Islamophobia: The New Acceptable Prejudice

A recent poll stated that 12% of Americans, more than one in ten, believe that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim. It's quite a large percentage, given the publicity of Obama's former pastor, the now notorious Jeremiah Wright. For many months, the Obama campaign has been furiously trying to explain that Obama is not a Muslim. Then, a brilliantly satirical caricature of Obama and his wife Michelle appeared on the cover of The New Yorker. Both the Obama camp and the McCain camp called the cover offensive, but the folks at The New Yorker stuck to its guns and defended its satire. The least problematic of this incident was that they had to explain that their cover was satirical, and everyone knows that when you have to explain a joke, it's no longer funny. It's Comedy 101. Granted, it's The New Yorker, hardly that funny to begin with. But that's an entry for another time.

How did Senator Obama himself feel? In an interview with Larry King, Senator Obama stated that "when you're running for president for almost two years ... you get a pretty thick skin. And, you know, I've seen and heard worse." He then added that "this is actually an insult against Muslim-Americans, something that we don't spend a lot of time talking about. And sometimes I've been derelict in pointing that out. You know, there are wonderful Muslim-Americans all across the country who are doing wonderful things. And for this to be used as sort of an insult or to raise suspicions about me I think is unfortunate." King then immediately switched topics and discussed the war in Iraq with Senator Obama.

In addition to treating the magazine cover with a grain of salt, Obama brought up a point that I've been aching to hear raised: what's wrong with being Muslim?

During this campaign, Obama's secret Muslim past is an accusation that has been tossed around by the ignorant, playing on fears of another 9/11. As a consequence, the Obama campaign has tried to distance itself from the Muslim community, even going to far as to remove two Muslim women wearing headscarves lest they appear in the same vicinity as Obama. The Muslim world is so feared and stigmatized that American Muslims are treated like second-class citizens. Fortunately, the Obama campaign immediately apologized, and that was that. If only that could be true of all apologies.

Racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism are the top three prejudices that are taken advantage of in order to discredit an opponent's argument. Since there is no way to successfully defend oneself against charges of these three prejudices without sounding like an ignoramus, these prejudices are the standard go-to for argumentative tactics. They work, because they evoke feelings of oppression, from slavery to the Holocaust. The fear of resembling an oppressor is so grand, no self-respecting person can afford to make a remark that is even close to sounding racist, sexist, or anti-Semitic, bringing about obvious benefits (less outward prejudice) and drawbacks (free-speech is stifled).

But Islamophobia is not pounced on with the same outrage that racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and even homophobia are. Even before 9/11, Hollywood and the mainstream media almost always portrayed Muslims in an unflattering way. Muslim representation has ranged from the sexist oil sheik, to the racist cab driver, to the womanizing Persian, to the airplane hijacker. Granted, these Muslims exist, and they're not just a few people, but we've barely even seen token "good" Muslims. The consequence is that many people are less aware of what Islam really is. They watch movies like "Executive Decision" or TV shows like "24" and assume that Muslims are just a bunch of Jew-hating terrorists who pray to their mysterious god "Allah" and honor-kill their daughters because their holy book the Koran commands them to do it. Every single time a nutjob Muslim commits a crime, the stereotype is reinforced. The reinforcement turns into resignation and acceptance. The acceptance manifests itself as prejudice.

Consequently, anything that is related to Islam is now tied to terrorism. From Rachel Ray's scarf to Barack Obama's name, fear has overtaken reason. Apathy has been substituted in place of the pursuit of knowledge. Theology and dogma now explains the behavior of all Muslims, even though theology and dogma have little place in everyday American life.

And where are the so-called "moderate" Muslims? Where are their voices? If they are so moderate, why are they not doing more to condemn the actions of extremists? Several months ago, I gave my answer to those questions. Since then, little has changed. Muslims and non-Muslims alike don't talk. The silence breeds further acceptance of negative stereotypes, and it continues from there.

One of the causes of this silence is the sad fact that no one really knows where to go to find answers to their questions. While political correctness has its place, the fear of being un-PC too often dampens people's reasonable questions. It's risky to sound unaware, lest being unaware becomes tantamount to ignorance. I disagree. Ignorance, to me, implies the knowledge of something's existence, while consciously ignoring or seeking out the truth. Being willfully ignorant is a redunancy. Not being aware of something is different; at least it's somewhat excusable.

