Islamophobia Is A Myth

120 thoughts on “Islamophobia Is A Myth”

1. That’s really disappointing.Report

   1. Remember, JM, that you can’t really judge a man until you’ve walked in his shoes.  It might well be that this driver just couldn’t find the bumper sticker that read “Oh My God, I Am A HUUUGE A-Hole!” and had to make due with what he could.Report

      1. Is that because of his positions?  Or just because bumber sticks in general are an A-Hole thing to do?Report

         1. hehReport

      2. Damn, you’re right Tod. That was some stunning insensitivity on my part.Report

      3. I forgot to include the fact that the bumper sticker definitely did NOT have a background consisting of the second plane hitting the WTC.  This in a state that also lost hundreds of people on 9/11, second only to NY in terms of residents lost.

         Seeing that – or I should say NOT seeing that – makes me wonder what things must be like in states with few Muslims, fewer losses on 9/11, and where Chris Christie would be the most liberal electable Democrat rather than the most conservative electable Republican.Report

         1. I think in those cases you need a number stick to identify the other way.  Otherwise it’s just assumed, isn’t it?Report

2. “All I needed to know about ISLAM I learned on 9/11,”

   I think I’m going to put a bumper sticker on my car that reads, “All I need to know about Protestants I learned in Belfast.”Report

   1. And the same bumper sticker, but with Catholics instead of Protestants. Man, this is going to be an easy business.Report

      1. All I need to know about Catholics I learned on August 23, 1572 is probably too esoteric for a bumper sticker, eh?Report

         1. Dates and me don’t agree…

            WTF?Report

            1. Not the best day to be a Huguenot.Report

      2. Whois Server Version 2.0

         Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
         with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
         for detailed information.

         No match for “ALLTHINGSBIGOTED.COM”.
         >>> Last update of whois database: Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:32:55 UTC <<<

         Gentlemen, we’ll be millionaires.Report

3. All I needed to know about the Masons I learned from this Jack Chick tract.Report

4. All I need to know about white people I learned from the KKK.Report

5. Darn it! You tricked me with the title, I thought this is going to be one of those posts that fill me with rage. Not surprised about the Islamophobic bumper sticker.  I thought the ‘work harder” sticker is kinda lame, though. If they really want to make an impact, why not something like – “No point working too hard, the food stamp President will just steal your money and distribute it to welfare queens and young bucks buying t-bone steaks.”Report

   1. Darn it! You tricked me with the title

      Success!  It’s been all too long since I last successfully pulled off a sarcastic Off the Cuff post.Report

6. All I need to know about Americans I learned from Hiroshima.Report

   1. Nob wins the thread.Report

      1. +1.

         Nob’s really getting the hang of this “getting people to respond to me” business!Report

      2. Agreed. Definitive and scathing.Report

      3. +3 (North, I assume was +2).Report

         1. He doesn’t need points, he already won.  THE PAT HAS SPOKEN.Report

   2. Nob – for some reason I don’t fully understand, this little bit of sarcasm hit home for me in a powerful way.  I chuckled at the other proposed slogans; this one felt like a stomach punch.  Where I had just been disappointed to see what I saw this morning, now I feel profoundly embarrassed and ashamed by it.Report

      1. I *told* you he won the thread.Report

         1. You were not kidding, either.Report

      2. I’m not sure what to say….I always find bumper sticker slogans to be troubling.

         I was being mostly pithy, but there’s something about turning it around in this way that I think is different.

         That said, I hope no one took it as a dig against the US.

         I mostly meant it as a way to turn the nationalism stuff on its head.Report

         1. There are very few contexts in which I would not find that phrase offensive. This is definitely one of them. In part because the meta-statement you are making relies on you not believing Hiroshima to be an accurate summation of who Americans are.Report

            1. Yeah, you’d think they’d have learned more from Nagasaki.Report

               1. Tokyo, good buddy. I’m an Edokko first and foremost. The pictures of my hometown as cinders is still a haunting thing, as were the stories of my grandparents finding the city gone from one block to the next.Report

                  1. Total War is something that we (and by “we”, I mean “Americans”) have never really had to process.

                     I grew up hearing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki being particularly bad (“atomic”) while Tokyo (or Dresden) were shrugged off as the price of doing business.Report

                  2. Total War is something that we (and by “we”, I mean “Americans”) have never really had to process.

                     I think that’s one reason why we still have more enthusiasm for the activity of war, in general, than most other industrialized places.Report

                  3. This.  In the last 150 years, our experience of war on our own soil, if you want to call it that, is limited to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor and the invasion of the Aleutians, and the direct impact of the latter two on civilian populations was not overly significant.  As horrible as 9/11 was – and it was – it cannot possibly compare to the impact of WWI and WWII on civilian populations in Asia and Europe, nor of the Korean War on Korean civilians, the Vietnam War on Vietnamese civilians, etc., etc.  Not to mention the myriad wars that didn’t directly involve us.

