Muslim racism? That oxymoron puzzled me. Islam being a religion with followers of every race and pigmentation, where might race enter the picture? Dictionaries agree that racism concerns race, not religion:
Even the notorious United Nations anti-racism conference at Durban in 2001 implicitly used this same definition when it rejected “any doctrine of racial superiority, along with theories which attempt to determine the existence of so-called distinct human races.”
Thus understood, the term racist cannot be ascribed to me, as I neither believe that race defines capabilities nor that certain races have greater capabilities than others. Also, my writings and talks never touch on issues of race.
Does that mean the word racist merely serves leftists and Islamists as an all-purpose pejorative, a magical insult that discredits without regard to accuracy? No, the evolution of this word is more complex than that.
Racism is now increasingly used to mean something far beyond its dictionary definition. The director of the influential London-based Institute of Race Relations (IRR), A. Sivanandan, has been pushing the concept of a “new racism” which concerns immigration, not race:
It is a racism that is not just directed at those with darker skins, from the former colonial territories, but at the newer categories of the displaced, the dispossessed and the uprooted, who are beating at western Europe’s doors, the Europe that helped to displace them in the first place. It is a racism, that is, that cannot be colour-coded, directed as it is at poor whites as well, and is therefore passed off as xenophobia, a “natural” fear of strangers.
An official paper from Australia goes in a different direction, that of “cultural racism”:
In the modern era the underlying assumption of “racism” is a belief that differences in the culture, values, and/or practices of some ethnic/religious groups are “too different” and are likely to threaten “community values” and social cohesion.
Once racism is un-moored from racial characteristics, it is a small step to apply it to Muslims. Indeed, Liz Fekete of IRR discovers “anti-Muslim racism” in the legislation, policing, and counter-terrorist measures deriving from the “war on terror” (her quote marks). She also sees the French banning of the hijab in public schools, for example, as a case of “anti-Muslim racism.” Others at IRR allege that “Muslims and those who look like Muslims are the principal targets of a new racism.”
Likewise, the Reverend Calvin Butts, III, of the Abyssinian Baptist Church of New York, opined recently at a United Nations conference on Islamophobia: “whether Muslims like it or not, Muslims are labeled people of color in the racist U.S…they won’t label you by calling you a nigger but they’ll call you a terrorist.” For Butts, counterterrorism amounts to racism.
When U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo raised the idea of bombing Islamic holy sites as a form of deterrence, a Nation of Islam leader in Denver, Gerald Muhammad, deemed his comments racist.
Note the evolution: as belief in racial differences and racial superiority wanes in polite society, some parties expand the meaning of racism to condemn political decisions such as worrying about too much immigration (even of poor whites), preferring one’s own culture, fearing radical Islam, and implementing effective counterterrorist measures.
This attempt to delegitimize political differences must be rejected. Racism refers only to racial issues, not to views on immigration, culture, religion, ideology, law enforcement, or military strategy.
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If you say anything against anyone who is not a white male christian.... you might be a racist.
..................
well hell, then I guess I'm a racist also - FY muslims....
And they will try to do that if we dont do more to secure the middle east.
The left / PC crowd has raised racism to the level where it's about the worst charge you can level at someone.
In America today, it's far worse to be a racist than a murderer, rapist, or even pedophile.
So, muslims being clever people, have figured that should be part of their plan to divide and conquer America from within. To cast their cult of murder and death as a "racial" struggle. It's incorrect, but the left, being America haters, eats it up like candy.
muslims are dispicable, illogical, filthy murderers. I won't deal with them, I won't patronize their businesses, I won't socialize with them.
I recognize an enemy when the enemy proclaims itself. I choose to avoid aiding that enemy.
I'm with Mike. If racism means disliking people who want to kill me because of my nationality, I'm one too, and likely three four as well.
every time I hear one of these idiots claim "anti-Islam racism" I have to laugh...
aside from the obvious pointed out by the author of this piece;
just exactly who bombed whom on 9/11???
Freedom of speech makes it easy to spot the idiots!
Semper Fi,
Kelly
"You are going to be a muslum or we will take you to a public place and cut off your head with a dull knife"....what kind of lunitics do something like this....religious racists, maybe???
Fanatic bastards...
Yes, but it is PC and acceptable to denounce white males and it is okay to malign Christians, blasphemize Christian beliefs, persecute Christians, and it is acceptable to ridicule loyal Americans.
Enough.
The time is long overdue for the people who hate everything that is decent to get their teeth kicked down their throats when they attack and assault our culture, our values, and our families.
What the heck is wrong with us that we've allowed ourselves to be pushed around by pasty-faced cretins like Michael Newdow and the Hollywood crowd?
Fight back!
Anything said by this group against any other group means the perpetrator is guilty of some sort of hate speech or hate thought etc..(islamophobia,sexism,racism,homophobia,& child abuse if he dare discipline his own child)
imo
Can muslims be sued for being brainwashed, evil, demonic fiends???
Sorry, I'm not going to play the liberal game this time. Defending yourself against Muslim terrorists is not racism. Calling for the conversion or enslavement of other religions, as Muslims do, is racist.
And while we're on the subject, let the record reflect that Muslims kept black Africans in slavery, up to and including present times. They used black Africans as bearers to carry goods from the interior, and when they got to the coast, the Muslims shot the Africans. When an Arab Muslim slave ship was in danger of being caught, they threw the slaves overboard.
Recently, calls to Washington Journal on c-span included two racist comments. Callers denounced the white racist, but the black racist comments were ignored. Like anything else, if we don't fight back, it will just get worse. I, for one, would like to strangle whoever allowed Muslim immigration to the US. Who needs it?
A couple years back I was labelled a 'racist' because I put forth my idea that any new immigrants that came to Canada should learn to speak English and stop speaking their native tongue everywhere they go.
So?
It's not racism, Mr. Muslim. I have nothing against you because of your race. It's just that a bunch of guys who looked like your brother killed 3,000 of my people right in front of my eyes. Their only crime was coming to work early one September morning. Now I've got to live with that memory for the rest of my life and I believe strongly in sharing the pain that causes me. Who better than you for me to share it with? No, I don't hate you. But don't expect me to love or trust you or feel comfortable with you anywhere near where I happen to be ever again. And that's just a fact that no amount of happy talk is ever going to change.
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