So where does one go for answers about Islam? The most obvious answer is, well, Muslims. And when you talk to Muslims, you'll find out that their way of life is not all about reading the Koran, or praying five times a day, or even abstaining from pork and alcohol. Dogma may be the foundation of belief, but because Leviticus says that homosexuality is forbidden doesn't mean that there aren't gay Jews.

Communication is the foundation of all learning. Once communication has been established and the facts have been ascertained, we can then make our judgments. Any conclusion made without all the facts is premature judgment, hence the term prejudice. And that has to stop.

How do you deal with the Unreasonable?

In July 1, 2008's Op-Ed Section of The Washington Post, columnist Richard Cohen wrote a piece that touched on a sentiment that I've had growing in me since the start of the new century. The article itself is a criticism of Senator John McCain's search for endorsements from famous members of the American clergy, most notably Billy and Richard Graham. He writes that "the endorsement of such clergymen has been sought by virtually every Republican presidential candidate of our times," a practice that Cohen feels is "disquieting."

I understand where Cohen is coming from. The pursuit of approval from the faithful is a necessary one to undertake if one is to get anywhere in politics. Since most of America (and, indeed, the world) either practices a religion or holds a belief in reverence for the supernatural, professing a faith is the easiest way to gain trust. In America, it's Christianity.

Most Americans who have faith weren't really concerned about Mitt Romney's bid for the presidency. True, he had to come out and defend his faith, but at the end of the day, Romney was accepted in a way that wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't been religious at all. In other words, better to have a different faith in Jesus than no faith in Jesus at all.

I've noticed that an individual's piety is seen as the redeeming quality behind even the most scientific and reasonable of people. Albert Einstein's research fundamentally altered the way in which the universe is seen and questions the concept of predestination, but rest assured, Einstein himself could not fully comprehend the magnitude of his discoveries. "God does not play dice," he is famously quoted; ergo, since Einstein believed in the supernatural, so must we all.

In The Assault on Reason, Al Gore methodically traces the pattern on how Americans, through television and the 24-hour news networks, have given up on their heritage of Enlightened reason to surrender to gut instinct. It's a brilliant argument, but it later seems disingenuous when he attempts to balance reason with faith.

Cohen notes that piety can "excuse ... ignorance and intolerance." It's true. How often have we forgiven people because they either found Jesus, or converted to Islam, or turned to Buddhism? And how often have logical arguments screeched to a grinding halt when a matter of faith is brought up? In fact, the only way reason is able to progress is for matters of faith to be ignored. Even amongst scientists who have faith, their faith is compartmentalized in a place that is accessed only at sporadic times. This compartmentalization is necessary in order for science to progress. When trying to chart the trajectory of a falling particle into the gravity well of a singularity, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount doesn't have much applicability.

Faith, by definition, is unreasonable. It causes wonder, that there's something greater than what we can see, no matter what tools humanity can invent to see farther or smaller than ever before. It is the source of inspiration that can drive a believer to handle venomous snakes without fear or stand up for civil rights. It's also the source of courage that allows a man or woman to willingly strap on explosives and kill. It's the screen through which we can ignore destruction and see something totally different and unrelated. And in this modern age, it is seen as the ultimate trump card to an individual's character and trustworthiness -- that no matter what his or her reasoned or scientific background, that individual is willing to allow the unprovable to supercede documented evidence.

And so it goes. Time and again, American politicians will court the faithful by underlining their own faith. And time and again, Americans will follow those who show the most faith in their beliefs. But it must be stressed that although following the faithful may have led us to legislated equality, the faithful also led us to believe there were WMDs in Iraq.

Charles Krauthammer is an idiot.

I leave it to you, the lonely readers of this blog, to discover on your own just how unreasonable Dr. Charles Krauthammer can be. I will not give examples, and I will not post links. Reading this man's stuff is one of the most painful things a person can do. In my opinion, he is worse, yes worse, than Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Bill O'Reilly, as a conservative voice who blows things out of proportion in order to misleads (intentionally or not) the public into believing what he says has actual merit in reason.