                     As much as we always like to say that our troops are out safeguarding our freedom, this is true only in the most abstract of senses.  What we really mean is that they’re out helping other people fight their own wars (sometimes even rightly so!); if we want to put this in the best possible light, we might phrase this as “helping other people protect their freedom,” and there may even be some truth to that.  But it’s been an awfully long time since “war” for Americans meant a possibility of having to “fight to protect our homes and for our very right to exist.”

                      Report

                  4. I grew up hearing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki being particularly bad (“atomic”) while Tokyo (or Dresden) were shrugged off as the price of doing business.

                     I co-taught a Nuclear Weapons and Power course last term.  The students were stunned to learn that the firebombings killed as many or more people per city.  But it helped them understand part of why the step up to an atomic bomb wasn’t as big a psychological hurdle as we tend to see it today. In part the decision was purely utilitarian–“We can do just as much damage as we’ve been doing, but with only one plane at risk, and only one bomb? Sounds like a good C/B analysis to us.”Report

                  5. The students were stunned to learn that the firebombings killed as many or more people per city. 

                     It’s odd to me that this is still true.  It was odd to me when it was true in 1990, too.

                     Maybe I’m just too much of a war nerd.Report

                  6. I’m always struck by what McNamara said in Fog of War. Something to the effect of: “If we hadn’t won the war we’d have been tried as war criminals”.

                     True, industrial, total warfare is a devastatingly scary thing.Report

                  7. ‘course, that was before the advent of thermonuclear weapons. Once yields moved into the megaton range, the calculus changed entirely.

                     Out of curiosity, what was the reading list for that course like?Report

                  8. Nob,

                     It was a bit scattered.  It was an experimental 2 credit course (normal is 4) co-taught by a political scientist and chemist, and we briefly covered the origins of nuclear power, the Manhattan Project and the dropping of the bombs, the post-war arms race, potential for nuclear terrorism, and issues of nuclear power and waste disposal today.  So we used lots of articles for the reading list.  The two books, of which we only used a few chapters in each, were The Manhattan Project, edited by Cynthia Kelly, which has lots of short chapters that are personal recollections, government documents, letters, and contemporary and later analyses (it’s a great “bathroom book”) and Preventing Catastrophe by Thomas Graham and Keith Hansen which is about preventing terrorism (a great book for anyone interested in what the real risks are and how our intelligence services work to prevent them).

                     It was a great experience, and I learned a hell of a lot myself since I went into it without great expertise on all the issues we covered.Report

                  9. Interesting choices. Something like Trachtenberg’s “Making Sense of the Nuclear Age”…it does seem a bit of a lot to put into a 2 credit course if the usual is 4.

                     Out of curiosity did you try Physics for Future Presidents or the associated nuclear weapons chapters there? I’m curious how those work in teaching the basics of nukes to undergrads.Report

                  10. Two of things that I have heard about Dresden that stick in my mind.  One is that the Allies firebombed the city to break the German’s spirit and all it did was tick them off.  The other was that Churchill wanted the bombing to show the Russians that the West could be vile too.Report

                  11. Both of those things are eminently plausible.Report

                  12. Thank Lincoln for that. Or curse his name and sherman’s too.Report

                  13. Innovators, granted, but we would have gotten there anyway.Report

         2. I definitely took it as intended.  That’s why it transformed the jingoism, Islamophobia, etc. of the referenced bumper sticker from merely disappointing and frustrating to outright embarrassing and shameful.Report

         3. It is a dig against the us, but a good and well meaning one. Fractured mirrors tell a tale — even if the glass is sharp.

