America is at a crossroads.
It has been reported that the suspect in the Sikh temple shooting who killed six in Wisconsin on Sunday has been identified as Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old, white male. Officials believe Page may have ties to white supremacists.
In an article published today, the New York Times goes on to say: “Though violence against Sikhs in Wisconsin was unheard of before the shooting, many in this community said they had sensed a rise in antipathy since the attacks on Sept. 11 and suspected it was because people mistake them for Muslims. Followers of Sikhism, or Gurmat, a monotheistic faith founded in the 15th century in South Asia, typically do not cut their hair, and men often wear colorful turbans and refrain from cutting their beards.”
As the coverage of this heinous and cowardly attack unfolds, we are being informed repeatedly by the press that Sikhs are not Muslims. The implication being that the shooter was too stupid to know this. That he was too ignorant to understand the Sikh’s are not followers of the Koran.
But there is a second underlying implication. That Muslims are more at risk for being attacked in America than other religions. Did the shooter mistake Sikh’s for Muslims? We can’t know until more is discovered about the shooter. But it is safe to say that Americans are shocked by the brutality of this attack on innocent men, women and children.
In the meantime, we Americans have to ask ourselves some hard questions. In what ways since the attacks of 9-11 are Americans being subtly (and not so subtly) encouraged to view other religions and cultures as suspect? What kind of dialogues are taking place in our politics, our media and in our houses of worship? Are we teaching religious tolerance and acceptance, or are parts of the American dialogue encouraging racial and cultural divisiveness?
What does it mean when 11% of Americans say they believe Barack Obama, a self avowed Christian, is a Muslim? Who continues to encourage these kinds of divisive narratives in American politics? And to who’s advantage is it to do so? As if such a thing would make Obama unfit to be President? Or unfit to even be an American?
The loss of lives at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin is creates yet again a deep sense of bafflement and shock. It creates a feeling of powerlessness. But we are not powerless. Americans of all races, creeds and religions are offering their heartfelt prayers of support to the Sikh community. And this is a wonderful thing. But as Americans we can and should do more.
When people preach intolerance from any pulpit, media outlet or political party, it is for only one reason; to consolidate and hold power. And it is this single motive that underlies the darkest episodes in our nation’s history. It is past time for all decent Americans to stand up and speak out against the politics of division. If we are truly a nation founded on religious freedom, its time to reassert that central tenant for all religions in America and stamp out the slimy undercurrent of religious bigotry and bias that has grown in some quarters since 9-11.
America is at a crossroads. America has a choice. We can either blossom into a new American age, recharged yet again as we have been so many times since our founding, by the ideas, energy and spiritual dynamism of immigrants from across the globe, or we can fall prey the vile manipulative politics of bigotry and distrust, sliding into cultural and economic decline as the rest of the world surges past us.
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Young fashionable Sikh courtesy of paul prescott / Shutterstock.com
Maybe the underlying dynamic that is common to both religion and racism is that both of these “belief” systems are inherently irrational and do not support criticism, and hence prone to cultish tendencies at the extreme ends of the spectrum. Not so different from politics and their extreme left and right factions.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/08/occupy-chicago-activist-claims-to-be-person-taunting-homeless-man-at-chick-fil-a-protest/
Mark sees things one way. Other people, seeing such as linked, see things another way.
Leia Speaking of Jews, I believe the FBI still has them at the top of the hate-crime-victim list. Funny nobody seems to think that’s an outrage.
“Muslims are more at risk for being attacked in America than other religions…” My husband’s work colleague for the past 18 years is Muslim and he has expressed that the previous department chairman (who was Jewish) openly disdained him because he was a Muslim ….During the past round of layoffs at work, he just assumed he was at the top of the list for elimination (he wasn’t)….Even though my husband works endless hours at his workplace and tolerates a lot of abuse and aggravation, his colleague has sometimes hinted that because my husband and the current chairman are both Jewish… Read more »
Let’s just get it out there…
YOU EVANGELICAL HATERS! STOP TELLING YOUR DUMB SHEEP TO HATE EVERYONE WHO ISN’T YOU OR WE’LL END YOUR TAX FREE STATUS AND WORSE. NOW GO FIND A HOLE, PULL THE DIRT OVER YOURSELF, AND DIE.
