Tag Archives: Muslims

Lowe's Pulls Advertising from TLC's "All-American Muslim" Show

Mainstreaming Islamophobia

Conservative nutbags are up-in-arms about TLC’s new reality show, All American Muslim, about five American Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan.  It’s Sharia law, you see.  It’s coming to get us all!  It’s being transmitted through your television box, and the Florida Family Association is not having it.  It is an injustice, and it will not stand!

To ward off this looming Mooslim threat, the Florida Family Association e-mailed its supporters to warn of TLC’s agenda to usher in an age of jihad and forced burqa-wearing, and asked supporters to email advertisers for the show:

“The Learning Channel’s new show All-American Muslim is propaganda clearly designed to counter legitimate and present-day concerns about many Muslims who are advancing Islamic fundamentalism and Sharia law,” the FFA said in a series of three e-mails to its supporters. “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish.” Continue reading

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Roughly the best response to Islamophobia that I have seen in, like, evar.

So there’s this thing: The Muslims Are Coming! comedy tour.

And, like, I almost don’t need to know anything more than the ding-dang name to know that I LUFF THIS THING SO MUCH.

But let’s be honest — wouldn’t it be great to learn more? Here, here, watch this news report!

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So, Pete King and those hearings. What’s up with that?

A quick and dirty post, with some good links for those looking to catch up on the heck is up with the King hearings into the American Muslim Community.

  1. Excellent one-stop shopping post at Mother Jones, laying out the backstory and facts of the hearings: Peter King’s Radicalization Hearings, Explained.
  2. The House Committee on Homeland Security site – the bare structure of the hearings, including panel composition, and, not for nothing, their actual name: “The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community’s Response.”
  3. Adam Serwer’s excellent post explaining why the composition of the panels is part of the problem,”King’s Strategically Arranged Hearing Panels”: “The only Muslims on the third panel will be people prepared to parrot King’s unsubstantiated, negative views of Islam and American Muslims.”
  4. Adam Serwer’s excellent post on the inconsistencies in King’s approach to terrorism as a concept: “But How Does King Feel About Hamas?”: “If King applied his principles consistently, he’d be calling for the Obama administration to negotiate with Hamas.” Continue reading
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Dear Rep. Rohrabacher; Or: You, too, can take part in democracy!

The observant reader is by now aware that our very own Angry Black Lady is also a Lady With Many Smart Friends, and one of her friends, Kumar, drafted a really wonderful letter to his US Representative, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), in response to the ugly events that took place in Yorba Linda on February 13. I wanted to post it here, as it really is a terrific example of what these letters can look like. “I challenge you,” Kumar writes,”to toss aside your party affiliation and stand for dignity, respect and tolerance of all human beings, regardless of religion” — and that’s pretty much the whole enchilada right there, isn’t it?

Mr. Rohrabacher,

I am writing to an elected official for the first time in my 43 years.

I’m sure you know by now what took place in Yorba Linda on February 13th.  I am referring, by the way, to the so-called protest, not the peaceful, family-oriented, faith-based humanitarian event that was disrupted in a shameful manner.

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How to support Muslims.

UPDATE: The “Today I Am a Muslim Too” rally (see #6) is now behind us (read about it here) but all of the rest of the following suggestions are still a go!

In recent weeks, I’ve produced a couple of  posts in which I call on folks to respond to the decision of Rep. Pete King (R-NY) to hold hearings into the “radicalization” of American Muslims, but as we saw yesterday, King’s hearings are not the result of a single, narrow mind, but are rather reflective of a broader wave of anti-Muslim bigotry and hysteria that gripped the nation on September 12, 2001 and has been roiling our society ever since.

I firmly, genuinely believe that the fight for the full inclusion of Muslim Americans into mainstream American society is one of the two defining civil rights struggles of our era (the other being the fight for LGBTQ rights), and I further believe that it is incumbent upon all Americans of good will to stand by their fellow citizens. So today, I’m going to make that a little easier for you. Continue reading

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

On February 13, members of a faith-based charitable organization gathered in Yorba Linda, California to raise funds to support women’s shelters, help the homeless and combat hunger.

This same organization is active in interfaith outreach. One of its leaders offered the opening prayers at the recent inauguration of the governor of Illinois, and it will be holding its annual banquet in Chicago this weekend, the theme of which is “Fighting Fear, Teaching Tolerance.”