            (btw, are you from Japan?)Report

            1. I am from Japan, but currently live in Texas.Report

   3. All I needed to know about the Japanese I learned from Nanking, Pearl Harbor, Iwo, the Bataan Death March, Tulagi, etc.,etc.Report

      1. I would say all you’d ever need to know about Japanese culture you’d learn from the assassination of Zhang Zuolin.Report

         1. As in that incident showed of all the terrible, negative qualities of the Japanese at the time.Report

   4. This is fucking profound. I think this wins “statement of the day” for my cubicle. (yeah, I tend to be gloomy. no i don’t expect people to actually read them.)Report

7. All I need to know about Colonial India I learned from Pearl Harbor.Report

   1. Too tortured.

      Oh, how about, “All I need to know about White People I learned from Columbus”Report

      1. All I need to know about Maimonides I learned from Nietzsche.Report

      2. Or Pizarro.Report

      3. All I need to know about White People I learned from stuffwhitepeoplelike.comReport

   2. All I need to learn about Hinduism I learned at Cawnpore

      Maybe?Report

      1. All I need to learn about Christianity I learned at Goa (1560-1812)Report

8. All I need to know about the Civil Rights movement, I learned from watching The Help.Report

   1. That’s sharp.

       Report

      1. My original was “all I need to know about busting up chifferobes I learned from To Kill a Mockingbird” but I thought that that would be waaaaay too insensitive.Report

         1. Oh, man.  That cracked me up.Report

9. All I need to know about Italians I learned from watching Jersey Shore.Report

   1. Also true for learning about New Jerseyians.Report

10. All I needed to know about democracy I learned on 9 Thermidor.

     Report

    1. ShowoffReport

    2. I had to look it up. I thought it was a sci-fi book I had somehow missed.Report

       1. Me too.

          Trust Jason to lord his big giant brain over us little brains.Report

          1. I’d be curious to know the exact % of people that read that and went “Sc- Fi reference.” I certainly did.Report

             1. I knew it was a month but I thought that it was a reference to a month on one of the old Roman calendars (between Iunius and Quintilis, maybe) and so I thought it was one of the post-Julius Caesar emperors assassinations.

                Which, in my defense, fit.Report

    3. All I needed to know about Frenchmen I learned on 18 Brumaire.

       (I mean really…how typical is that? They let a Corsican take over?)Report

11. All I need to know about African Americans I learned from Tyler Perry.Report

12. All I need to know about the Irish I learned from Blazing Saddles.Report

13. All I need to know about the LoOG I learned from Heidegger.Report

    1. Egad.Report

14. All I needed to learn about Canadians, I learned from Tie Domi.Report

    1. I’d have gone with Celine Dion, but this works.Report

       1. Brian Mulroney.Report

          1. That bitch Ann Murray, too.Report

             1. There you go againReport

                1. It’s the pic.  That llama looks all full of attitude.Report

    2. Low blow.

       All I needed to learn about Americans, I learned in 1812.Report

       1. I would have thought Domi’s antithesis, Bryan Adams, would have been the low blow.Report

          1. Bryan Adams is a mixed bag. If all you ever learned about Canadians, you learned from ‘Run to You’, that’s cool. If it was ‘Have you ever really loved a woman’… I don’t even want to think about that.

             The extra inch of steal that you shoved into our collective heart was (perhaps unintentionally) that you chose a Toronto Maple Leaf. Defining us by a goon is one thing, but a Toronto goon… man, I might have to jersey you.Report

15. +1.  You definitely should come down to watch a DIII college hockey game with me.Report

16. All I need to know about cops I learned from Abner Louima.Report

17. On a more serious note, regarding the title, I really don’t think we’re at the stage where people are saying that Islamophobia doesn’t exist. They might not like the term, but the general meaning (animosity towards and fear of Muslims) isn’t much in doubt. Rather, the issue is that they feel it is justified.

    It’s a sign of progress when people are denying, or trying to deny, that it exists. We haven’t made that progress yet.Report

    1. Sad, but true.Report

    2. Yup. Another way of putting it is on the issue of Islamophobia, we’re not at the stage of dog-whistle yet, more loud screamings and blatant statements.Report

    3. I’m not so sure about this.  First, I think there are a fair number of people trying to say that Islamophobia is a myth.  Second, some of those making that claim seem to be the worst purveyors thereof.Report

       1. I take the Goldberg and Jacoby pieces as more pertaining to an onslaught of hate crimes and not towards anti-Muslim sentiment in general. The last one takes issue with the term but says that the fear is justified.