There are some conservative columnists that I can read with a sense of appreciation for their viewpoint. The best was, of course, the late William F. Buckley. Today, the most palatable conservative columnists (at least in The Washington Post) consist of Michael Gerson, George Will, and sometimes, even Robert Novak. Their conservative slant is obvious, but it is usually tempered with reasoned arguments stemming from their own political ideology. You can take these men seriously. Hannity, Coulter, and O'Reilly (like Keith Olbermann and Bill Maher on the other side) don't use reason to support their opinions, and so intelligent people, both on the left and the right, recognize that these individuals' rants are exactly that: rants. Nothing more than entertainment that tries to pass itself off as news, and never to be taken seriously.

What makes Krauthammer worse than these ranters is that he is expected to be taken seriously. He's a featured columnist in The Washington Post and is a panelist on Inside Washington. Go ahead. Read his work. Then do your own homework on what he writes about. After that, get back to me on why any reasonable person should take him seriously.

“As California goes…”

“…so goes the rest of the nation. It's inevitable. This door's wide open now. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not.”

So said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom on Thursday, May 14, 2008 after the California Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage. Spectators cheered. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was supportive.

Opponents are fuming. How could a Catholic mayor and a Republican governor allow this affront to the institution of marriage to occur? They are crying inappropriate judicial activism (as if there were any other kind). I call it progress too long in coming.

How ironic is it that gay marriage would be legal in states under Republican governorships (Schwarzenegger in California, Mitt Romney in Massachusetts)? Log cabin Republicans notwithstanding, members of the Republican Party are stereotypically seen as bigots; they hate gays (except hot lesbians), immigrants, minorities, and the poor. Bambi’s mother was probably shot by a gun-loving Republican hunter. (I kid; the hunter was a Libertarian.)

But I digress. The court’s ruling is an important step in the long march toward true equality. The court did exactly what I did when defending gay marriage to a fellow student in my Civil Rights history class: they used the precedent of a 1948 ruling that struck down a ban on interracial marriage.

Although it’s a bit touchy to compare anti-miscegenation laws to bans on same-sex marriage, both the ban on interracial marriage and the ban on gay marriage have interesting parallels in the proponents for those bans. They said that miscegenation and homosexuality were unnatural and sacrilegious. Blacks and homosexuals have both been considered less than human, and violence has been perpetrated against both groups, killing innocents. And while homosexuals have had an advantage in being able to hide their orientation (a “luxury” Blacks don’t have), the cost of being discovered can be a terrible price to pay, depending on where one lives.

I don’t expect bigots to read this blog, but in case they do, listen up. The time is approaching when your stupidity will be exposed as such. Homophobia will be perceived as something quaint and outdated, like burning witches, black and white TV, or paying for long distance calls. You will go the way of the dinosaur, the dodo, and Laserdiscs. And when you become artifacts relegated to dusty halls of antiquity, you will be observed not with awe or interest, but with the disdain that comes with looking at how shamefully humanity once behaved. It's inevitable. It's going to happen, whether you like it or not. In order for you to survive, you must adapt and evolve.

What am I saying? You probably don’t believe in evolution either.

The Elitist Films of Brad Bird

On April 6, 2008, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) attended a fundraiser in San Francisco. There, he stated:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

His opponents quickly jumped on the words “bitter” and “cling to guns or religion” and labeled Obama as an “elitist.”

It is important to understand what the word “elitist” connotes. While “elite” stands for the best of the best, the pinnacle of achievement, the word “elitist” carries with it implications of snobbery and condescension stemming from a sense of presumptuous superiority. In other words, people want to be elite; nobody wants to be elitist. From my experience, this is a uniquely American sentiment. I challenge someone to find a non-American equivalent to the rhetorical saying, “What, you think you’re better than me?!” Chances are, if that question was asked in another country, someone would actually answer “Yes” and not feel the slightest ounce of shame or embarrassment if his response was accurate.

There is a certain characteristic about each of us that can be difficult to discuss. It’s not race, gender, religion, or even sexuality (though these are at many times difficult to honestly discuss). No, in America, even the most open-minded and equivocating liberal can get squeamish when discussing the characteristic of achievement. If you are the best at something, you had better keep it to yourself, lest you sound like you are bragging, and nobody likes a braggart. Bragging hurts people’s feelings, and is relegated to the caricatured world of hip-hop.