You can understand why, then, on February 13, a handful of elected officials — specifically: Yorba City councilwoman Deborah Pauly, US Congressman Ed Royce, and US Congressman Gary Miller — joined a group of a few hundred protesters (shouting such things as “Go back home!” and “USA!” and, for good measure: “Fuck you!”), in order to declare the faith-based philanthropic event “pure, unadulterated evil.”

Oh wait. Perhaps that’s actually utterly incomprehensible — nay: batshit crazy.

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On the essential American-ness of Muslim Americans.

All the cool kids are writing today about the State of the Union address, but I long ago established that “cool” and I have only a passing acquaintance. So I am not writing about it. (Really, did you need more blogging about the SOTU? I thought not). Full disclosure: There’s a slim connection in that the President said that Muslim Americans are part of “the American family,” and for that I’m grateful. Fuller disclosure: That really has nothing to do with this, in that I wrote the following before he’d even walked through the door. So. Anyhoo. Enough of my yakkin’! Let’s get to my yakkin’!

Once again, thanks to the Twitter (in this case, @ggreenwald), I’ve been made more aware of an important issue than I might otherwise have been.

Apparently the reprehensible Rep. Peter King (R- Ignoramus City NY) is holding hearings next month regarding the threat American Muslims pose to their own country. King maintains that “over 80 percent of the mosques in this country are controlled by radical Imams,” and that when it comes to combating terror and times of war, Muslims are not “American.”

I’d heard about these shenanigans, but wasn’t really following very closely. Then Glenn Greenwald (a man with whom, it must be noted, I do on occasion have my disagreements!) tweeted a link to that first story I referenced above, writing

This Peter King hearing on American Muslims is certain to be one of the most disgusting spectacles seen in some time.

And I just thought: Yes. Yes it is.

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I think I hate Justin Bieber more than I like Muslims

If Justin Bieber is for religious tolerance, then I’m against it. 

In news that is alternatively LOL and OMGWTF?, Justin Bieber has been thrust into the (apparently ongoing) debate about Park 51 aka Cordoba House aka The Muslin Mosk That Wants to Kill Your Family and Pets.

A bunch of fuckwits are still pissed off about the Cordoba House being built in an old Burlington’s Coat Factory a few blocks away from Ground Zero and the World Trade Center Commemorative Strip Club.  They are so pissed off that they are boycotting any companies that support the rights of motherfuckers to go pray in the middle of the day or learn how to swim, or learn how to make houses out of popsicle sticks near the “hollowed ground” that is Ground Zero.

Well, this may shock you folks, but I vote yes on Proposition Boycott. Yes, that’s right.  I’m all for it!  I know I’ve ranted and raved about how head ‘splodey these intolerant Islamophobic idiots make me, so I understand that my about-face on this issue may come as a surprise.  But hear me out!

These former fuckwits, now champions of liberty, freedom, and All Things Palin (she’s not so bad when you think about it.  I sort of like her now!) have proposed a boycott that I can fully get behind (even though it turns me against all my Muslim brothers and sisters): THEY ARE BOYCOTTING TEH BIEBER.

That’s right.  These patriots, these king of kings have dragged Canada’s pop sensation minion from hell into the fray, and I, for one, support it.

From Salon.com: Continue reading

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Juan Williams Got the Boot From NPR, But Don’t Worry! He’s Already Got a $3M Deal at Fox News

Really, Juan Williams?  You can’t possibly be this fucking stupid.***

Juan Williams appeared on “The Spin Factor with Bill O’Reilly” on Monday, and said some Islamophobic bullshit about getting nervous when he sees Muslims in Muslim garb on a plane.

Whether or not what he said was TRUE is entirely irrelevant.  He is was a professional journalist/reporter for NPR whose job it was to maintain the journalistic standards to which he presumably agreed when he joined NPR.  He had a duty to the public to keep his damn phobias to himself.  Nobody wants to fucking hear it.

Moreover, people don’t need to hear it; especially not a bunch of Fox Noise teat-sucklers who are already six eggs short of a dozen.  Oh, sure, he talked about how we have to differentiate between radical Muslims and all other Muslims (good for him? I guess?), but when he said this shit– [***this post contains Juan Williams's whiny screed on a second page (I'm not linking to Fox News; no way no how.  So click "Continue reading..." before you click that second page down there.  Got it?  Good!] Continue reading

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