          I consider these to be different things than saying “animosity towards or fear of Muslims doesn’t exist.”

          That’s where I am coming from, anyway.Report

18. All I need to know about hobbits I learned from Sméagol’s birthday trip to the Gladden Fields.Report

19. Mark-

    Did I have an earlier comment deleted?  Or did I just not send it thruogh properly?  I thought I saw it post but now I don’t see it.Report

    1. Rescued.Report

       1. Thanks.  I wasn’t sure if I crossed a line by calling out another commenter who is unable to defend himself.  Would have understood if that was the issue.Report

          1. Nope – this thread is mostly lighthearted.  You just used a flagged word that got it caught by the filter.Report

             1. Is he-who-shalt-not-be-named a flagged word???  I can’t imagine what else it was.Report

    2. I learned a while back that in order to refer to that commenter, you have to put a period in his name. So now he’s Heid.egger.Report

20. “All I need to know about a whole class of people I discerned from a bumpersticker.”Report

    1. At one point, I wanted a bumper sticker on my car that said “If your worldview fits on a bumper sticker, THINK HARDER.”Report

       1. We should totally do this as a CafePress item.Report

          1. Agree.  Actually, that might have to be adopted as the League motto.Report

       2. I despise all those, “I’m Pro_________ and I Vote” stickers, but I’ve long dreamed of getting one that says, “I’m ProFane and I Vote.”Report

          1. I enjoy the moral stands in support of things that no one opposes.

             “I’m Pro-Literacy and I Vote!”Report

             1. I actually did a boozey scavenger hunt in which we had to protest a major book seller.  Some people went with an anti-corporate message.  We went with anti-reading.  I held a sign that said, “READING KILLED MY BROTHER!”  That was fun.Report

             2. I’m Pro-Literacy and I Voat.Report

                1. Booooo… that is right up there with “Pobody’s Nerfect”.Report

             3. The opposing bumper sticker being a drawing of a confused stick figure and a ballot.Report

                1. solidReport

          2. James, I did rather like one I saw that read, “I eat the flesh of the living- and I vote!”Report

       3. I dunno, JH and I played a mini-game of “Choose one word to describe your ideology that can generate an instant visceral reaction in most people.”  It was fun!Report

21. All I need to know about the LoOG I learned at BalloonJuice.Report

    1. Invert it and it still works.Report

       1. You can do that and come up with fairly fun versions of many of the above:

          • All I need to know about 9/11 I learned from Islam
          • All I need to know about Belfast I learned from Protestants
          • All I need to know about Hiroshima I learned from Americans

          Report

          1. And some just become statements of fact…

             All I need to know about the KKK I learn from white people.

             Unless you believe the Chapelle sketch about the black, blind KKK member.  Upon learning he was black, he divorced his white wife for being an N-word lover.Report

             1. One of the funniest skits ever.Report

             2. this is gold.Report

22. I needed a good laugh today, thanks boys. I find the league is good for two things; it either makes me think or laugh my ass of. Sometimes both!Report

23. All I need to know about bumper stickers  I learned from this postReport

24. “Work Harder…Millions on Welfare Are Depending on You!”

    I’ve seen that sticker in a government office cubicle.Report

25. Informed rational freedom loving people have all the reasons in the world to fear islam. The twin fogs of political correctness & ignorance must be dispersed before western society better understands this menace. Even a brief review of islamic theology & history quickly exposes the deadly roots of this evil ideology.

    Mohamhead was a 7th century murdering warlord who rose to power on a river of blood surrounded by thugs and gangsters using intimidation, violence, deception and trickery to expand their criminal empire while mercilessly suppressing and killing their opponents and enriching themselves on stolen booty.

    The evil koran is a collection of sayings and speeches by this diabolical madman claiming divine guidance from some mythical sky-god which has inspired generations of crazed fanatics to abhorrent behavior resulting in historys worst ever crimes against humanity starting 1400 years ago and still continuing even today.

    Islam is just another fascist totalitarian ideology used by power hungry fanatics on yet another quest for worldwide domination and includes all the usual human rights abuses & suppression of freedoms.

    and a snappy graphics version, great for emailing…

    http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/1479/dangermoko.jpgReport

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