Well, there is one non-rapper in whom elitism has found a sympathetic voice. His name is Brad Bird, and he is the writer and director of the Academy-Award winning Pixar movies The Incredibles and Ratatouille. These two movies not only are about the elite, but these movies celebrate elitism.

Brad Bird has been outspoken in his support for animation as a tool to express his vision. Listening to him during his interviews on the DVD extras, I easily got the impression that he thinks very highly of himself. What’s more, I couldn’t disagree, certainly not after watching his movies. Bird knows not only knows how to tell a story, he knows what kind of story he feels he needs to tell. And the common thread binding The Incredibles and Ratatouille is the pride one should have in being the best.

In both movies, the protagonists never had to work for their skills; both the Incredible family and Remy the rat were born with their powers and palate, respectively. In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible is frustrated at having to hide his power, and is mad that his super-fast son Dash isn’t allowed to compete in sports. When he objects to attending his Dash’s “graduation” from the fourth grade to the fifth, he exclaims, “[A ceremony is] psychotic! They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity…” And who is the villain in this movie? A smart, yet disillusioned, inventor, bitter that his youthful efforts were rejected by Mr. Incredible. His master plan is to equalize the playing field by selling his inventions to give ordinary people super powers; in his words, “when everyone’s super, no one will be.”

In Ratatouille, there are two characters that illustrate Bird’s elitist streak: Remy the rat, and Anton Ego, the appropriately named food critic. Both Remy and Ego consider themselves superior in knowing what tastes good. Other movies would have painted Ego as someone who didn’t know anything about what he critiqued and turned him into some sort of buffoon (much the same way Bob Balaban’s critic character in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Lady in the Water was portrayed). But his monologue at the end of the film makes this stuck-up food critic a sympathetic character:

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more.

It is not too much of a stretch to see that Bird is using Ego to plead a case for himself; Bird is a man of “new talent,” and the world of animation showcases the “new creations” that have the potential to rock even the most stodgy film critics to their core.

Unfortunately, Bird’s films leave out two very important facets of achievement. The first is the potential emptiness that comes from being at the top. At the end of the movie, notice how after Dash easily wins a school race, he jogs off the track with a smug look on his face. Dash is the fastest runner in his school, no doubt. But what would happen to his mentality after winning every race without even trying? What would Dash gain from effortless wins at trivial contests? Second, Bird’s films do not focus on something that I’ve found to be true in all people: that everyone is good in at least one thing if they try. For Linguini, the would-be chef, it’s roller skating. For Remy’s father, it’s leadership over an entire colony. No, not just anyone can cook, but anyone can do something well.

It is this dismissal of other people’s achievements that is the dark side of elitism. This dismissal stems from an inability to equivocate. And from what I’ve seen, Senator Obama is the most equivocal politician since Adlai Stevenson. Obama is an elite senator; he is definitely not an elitist.

The Power of Youth

In November of 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Of course, they only took note of songs released after 1950 (with one exception released in 1949), so Chopin's Polonaise in A-Flat Major and Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture did not make the list. (That's a travesty, because the 1812 Overture has cannonfire as percussion. Cannonfire!) If one were to take the list at face value, it would appear that the 1960s was the only decade that produced music worth listening to. Virtually every Beatles, Beach Boys, and Rolling Stones song is on this list. The number one song is "Like a Rolling Stone," by Bob Dylan, undoubtedly picked for only two reasons: the title, and Bob Dylan. The most recent song to make the list (at the time of publication) was "Hey Ya," by Outkast, coming in at #180. That's a nice song, but better than "Thriller," by Michael Jackson (which didn't even make the list)?

To me, the list is indicative of one of the more interesting facets of human nature: how different age groups perceive each other. In 1967, when Rolling Stone Magazine was first published, it was representative of the hippie folk scene that defined counterculture at the time. While youths were fighting, killing, and dying in Vietnam, other youths were protesting the war. Today, many of those youths are grandparents, and like all grandparents before them, they think that things were a lot better when they were in charge.

