Posted on 07/08/2009 5:22:07 AM PDT by IbJensen
South Florida must do more to battle hate
Two young men not old enough to vote have been charged with vandalizing the Islamic School of Miami in West Kendall.
The charges include criminal mischief and evidencing prejudice while committing a crime. But this type of misbehavior goes much deeper than slashing tires and smashing windows at the mosque, which has been defaced, shot at and vandalized at least six times since 2005.
It's a sign of how much more this community needs to do to respect religious freedom and to not stereotype an entire group of people based on religious creed, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or any other distinction.
Police say Juan Carlos Gonzalez-Vaca, one of the 17-year-olds accused in the vandalism, told officers: ''All Muslims are terrorists.'' He and the other accused perpetrator, Michael Derek Lobo, confessed to the June 26 crime, according to law enforcement.
The judicial system will determine guilt or innocence. What cannot be ignored are the escalating number of hate crimes faced by a wide array of people because they are deemed ``different.''
The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, has documented a staggering 926 hate groups operating in the United states. That's more than a 50 percent increase since 2000.
Hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs predictably spiked after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, but they are not the only group victimized.
The FBI's hate crime statistics for 2007, the last year figures are available, noted 1,477 hate crimes motivated by religious bias.
An astounding 68.4 percent were crimes directed at Jews, 9 percent were anti-Islamic hate crimes, 4.4 percent were anti-Catholic and 4 percent were anti-Protestant. Another 9 percent were against specified religious differences, and 4.3 percent were anti-multiple religions.
Nationwide that year, law enforcement agencies reported 7,624 hate crime incidents. Some 4,724 of those hate crimes were racially motivated. Almost 70 percent involved anti-black bias, and 18.4 percent stemmed from anti-white bias, according to the FBI.
This is why public and private schools, employment centers and houses of worship of every creed must not become complacent about battling hate crimes through diversity training that seeks to build understanding among people with different points of view.
Valuing America's diversity is not a feel-good theory. It's at the very core of what it means to be an American.
Much as muslims refrain from murdering innocent Christians and Jews if any are feckless enough to have to journey or live in one of their countries.
Where was this type of reporting when Jews were attacked in Seattle awhile back?
I live blocks away from this place. A few days ago I saw a woman in a burqa.
Slashed tires and broken windows, wow.
Question: How many beheadings, homicide bomb attacks, kidnappings, planes flown into buildings, etc. have these vandals done?
If you wore a cross near the mosque and a mob attacked you, as happened in Dearborn, this same editorial staff would be silent.
Don’t Latinos outrank Muslims on the Pander Scale.
In a nation of 300 million, where 45,000 die every year in auto accidents, this tiny figure is not even worth mentioning.
“Attack on West Kendall mosque speaks to deeper problem”
I’ll never understand why the left wants this sort of thing to happen. They must, considering how they warn everybody about it all the time and trumpet every little case.
Not to say that racism isn’t bad or racist violence doesn’t exist. But more people die slipping in the shower every day, I’ll bet, than die in racist fires. Certainly most violence is minority groups hurting eachother. Get some perspective.
The problem is the presence of mosques in my country. Cut out and get rid of the cancer, and you've gotten rid of the problem.
As an aside: I was at Houston's Galleria Mall the other day, and it was crawling with muslims. Everywhere we turned (while shopping for strappy pumps for the wife) there was another one, like bugs under the kitchen sink. Everytime I saw a burka-clad figure I got a visceral, puke-in-yer-mouth revulsion. I am having a problem hiding this revulsion, and I'm afraid it is only a matter of time before I get the beat down.
I wonder if the “hate crime” statistics cited take into account the 3,500 people murdered on 9/11 because they happened to live in a non-islamic country. Or the hundreds killed in Beslan, Madrid, Bali, Yemen, Darfur, Ethiopia, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Cyprus, London, and a host of other locales.
Denial is a form of madness, and only denial protects muslims.
No, diversity is not at the core of anything except leftist, PC blather. Shared values - the values this nation was founded on - are at the core of what it means to be an American.
DearbornISTAN that is.
Those evil students must be treated as was Ayers (the b*stard Obamaloon supporter with an IQ of 3, possessing a PhD in -ptui ptui, Education). Snark.
“It’s a sign of how much more this community needs to do to respect religious freedom and to not stereotype an entire group of people based on religious creed, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or any other distinction.”
This reminds me of the old saying “Show me your friends and I can tell you where you’re going.”
Cry me a river
now shut the **** up you brown noseing dhimmi idiots
I like to know the positions and strength of the enemy.
All the mosques I’ve seen in west Houston are like built like fortresses, with iron fences around them. They are future terror centers.
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