Who couldn't use a lil bit of the Bangles to kick off their week eh? I like the 80s they were an amusingly jaded yet in retrospect strangely naive time. I say strangely because while I was born in the 80s I don't actually remember them very well, a fact that seems to stymy people. I apologize for not recalling the Thundercats, I was probably busy in the back yard with my dog and some sticks making a fort or staging an invasion of G. I.Joes. I had priorities people!
Not to mention that I was probably a toddler and thus only allowed to watch Sesame Street. Just sayin'.
I do remember Exo-Squad, She-ra, Masters of the Universe, the Ninja Turtles, and a few other shows. I don't remember Gem, a fact that has stunned and horrified no less than three women I've known. The great thing is that these women couldn't be more different from each other, a fact that I find endlessly amusing. I also remember Captain Planet and was horrified upon watching it as an adult to discover that it was, at best, poorly disguised propaganda. Weird.
So on to our topic today.
Note: You won't see any pretty pictures for this post, honestly I couldn't really find any that weren't asinine, hateful, or just crap. If you can think of any feel free to post a link in the comments or suggest some.
I was listening to the radio on Friday night in my car as I drove down to Comic Evolution (I was helping Chuck move some inventory to the shop's new location). I heard a short news bit about a religious conference about Islam in Seattle, the topic was something along the lines of fostering a better understanding of Islam and less fear. The Imam that advocated for a mosque at Ground Zero was a speaker.
But here's something I've noticed.
We seem to blame and condemn people for being afraid of Islam and Muslims in general.Which, okay, fine, but let's look at the facts for a moment.
People wearing yarmulkes, pentagrams, oak leaves, crosses, etc didn't kill 3,000 innocent people. People claiming the title Christian, Pagan, Latter Day Saint, Jew, Hindu etc didn't do it either. Fact is the assholes that took those actions claimed to be Muslim, claimed to be doing it for glory and favor for Allah and so on.
It's fucked up and unfair that all Muslims are painted with the red-neck-bigot-hate-'em-'cause-I-can bullshit brush. It is, but is it fair to condemn and deride the fear people feel when faced with people of that faith? Yes and no - in my opinion.
I would split hairs and say this, it is fair to condemn fearful and hateful acts against someone for their faith, skin color, favorite sports team, job, or any other arbitrary aspect or condition.
But, feeling that fear, having that sphincter tightening reaction is, I think, not something that a lot of people can help and probably feel shame and guilt over. What decent person wouldn't?
I'm not trying to justify acting on these reactions or even having them in the first place by any means. I feel a sick rage toward anyone that acts inappropriately based on fear, ignorance, or hate. It truly baffles me that there are people out there that lack the most basic compassion. That are so devoid of empathy that they can Otherize another person to the point that treating them horribly is not only okay but preferred. I don't get it. I flat out don't and genuinely hope and pray that I never do, there are some things i don't want to be capable of comprehending. Call me a coward.
No, what I am saying is that when we feel fear about another religion, person, situation or aspect of our lives that is considered unpopular or inappropriate, that, instead of getting defensive about it, instead of feeling shame or guilt about it, instead of quashing the reaction and moving on with our days we take a moment to ask ourselves why.
Why do you feel like you should pull your children close when you see a man with a covered head (be it Sikh, Muslim, or balding man), why do you feel a thrill of resentment, fear, or suspicion when you see a woman wearing the protective garb of her faith? (which can be as much a function of cultural norms as adherence to faith) Most importantly why do you feel you should act on these feelings but manage to stop yourself before you actually perform them?
It's great that we as a people seem to be gaining some sense of sanity, compassion, and decency regarding the amorphous fear of something as abstract and subjective as a religion. But when you have that moment of fear or uncertainty, ask yourself, WHY?
Are you really afraid of the person or the faith? (being afraid of a complete stranger moreover a non-threatening one is hard to justify, as is being frightened of a freakin' religion) Or are you afraid of causing offense or distressing the other person? Are you afraid of looking like an insensitive ass in front of strangers at your favorite grocery store? Are you afraid to engage the unknown person in conversation or smile at them or interact with them or acknowledge their humanity as a reflection of your own?
If you are uncomfortable or afraid you owe it to your peace of mind to figure out why. Maybe read up on it, call a local mosque, synagogue etc and ask to speak with someone who wouldn't mind answering some stupid questions from an outside, go online and do some research, make up a handle and join a chat room or message board where you can ask these questions and not worry about looking or feeling like an ass because it's anonymous. Because here's the thing, odds are your fears, questions, and concerns are not yours alone.
Admonishing and quashing inappropriate, thoughtless, hateful, even violent behavior motivated by hate, fear, resentment and so on of someone's religion is absolutely a good thing to do. But if we don't explore and come to terms with the reasons that people, including ourselves, have these impulses in the first place then we're putting a bandaid on a bullet wound and pushing the issue aside. What good does that do any of us?
