I'm not racist, but MAN, those Blacks and Jews!

In the grand tradition of whitewashing one's bigotry by prefacing one's bigoted remark with a declaration that said person is not a bigot...

"I think that it's important that we are tolerant as a people of all faiths, but that doesn't mean we have to endorse all faiths, and that was my decision."

This was Republican (notice that it's always Republicans that do stuff like this?) Texas State Senator Dan Patrick, explaining why he boycotted the first prayer delivered in the Texas Senate by a Muslim cleric, who then then praised religious tolerance (eh?) and freedom of speech in an address at the end of the day's session.

That reminds me of something very similar that happened in my former home of Washington State.

In the latter case, letters sent to the Honorable legislators resulted in apologies from both. Perhaps we should send Senator Patrick a few reminder emails that he represents Texans of ALL faiths, not just the Evangelical Christans.

How did you get here?

So I was looking at my blog stats and found this section where it shows what people typed into google to land on my blog. Turns out, out of the last 35 hits that came from a search engine, 65% of them were searches on Huma Abedin. A while ago, I wrote a short profile on her and France's Rachida Dati, two powerful Muslim women. So... with Hillary Clinton so far ahead in the polls, she may indeed become the Democratic Presidential nominee... perhaps even the President! And if that happened, could Huma Abedin become a member of her cabinet? Imagine... a Muslim woman working directly for the US President, as there is currently working for the French President. Pretty cool, huh?

As a side note, here are some other seaches that somehow led people to my blog:

• muslim cat
• preteens boob job
• husband makes bigoted remarks about my family

Racism? eh.

I just read about the incident at George Washington University. Apparently, a conservative student group is hosting something called "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week," (nice, huh?) featuring a bunch of speakers who have written widely on How Much Muslims Suck. Monday morning, a bunch of totally over-the-top posters were plastered all over campus that said, "Hate Muslims? So Do we!!" along with a diagram of a "typical Muslim" mentioning features such as "hatred of women," "suicide vest," and "hidden AK-47." Much backlash occurred because of this, and the conservative student group in question denied all involvement, saying "We neither endorse nor support any form of hate speech," (Oh?) "rather we promote freedom and liberty."

It turned out the culprits were seven students OPPOSING the "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week," and if you look at the fine print on the poster, it says it was " brought to you by Students for Conservativo-Fascism Awareness." It also refers to a BBC documentary called "The Power of Nightmares," which notes strong similarities between the rise of the American Neo-Conservative movement and that of the radical Islamist movement. Following the backlash, the students released this statement, taking responsibility for the incident and explaining that the whole point of their actions was to expose the absurdity and racism of "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week."

I'm not going to comment on the incident itself, but I wanted to point out something I see a lot in the Muslim community, that really gets on my nerves--why do people keep saying anti-Muslim bigotry is "racist?" Yes, I understand, that most Muslims are people of color, but not all are. If someone (presumably a white person) directed an Islamophobic slur in my direction, for instance, that wouldn't be racist, because I'm white! You could argue that Judaism is a race, but Islam... not so much. Islamophobes are often racist also, but I don't think that makes Islamophobia the same as racism. Islam is a religion, folks! And when we call anti-Muslim bigots racist, I believe this weakens the argument against them. Or makes it look like maybe we don't speak English so well... All throughout the aforementioned letter, the word "racist" is tossed about freely. I really wish they had just said "bigoted" instead. I think the statement would be taken more seriously, and it would be more accurate, and more powerful. That's all.

Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, is NOT stuck up, fool!

He obviously talks to women who are not veiled. How else would he get Dolly Parton's endorsement?

--------------------------------------------

Yusuf Islam wins damages for "veiled women" slur

LONDON (Reuters) - British folk singer Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, accepted libel damages and an apology on Friday from a news agency that reported he had refused to talk to women at an awards ceremony who were not wearing a veil.

The artist, who changed his name after becoming a Muslim in the late 1970s, will donate the "substantial" payout to Small Kindness, a U.N.-linked charity he chairs.

Adam Tudor, the singer's attorney, told London's High Court that the story behind the legal action was published by World Entertainment News Network and was used on Contactmusic.com, a website said to have 2.2 million page views a month.

The article appeared in March last year and suggested that the singer was "so sexist and bigoted that he refused at an awards ceremony to speak to or even acknowledge any women who were not wearing a veil," Tudor said.

"It went on to suggest that Mr. Islam's manager had stated 'Mr. Islam doesn't speak with women except his wife, least of all if they don't wear a headscarf. Things like that only happen via an intermediary.'"

Tudor said the article had embarrassed the singer, creating a false impression of his attitude to women and also casting serious aspersions on his religious faith.

World Entertainment News Network issued an apology, saying:

"We now accept that these allegations ... are entirely without foundation, and that Mr. Islam has never had any difficulties working with women, whether for religious or for any other reason."

Islam, 59, is still best known for his hits as Cat Stevens, including "Wild World," "Morning Has Broken" and "Moonshadow."

He sold an estimated 60 million albums as Stevens, but retired from showbusiness in 1978 after converting to Islam. He released his first mainstream pop album since then in 2006.

Reuters/Nielsen

I'm not prejudiced, but...

Last week, some idiot from the Fredericksburg, VA Free Lance-Star wrote a totally ignorant and transparently bigoted opinion piece extolling the virtues of the west for apparently stopping the Muslim barbarians from conquering the entire world. I will not post it here, but you can read it for yourself if you wish.

There were a couple of good responses to this article which can be found here and here. As the second reader pointed out, one of the more mind-boggling statements in the opinion piece were the author's defense of Serbian genocide of Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian war.

But I'm not totally dismayed by the article. At least he wears his bigotry on his sleeve. The worst type of hate propaganda is that which disguises itself in supposedly unbiased commentary. The kind that says, "I'm not prejudiced--clearly--but let me pepper my article with carefully-chosen 'objective' factoids that will convince any reasonable person to share my hidden prejudices and embrace them as fact."

I found a really good example of this in a tourism guide of Israel that I read recently. A small section entitled "racism" appears at first to denounce racism against Arabs amongst Isralis, but then offhandedly cites examples of terrorist acts against Israelis. The section ends with a quote from a friend of his who "normally" holds a humanitarian political stance: "We've got to do something about these Arabs!" ....ahem.