One item currently delineates whose who in the show of American racial progress. That issue is the planned construction of an Islamic center in lower Manhattan near, NOT AT, near the site of the WTC attacks on 9/11. This is a local issue for the people of New York where support is mixed, but opponents have turned it into a national issue and now opponents with no connection to this local issue are weighing in.
Those against the construction of the community center are, for the sake of openness and truthfulness generally white and conservative. Their line in this debate is that in light of the fact that the 9/11 attackers were also Muslim it is insensitive to build an Islamic community center near the site of one of the attacks. This is evident in Sarah Palin’s contribution to the debate via Twitter – “Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing.”
Another white conservative Heidi Harris complained that allowing Muslims to build the center makes “them” see “us” as weak. Both sentiments are the clearest charts of the core of racist sentiment today. First, both women express senseless antipathy in the sense that they are essentially to punish all Muslims, including Americans for the attacks. Through their words it is apparent they think of these Muslim Americans who are entitled to the same presumption of innocence as Sarah Palin and Heidi Harris, as the enemy. Second is the arrogance they display in thinking that they can tell American Muslims what they should do in order to make “Americans” feel better. Sarah Palin and Heidi Harris don’t speak on behalf of America. They speak on behalf of an embittered segment of America that somehow think they have the keys to the country with the right to push minority groups around because it makes them feel better about themselves… I’m guessing. They certainly don’t speak for me. A Muslim community center near the site of Ground Zero only “stabs the hearts” of people who resent Muslims, or in other words, racists. Whether or not Sarah and Heidi like it, those Muslims they are railing against were attacked on 9/11 as well.
Imagine how absurd it would be if there was a movement to prevent Sarah Palin or Heidi Harris from speaking anyplace white people blew up a church or lynched someone or prevented black people from voting or owned black people etc. It would be pretty absurd. Ms. Palin who loves to talk about Freedom would inevitably use that as an opportunity to talk about how blocking her access was an infringement on her Constitutional rights. It seems for Palin, Freedom is something for which she is the guardian so only the Americans she prefers can benefit
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Earlier this year there was a Tea Party rally in Boston and the Boston Globe captured feelings of some of the attendees which would have been comical if it was not so desperately wrong. One rally participant, Anna Kaczowka commented that it was “just the minorities and illegals who get the benefits. Everybody who works gets nothing.” Also featured were the thoughts of Valerie Shirk who attended the rally with her husband and 10 kids. “The problem in this country is that there are too many people looking for handouts” said Shirk. When asked why she accepted Medicaid, Shirk said she did not want to stop having children and her husband’s income was not enough to cover them all with private insurance. The Shirks are white. Here’s the article. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/04/15/tea_party_rally_generates_plenty_of_criticism_opposing_views/?page=1
In a previous post, “Profiling The Profilers” I discussed a specific case of the old double standard and hypocrisy in which those who most loudly defended racial profiling of minorities were incensed to find out that there were conservative whites who fit profiles of potential radical threats according to law enforcement. It was decried as an attempt to go after political enemies when in fact it was simply a response to a measurable increase in activity among certain white people who were associating with groups with antisocial history. It was not merely a decree announcing that “Whites need to be profiled.” It was a quantifiable assessment that these groups have posed palpable threats as evidenced by the plots that have been foiled by law enforcement.
In defense of progress though, I will take this opportunity to point out certain improvements in this state of affairs that has been years in the making. In 1986 Congress mandated that anyone convicted of being in possession of five grams of crack cocaine be given the same sentence as someone convicted of being in possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine. It seems the majority in Congress got whipped into fervor. Crack meant black, and Blacks had historically been given stiffer sentences on average for committing the same crimes as Whites. So in a way Congress was simply codifying a uniformity of racial inequity.
For 23 years a coalition of people of all races has been working to lobby to have the law amended and this month President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act. It’s a bit of a misnomer, since now the ceiling was raised to a mere 28 grams of crack cocaine to get the automatic five year minimum sentence. But it was unanimously passed in Congress. That’s something.
If the word racism has lost all meaning as some claim, it’s only in the mind of people who are either in denial or don’t want to face the reality that when racial bias and arrogance are practiced by a racial majority, it has real consequences. It puts the minority under a much tighter scrutiny at every turn. It perpetuates destructive myths that when accepted as truths can result in a restrictive environment for minorities. It can infringe on the access, freedom, and rights to which every American is guaranteed under the law. Whether it is Sarah Palin telling people where they can and can’t congregate or anyone else insisting minorities are more dangerous and need to be incarcerated for longer periods of time, it is another way of people saying “I am better than you” or “I’m more American than you” when in fact they are not.
It would be ideal if we could abolish hypocrisy. That is a tall order. We may never be void of our capacity to maintain double standards, but like sentencing for crack cocaine offenses our behavior can be adjusted. And it is not just incumbent on so-called racist white people. After all, it would be hypocritical to demand something of one group that you don’t demand of yourself.
: )
Now that I have your attention...
