Here in the Progressive bastion, where many like to claim superior knowledge and education, I have often informed people that discrimination against Muslims in America is small compared to discrimination against Jews. Many simply scoff. It is a matter of ignorance, falling for hype, being duped to believe that night is day.
In truth, few of these people are actually involved. They rely on what most say inside their bubble. They only see the matter intellectually. Indifference and insularity certainly play a part. Yet one may surmise that if another minority besides a Jew claimed offense or persecution they would clamor support. The intellectual approach, and the echo that resonates among themselves, prevents them from seeing that they practice a double standard, or recognizing that it has a discriminatory effect towards the Jewish minority and one and only Jewish state. Facts, presented objectively, expose the disconnect and the discrimination that results from ignorance, under the false assumption they hold that they are only being fair.
To illustrate, according to the FBI, in 2012, rather than rampant discrimination against Muslims, Jews remain the No. 1 target of anti-religious hate crimes in America. No other group comes even close. From the FBI web site, of the 1,340 victims of an anti-religious hate crime:
- 62.4 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
- 11.6 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
- 7.5 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
- 6.4 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias.
- 2.6 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias.
- 0.9 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias.
- 8.6 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion). (Based on Table 1.)
"This loathsome term is nothing more than a thought-terminating cliche conceived in the bowels of Muslim think tanks for the purpose of beating down critics."The strategy was to emulate homosexual activists who used the term "homophobia" to silence critics and exploit the weaknesses of the Western psyche that recoils at the notion of being labeled racist (though Islam is not a race).
BEWARE OF THOSE THAT SCOFF, especially those that, among themselves, echo and share information that ignores facts like shown above which expose the underlying bigotry and discriminatory effect of their positions. There's a lot more they do not know. Yet we who are not indifferent or removed must bear the brunt of the ignorance.
Try this simple experiment.
ReplyDeleteIn Google Images keyword "anti-Semitism" and then keyword "Islamophobia" and see what comes up.
On my way out of Daily Kos a couple years ago, I blogged on this topic. The superficiality was on crystal clear display for all to see. In terms of 'recommends' it was one of my most 'popular' diaries ever. Yet in the comments, some ugliness 'by those who scoff' really came out. Of course, nobody but the usual handful of us (who were pretty much all banned or run out of the place over the subsequent few months) actually fought the haters.
ReplyDeleteMany 'progressives' express disgust at antisemitism, even as they ignore the blatant antisemites right in their very midst.
As is now clear, Daily Kos is a lost cause, much like the hateful confines of MSNBC, where the outrage is so often for appearances.
DeleteThe point is that many that scoff often possess the least knowledge of the facts, and are the most susceptible to propaganda of activists.
Yes and no. You're assuming a control group or a baseline where there was historically LESS antisemitism. I doubt this is true, even remotely so. What is true is that officials, whomever they are, are more likely to listen to complaints so they get written down. For everyone. On the other hand I don't doubt there's more proportionate attacks against Jews than most other groups.
ReplyDeleteWe need to remember that at best Jews in America have been tolerated. We've been allowed to thrive and prosper at arm's length. We've been overtly or covertly barred from many professions which is why we have documented success in the professions we have documented success in, just like the money lenders, goldsmiths and pawn brokers in Europe for a thousand years. But again, MOST US states did not permit Jews to vote, hold public office or own real property until AFTER the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified passing those rights on to freed slaves. In the case of this state, North Carolina it was 3 years later - 1868 in the case of New Hampshire it was 1876. In the great wave of immigration 1882-1910 things generally got worse for Jews - saved by virtue of their sheer numbers. But in a regular occurrence - immigration of Jews was specifically targeted after 1910 and effectively slammed shut in 1920. Even when other groups were quietly allowed in, the Jews were apportioned ever smaller allotments. And this was reduced to zero in 1933 with the only exceptions for famous scientists and celebrities. In fact one could plausibly make the case that but for an odd accident of personal relationships here and there between some foreign Jews and some highly placed people in the FDR administration - it's entirely possible that the Manhattan Project would have never succeeded for the same reason the Nazis never got the bomb - they eliminated all the Jewish scientists who made it possible.
So let's not tear our hair out that 2013 is a new dark ages for Jews in America. It's never been a relationship of peers and equals. Close - but not quite. We can look around and wonder why college campuses are such hotbeds of antisemitism. It's not an accident it's not in a vacuum. They are because America is reflective of that, in part and when you take a few million people and put them in a place that encourages them to remove all their social filters this is what happens. It's the same thing that happens when you take rich megalomaniacs like Kanye West and you put a mike in his face - eventually he's going to start ranting about "The Jews" like he did today on some radio interview where he complained that Obama is ineffective because he's handicapped because of the built in lack of contacts that (all) black people have compare to the "Jewish People" unquote. And it and a million things just like it go unchallenged. Another example people in NYC might remember is the day after 9/11 I think "Mike and Mike in the Morning" a big sports news and talk radio program in NYC - both hosts went on a long tirade about how this was all the "Jews' fault and "Israel's" fault and may be the Jews shouldn't be allowed here anymore. Again - no one got fired no one got sanctioned. Or look at "The Nation" that doyen of middle-to-far left which hosts writers like Blumenthal who call for the destruction of Israel and are cheered by Mondoweiss and David Duke. Or take the New York Times Tom Friedman who one week after 9/11 wrote a column complaining that Jews 'have too much power they control the US government.'
More mis-statements? I think not.
Not assuming anything that I can tell, except perhaps the extent of the ignorance of many that are not invested and cannot see the discriminatory effects. They seem oblivious to the fact that Jews are no less a minority than others that they advocate justice for. They cannot see because they travel in circles where there is one drumbeat.
DeleteTo me the issue is how to best raise consciousness. The ones that are too far gone should be repudiated, but most others need help to discover how little they actually know, and that they are practicing discrimination, so they can join most Americans that are not bigoted to Jews or anti-Israel.
"They seem oblivious to the fact that Jews are no less a minority than others that they advocate justice for. They cannot see because they travel in circles where there is one drumbeat."
DeleteIn terms of Jewish relations with the west, in general, that point is key.
Well-meaning western liberals, our friends and neighbors, look at American Jews and see a prosperous demographic. They look at Israeli Jews and they see a succesful western-type people that, they are told, is abusive to the "indigenous" minority.
One very important thing that they do not understand - for the simple fact that we have not told them - is that the Jewish minority in the Middle East lived for 13 centuries in persecution under Arab-Muslim imperial dominance. Period. And that once we freed ourselves from that persecution the vast Arab majority launched a war against the tiny Jewish minority that continues to this day.
So, why should they care when we do not seem to?
Why should they even know about it, when we barely do?