Hows that?
That’s pretty over heated, don’t you think… Didn’t take long to go there, did it? I’m guessing (a shot in the dark, really) you’re trying to paraphrase my article? Or not? But these are your words not mine. So what exactly are you “getting out there?”
Any white North American who hates on Sikhs is radically ignorant. Sikhism was founded to resist Islam in North India and Pakistan. It also opposes the fatalism and caste divisions of Hinduism. Sikhs immigrated to the California Central Valley, where they are now completely assimilated, with surnames like Dillon and Gill. Sikhs are good farmers, good business people, skilled mechanics, and not averse to getting college degrees. In my experience, they are very pro-American and pro-Canadian, because those countries afford them a lot more protection and respect than they can get in many parts of South Asia. At many Indian… Read more »
Mark. Come to think of it, is there a reverse religious shooting? Were the folks at Ft. Hood killed not because of the religion they espoused, but because they weren’t a particular religion? Seems the guy was calling out religious stuff when he began. You might be right, now that I think about it.
Thanks. I advocate for religious tolerance on all fronts. I’m no fan of the Taliban.
Well, as I said to Mike Rowe–the other Mike Rowe–there’s Ft. Hood, the Trolley Square Mall in Salt Lake City, the Jeepster Jihadi, the two soldiers shot in Arkansas, the Ft. Dix Six, the Jewish community center in Seattle, the LAX counter, assaults on Christians in Dearborn and a number of bomb plots the feds intercepted, which didn’t spark a call for religious tolerance. There’s another reason for antipathy toward the Sikhs. Same as the Pentacostals in Central America and Mexico, the Jews in Europe, the Indians in east and south Africa, the Chinese in Southeast Asia. They’re an idenfifiable… Read more »
“However, this area being mostly an ethnic group so white they glow in the dark and start restaurant meals with prayer, nobody’s anything but kind.”
These people’s kindness comes from their being white? Am I reading that right? That’s pretty racist, man.
Chuck. Two possibilities: One is you’re parodying Mark. The other is that you missed the memo to progressives: “Accusations that make the accused laugh at us.”
I just don’t see why their being white is relevant. Including such superfluous information in such a way seems to me strange and, yes, possibly racist. Can you elaborate on that sentence?
Oh, yeah. Correlation doesn’t mean causation. But it does require explanation.
Clever, no? Almost scans.
What would your explanation be?
OK, I’ll play. Well, based on the context of your post and reading between the lines, how’s something like this:
“They’re white. Really white. This is another way of saying they’re prosperous, or at the very least are secure enough to not have to compare their collective station to that of the other, non-white ethnic blocs in the country. Thus, no jealousy arises from them whereas we might otherwise naturally expect some.”
Chuck, I think I’m getting a little progressive political dialoguing man crush on you. Rock on, my friend.
🙂
Chuck. Wrong. That’s a desperate attempt–cloyingly, obviously desperate–attempt at trying to maintain the case that people who are different from you are necessarily worse than you. Wow. In addition, the economic security issue is pretty new. Mostly accusations of racism are based on something more visceral. You’re stretching pretty far, here. Let me finish by saying you’ve gone beyond any possibility of making a good case and reached the desperate and foolish phase. IOW, your point would have been better made if you’d just not done this. Insulting those who, by definition, are being kind by insisting they have a… Read more »
Richard, how exactly am I insulting the aforementioned glowing ones? The only conceivable way I might be doing that is by insinuating (in your mind) that their kindness stems not from the goodness of their hearts but their material circumstances. Please believe me, I wasn’t. Not only do I know nothing of significance about them, but whatever it is that you object to was written in an attempt to paraphase (at your invitation, I thought) a sentence you wrote in the first place. That attempt, in which I tried to point out some assumptions I found problematic though possibly not… Read more »
Chuck. It’s the graf starting with “They’re white…. Then you go off on how they’re kind and not racist because they’re prosperous. You’re not going to have much luck pretending you didn’t say that. Forget it. You outed yourself.
Also, local churches brought in two more refugee families who do not glow in the dark.