It's easy to scoff at personalities like Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) or Andy Rooney, and for good reason. These are men who are set in their ways and seem to be confused at the advances in technology (Senator Stevens infamously compared the Internet as "a series of tubes"). But put in perspective, the editors at Rolling Stone Magazine are not that far behind. For all intents and purposes, the compilers of that list were the elderly. Maybe not in terms of numerical age, but definitely in terms of state of mind.

In all cultures, humanity is taught to respect its elders. After all, they've lived longer, and presumably have survived many of the same experiences that youth inevitably goes through. Their survival is evidence of their wisdom, and it would behoove young people to pay attention to what the elders have to say, lest youth set themselves upon a course that is irreversibly destructive.

What the elderly consistently seem to forget is that throughout history, it is its youth that provides the vision and will to explore radical ideas, ideas that help shape humanity's course through time as forward progression, not reactionary regression. Paradoxically, as time progresses, these trailblazing youths are accepted into the establishment and are cited as evidence of the power of age and wisdom. However, we don't see this because we focus on the outrageous negativity that seems to generate from young people simply because they are young. We condemn Lindsay Lohan as an alcoholic, but it's OK to hear stories of how Peter O'Toole went on a bender with Richard Harris back in the day, or nostalgically remember the good old days of John Belushi.

Yet humanity always expresses suprise and admiration when a young person does something noteworthy, as if accomplishment is reserved only for the aged. Let's look at four historical figures and their ages when they first burst onto the scene:

Name: Albert Einstein
Accomplishment: Theory of Relativity, redefining old Newtonian notions of gravity and time
Age: 26

Name: Martin Luther King
Accomplishment: Led Montgomery Bus Boycott, kick-starting the Civil Rights Movement
Age: 26

Name: Thomas Jefferson
Accomplishment: Wrote the Declaration of Independence, a document that applied Enlightenment ideals in political ideology
Age: 33

Name: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Accomplishment: Dying before he became really popular
Age: 35

Who else? Post whom you think we should remember as an icon of youthful innovation.

Why Correct Pronounciation is So Important

If you live in or near a diverse metropolitan area such as Washington, DC, you'll hear more than your share of weird names. By "weird," of course I mean "difficult to figure out how to say." However (at least here in the DC metro area), it is way more unusual to run into an easy-to-pronounce English, Jewish, or Latino name (such as Williams, Cohen, or Lopez) than it is to run into those harder-to-pronounce names of the rest of the world. Names are things each of us takes very seriously, especially when it comes to our own. It can be a source of great frustration if your name isn't easily pronouncable; I know that my North African last name isn't common, but it's not that hard to get correct, and I am very grateful when my name is pronounced correctly on the first try.

Of course, I can forgive people not being able to get my name right away. After all, my last name is unique to a family originally from the coastal town of Hammam-Sousse, Tunisia. But when it comes to names that we, as Americans, should all know how to pronounce correctly, I get very picky. I know I'm not the only one. On January 18, 2008, Michelle Obama's mispronounciation of Nevada elicited some dismayed reactions from her audience. To her credit, Ms. Obama immediately and fervently corrected her pronounciation.


It may sound elitist to criticize the pronounciation of certain words, but it is extremely difficult to take someone seriously when that person pronounces the word nuclear as "noo-kyuh-luhr." Or when "jaguar" is pronounced "jag-wire." "Birff-day," "ex-scape," and nowadays, "eye-rack" for "Iraq" are other examples.

But why bother? You might wonder who cares about the difference between saying "neh-VAAH-duh" (incorrect) or "nuh-VAD-uh" (correct)? Well, for starters, Nevadans do. Learning how to pronounce names as they should be pronounced shows a degree of consideration to others. Not bothering to care about what may seem small to one person is the antithesis to equivocation. In the end, it's about caring and respect.

Here are some places that I've learned how to pronounce correctly:

• Helena, Montana. It's HEL-luh-nuh, not huh-LAY-nuh. I actually called the city to confirm. Coincidentally, it's the way my daughter's name should be pronounced.
• Worcester or Gloucester, Massachusetts: It's "wuss-ster" or "gloss-ster." Think of the "worce-" or "glouce-" as one syllable. Ironically, citizens of those cities can't pronounce "Harvard" correctly.
• Concord, New Hampshire. Pronounced exactly like "conquered."

Any other names or things you wish people would pronounce correctly?