Yes dammit

[prog]

The election cycle is nearly done, and Friday's On the Media was the first acknowledgment I'd heard in any broadcast venue of the inherent Islamophobia in countering "He's a Muslim!" with "No he isn't!" but then failing to take any steps into "That said, why would that even matter?"

I have some sympathy for the defense, here (it's best not to linger too long in the enemy's frame) but it still grates me a little every time I see it.

Comments

[kahuna-burger.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I don't quite follow. Every candidate in this election, and every election in my lifetime has been a Christian. I assume you are referring to some specific denomination Huckabee belongs to, I wasn't following the primary particularly. To lump "muslim" into the same sort of group as "Mike Huckabee's church" is exactly the sort of bias that is being criticized here.

When there is a Muslim candidate, he or she will face "the same kind of suspicion" as most of the candidates this season have - assessment of their particular church and how it's specific values have or haven't shaped the candidate's views. The Muslim candidate will also face a completely different kind of suspicion, based on bias and a willingness to lump every member of a large and diverse religion into the same group and judge it based on the most extreme thing any member has ever done.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

For instance, some of the rumors that went around about Obama deliberately confused him with Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the one Muslim in Congress. I can't imagine Ellison felt entirely good about the response just being "no, Obama's not a Muslim".

[radtea.livejournal.com]

I can appreciate intellectually what you're saying, but I think I'm just failing to get the prejudice you're fighting. For comparison, here in Canada we have Muslim and Sikh MPs, including fairly recently a Sikh as Minister of Health in the Federal Government, even though Sikh extremists were responsible for the worst domestic terrorist attack in Canada ever, killing over 300 people in the bombing of Air India fight 182, the vast majority of them Canadian citizens.