Richard, I’m unable to reply to your most recent post, so I’ll just put this here: I wanted to know was why you found it necessary to mention whiteness in your original post. When, in response, you asked me for my explanation, I took this as a request for my interpretation of your intended meaning. I thought that was odd, but I figured that since I was somewhat flip in my initial response to you I was basically asking for it. It’s a way to establish good faith in a discussion, after all. If you were asking for my explanation… Read more »
Chuck. I mentioned “white” in order to contradict the lefty trope that white =racist., which was rampant in the discussion.
Chuck.
From time to time, i like to contradict the lefty trope that white=racist. Which is rampant in the discussion.
I imagine being shot at would cause one to feel a sense of antipathy. How did the folks at Ft. Hood feel, do you think? Or Columbine? Then, when the shooter got killed, he was no longer able to manifest his antipathy verbally or through mean looks. So, as I say, if this is about religion, so far we don’t know it. There have been mass shootings at churches before. One in Texas some years ago. Baptist, I think. And a big one in Colorado which didn’t turn into many dead because an armed guard killed the guy before he… Read more »
They were talking about feeling the antipathy ever since 9-11. The statement is not in response to the actual shooting.
Mark. Mike L. didn’t say he was being called a racist or misogynist here. Not that it won’t happen, but not so far. He can expect it elsewhere because those are typical tools of the folks who favor what he opposes. As you know. If the shooting here were a matter of religious intolerance, then the Aurora shooting was a matter of a guy who didn’t like people’s choice of movies and the Columbine shooting was a matter of a couple of guys who didn’t like the public school system, and the Ft. Hood shooting a matter of a guy… Read more »
Hi Richard,
Well, the gang’s all here! LOL!
The Sikhs all felt like “a sense of antipathy”, likely because they were mistaken for Muslims. Its about religion.
As for the Baptists. They seem to be holding their own.
A country founded on religious intolerance facing down the barrel due it’s own religious intolerance. I feel sorry for the many normal, kind, tolerant people in the U.S. who’ll suffer.
Mark, You use the word “we” a lot in your essay. “We” didn’t do this, some white supremacist ignoroid did this. And when you say ” and stamp out the slimy undercurrent of religious bigotry and bias that has grown in some quarters since 9-11.” who exactly are you talking about? The folks that don’t like Chik-fil-a’s Dan Cathy’s religious views? You need to be little more clear about that. If you gathered up every person like the skinhead shooter in the USA, do you think you could even fill a minor league ball park? They have zero power in… Read more »
I’m saying “we” Americans have to ask ourselves some hard questions. Questions we don’t want to answer. Are we a racist nation? Are we a country of religious bigots? You clearly say no. But I’m pointing to the “antipathy” felt by this and other Sikh communities and by anyone who isn’t a born and bred Anglo American. And if you’re saying we simply need to get these shooters a date, I’d suggest your underestimating the scale of the problem. Because this shooter arose out of the greater culture. A culture in which race is still leveraged by a lot of… Read more »
Mark, So you deny the existence of sub-cultures in our land of 300 million? This guy arose out of one of them, the same way that the gangs that are soaking the streets of Chicago with blood rose out of another. They are both really bad cultures. I am going to guess that you probably buy into cultural relativism which basically just accepts all cultures as “good”, just different, but I honestly don’t know that for sure about you. It appears that way because you seem to be painting everybody in the USA with a mighty big brush. Are there… Read more »
Sorry, but race or religion in America is not about a few crazy racists living in trailer parks. Our problems are much bigger than that. I’m not tsk taking, I’m saying its time to speak up against politicians and mass media outlets who leverage bigotry and fear in order to further consolidate their positions of power. If Sikhs have spent a decade feeling the daily sting of post 9-11 antipathy, it is clear we as a white Christian nation have not made much of a collective effort to confront it.
Mark, Thanks for responding to my posts! “I’m saying its time to speak up against politicians and mass media outlets who leverage bigotry and fear in order to further consolidate their positions of power.” You’ve got the floor buddy. It’s your column. Let er rip! But if you start dogging one side of the aisle, and leave the other alone, half of the people here are going to turn you off immediately.
True enough… I’m just saying “if the shoe fits.”
Have a good one…
Mark, You took the easy way out with that answer, but you are responding to a lot of these posts, and I really appreciate that. All the best!