All I ask is that in addition to smacking the bigot shit head making pajama jokes at the woman wearing a burka in line at the grocery store, you take a second to wonder at the little voice of suspicion that spoke up in your head a split second before the bigot actually started to talk. Ask yourself what the difference between the two of you really is, is it just that he voiced the joke aloud?
Because while some of us may not act on it, some of us may act on it, and some of us (too few I think) may not even think it; we all know that these feelings and suspicions are buzzing around anyone wearing their faith on their sleeve. Whether they're Muslim, Orthodox Jews, Latter Day Saint, or any other religion or creed with a visible, demarcating symbol.
I'm not innocent I feel a spike of resentment in the back of my head whenever I hear someone mention their god as though he/she/it is the only deity out there, or assumes that I naturally worship theirs. I know what motivates it, I've been mistreated by people claiming the title of Christian. I know that it's fucked up when I get that buzz of hot headed annoyance. As a result I try to make a deliberate and conscious effort to kick it to the curb, because for every asshat that's looked down their nose at me, been condescending, judgmental, or flat out rude. There are at least a half dozen people that claim that same faith and have been fucking amazingly kind, inspirational, sincere, generous and basically the best ambassadors of their religion possible. So I can't justify a reactionary hatred to an off hand comment usually made by a well-intentioned stranger.
But I still have those moments, they may only last for a heartbeat, and I castigate and beat myself up over it but they happen. So I'm not asking anyone to do anything I'm not trying to do myself. I'm not asking us all to change our stripes for spots, to turn around years or decades of thinking overnight. All I'm asking is that you take a moment, a single breath, and think.
Please?
As always, thanks for reading and feel free to comment!
Update: This link popped up on my newsfeed on FB I'm not sure who or what posted it initially but it touches on some of what I'm trying (probably badly) to say here and does so in a an amusingly acerbic way that I enjoy. I love me some Cracked.com.
Note: You may have noticed that I slapped an adult content advisory on the blog recently. That's mostly so I can swear freely and not feel like my kindergarten teacher is clicking her tongue at me. Mrs.Fields was awesome. Also upon consideration I think I'm going to start posting three times a week, hopefully this will cut down on bullshit fluff pieces and allow me to properly polish and eyeball future posts.
Good points. If we want to shine a light on people's fears to show how they're unjustified, attacking anyone who shows fear will not have the desired effect; it will make these people defensive, and give pause to others who share the same fears and might have expressed them and worked them out. I guess there's a fine line, though, between attacking those who fear Muslims and attacking ideas founded on that fear.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking of the controversy surrounding the proposed mosque/community center you mentioned. There are several grave problems with the position that it's inappropriate or insensitive--even if, strictly speaking, protected by the first Amendment--to build a mosque near Ground Zero, the chief one being that Muslims died in the World Trade Center too, and Muslims grieve over them.
So what should our reaction be to political speech against the building of a mosque near Ground Zero? I have to admit I was pretty strident about this issue when it was current news. My status one day asked whether there was any reason besides bigotry for trying to prevent one being built there. I probably wouldn't say it that way now, but at the time I was LIVID that people I respected were not standing up for the ordinary Muslims' participating FULLY in civil society. I said to myself that THIS is one of those times when you MUST speak out; this is one of those times about which people in later years will ask "Did you speak for those who were marginalized and considered not quite as good as the rest of us, or did you stand up for them?" I think I must have hurt some people's feelings, because some of my FB friends quietly supported those who spoke out against the mosque, and said it was in bad taste or insensitive. I still think this is exactly wrong, and I'm not sure it's not a form of bigotry (indeed, wouldn't it be wrong for me to except it BECAUSE people I like embraced it?), but I wish I had been less angry about it, and less provocative, because it more or less ended any further conversation with people whose opinions I valued--though it did spark an interesting debate with some friends of friends. I'm still conflicted about this; even as I say this part of me is saying, Wait, don't apologize, you're sacrificing principle for approval.
revision: should be "Did you speak for those who were marginalized and considered not quite as good as the rest of us, or were you silent?", not what I said.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fine line. I don't think admonishing legitimate fear is a good course but without understanding *why* you're afraid how can you differentiate?
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Mosque goes I kind of fell in the middle, partly because all the initial reports stated that the mosque would be built *on* Ground Zero. My beef with that is that putting any place of worship there would effectively claim the site, the dead, and the tragedy for that denomination/religion and that putting a mosque there would be a clearly divisive political move.
Then it came out that it would be nearby and I flopped to the other side. Who cares? If it were practically any other religious structure or place of worship would it even have made the news? It was rabble rousing at it's worst. Divisive and hateful.