Ummm,, what’s this got to do with religion? Seems to me it has to do with race hatred (shooter being the hater, Aryan nations style), and guns all over the goddamn place.
What’s the bet on the time to the next mass shooting that hits the headlines? Is it 2 weeks or 3 weeks? My money’s on 8 days. It’s been a long hot summer so it’s about time the crazies with guns come out of the woodwork.
Where do I place my bets?
The Wet One
(from a blessedly cooler, saner and less crazy country)
Good point, but I’m thinking many racists are also motivated by religious bias.
Just for the record, I was right. Mass shooting today in Texas. 3 killed (including the shooter), several more wounded!
Where do I collect! Woo hoo!
Proof of mass shooting here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/13/justice/texas-am-shooting/index.html
God bless America!!!!
Bwahaahahahahaahahaha!
I dunno, I get kind of suspicious when someone tries to draw political conclusions from criminal acts.
Can you name any instances of someone actually “preaching” intolerance? Or are you just assuming that anyone who disagrees with what you regard as your own tolerant viewpoint must be doing so out of ‘intolerance?
Turn on AM hate radio.
In all seriousness: are you even listening to what the other side has to say? This seems difficult to believe when you refer to things like “hate radio.” It’s easily to preach tolerance, but if you are busy slinging mud in the process it really comes across as “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.” As an example, I disagree with quota-based affirmative action, because I believe it is detrimental to meritocracy. Stating this viewpoint, I can expect to be called “racist” or “misogynist” pretty quickly. What is the real difference between those on the left using terms like “racist to try and silence their opponents,… Read more »
I will always consider Rush Limbaugh to be “hate radio”. If you take personal offense at that, it’s your right.
As for listening to the “other side”. I’m not sure there are only two sides. I’d say there’s about 50 sides to this.
And for the record, NO ONE is calling you racist or misogynist here. Not to stifle debate or anything else. Speak freely, my friend.
I can really respect referring to Rush Limbaugh, specifically, as “hate radio,” that makes sense. I think the real issue for me personally is that I see a lot of intolerance coming from all sides. I’m reminded of one of the recent abortion pieces on this site where pro-life women were referred to as “unthinking lemmings.” I read something like that and it’s difficult to see who actually holds the moral high-ground. I absolutely agree that we need to be more tolerant of each other, but it often feels like the demand “be more tolerant!” is something that’s always for… Read more »
Thanks, Mike. I appreciate the civil discourse. Its actually the thing that going to save the human race. So, thanks.
The word “hate is over used and often just a masked attempt to shout down someone else’s viewpoint, just like the overuse of the word “bigot” in political discourse lately. How likely are accusations of “intolerance” and “hate” to foster open, civil discourse?
Anon, Civil discourse is not about what specific words we pick. Its about intention. People telegraph their intention through their words and their tone. If I am willing to respond to you in a civil way, thats evident in how I construct my comment, not what specific words I use. It doesn’t mean I am agreeing with you. (Which I am not doing, usually… LOL) Furthermore, I’d hate to hate to the poor bastard who tries to tell anyone where that some words are off limits. I also notice a lot of victim language in conversations here. Everyone is supposedly… Read more »
People also telegraph theri intentions by the ways in which they claim to hear things–usually invidious things–in other’s language.
“Yes, the Baptists are doing just fine. My question was about tolerance. Are they going to be tolerated, their views not laughed at?” Language like “are you going to laugh at the Baptists?” Language that implies liberal intellectuals laugh at baptists? Language that sets up an anti-intellectual discourse? Language that gets used intentionally? That kind of language? Richard, I’m going to leave you the last word because you usually do get that. But I want to be clear that your arguments are loaded with discourses that marginalize your opponent’s point of view. You are a warrior for your cause, sir.… Read more »
Mike L.
The people who call you “racist” or “misogynist” or claim you “hate” or you’re a whatchamacallitphobe have been left off the mailing list, somehow or other.
They didn’t get the memo entitled, “Accusations which make the accused laugh at us.” Used to be, they could depend on you trying to defend yourself against the bogus accusation and giving up on the actual discussion.
But that’s been until, I dunno, about twenty years ago.
Not to worry. They’re telling you a whole lot more about themselves than they think.