100% FREE ONLINE DATING
sponsored links
| Topic: Mediated Racism: Orientalism, Birtherism and the Muslim Comm | |
|---|---|
|
|
|
Mediated Racism: Orientalism, Birtherism and the Muslim Community Center
Thursday 09 September 2010 by: Anthony DiMaggio, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed Anti-Obama conspiracy theories have gone viral in right-wing peer groups and within right-wing media outlets. The opposition to Obama is reaching crisis proportions. Just one third of Americans can correctly identify Obama's religion as Christian. Forty three percent don't know what his religion is, and 18 percent actively believe he is a Muslim, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. [1] Public opinion on race and religion-related issues has deteriorated significantly in the last two years. While 34 percent think Obama's a Christian, that number represents a decline of 13 percent since March 2008. Feelings that he is Muslim have increased by six percent in that time as well, while uncertainty about his religion has increased by seven percent. In many ways, uncertainty about Obama's religion is just as disturbing as the conclusion that he's a Muslim. It's a major accomplishment for religious bigots that nearly 61 percent of Americans believe Obama's either a Muslim or that he may not be Christian. [2] Much of this opposition is likely based upon a number of factors. One explanation is the stoking of public racism in the "Ground Zero" Muslim "mosque" fiasco, in which the American right has mobilized to try and create public opposition to the creation of an Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero. The campaign was always fanatical and racist in orientation, but it has won a number of converts in a country that has long held irrational views of the foreign, dangerous "other." Obama likely made himself a target of the racist segments of the populace when he recently defended the Constitutional right of the proponents of the community center to build their facility near Ground Zero (neither he nor any other prominence Democrats have defended the actual choice to build the community center near Ground Zero, by the way). Polling finds that a majority of Americans - 85 percent - have been following the New York community center "controversy."[3] A majority of Americans disapprove of the community center, with 61 percent opposed to its construction, according to a recent poll reported on by Time magazine. That same poll finds that 70 percent think it would be "an insult" to those who died on 9/11. [4] Time finds that opposition to the community center is clearly driven to a large extent by open racism against Muslim Americans. Twenty-eight percent of voters don't think Muslims "should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court." Around one-third believe "adherents to Islam should be barred from running for president." [5] An ABC/Washington Post poll shows that nearly four in ten Americans admit to having an "unfavorable opinion of Islam." Much of this is likely related to public ignorance, as 55 percent admit that they "feel [they] do not have a good basic understanding of the teachings and beliefs of Islam." Nearly six in ten admit they don't personally know anyone of Muslim descent. [6] Another major source of opposition likely comes from right-wing media. Reactionary pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage - among many others - have taken to repeatedly attacking Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama." The attack is obviously intended to emphasize Obama's "foreign sounding" name. Little else explains the practice of spelling out Obama's entire name; how many on the left, after all, attacked Bush by repeating "George Walker Bush," slowly, over and over, in a condescending tone and expecting a negative public reaction to his name? Prolonged media attention to the "birther" conspiracy and framing of Obama as a Marxist or socialist are also integrally related to construction of Obama as the brown, foreign, religious fanatic other. A Lexis Nexis search of the terms "Obama" and "birth certificate" from January through December 2009 finds nearly three dozen programs on the topic run on Fox News, or an average of nearly three per month. Similarly, a search of "Obama" and "Marxism" finds nearly three dozen Fox stories, while a search of "Obama" and "socialism" finds more than 300 stories. Reporting of Manhattan's proposed Muslim community center has also been characterized by blatant misinformation and racism. By now, most should be familiar with the incendiary and hatred-filled attacks of right-wing pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Sean Hannity. These figures seek to create analogies between the establishment of the community center and Nazism, KKK southern segregationist violence and lynching, and Japanese aggression at Pearl Harbor, among other ominous comparisons. The "objective" press has not fared all that much better. While news outlets like the New York Times have editorially condemned the racist fear mongering driving opposition to the community center, the outlet (among others) has played into conservative hands by actively misreporting the details of the issue at hand. A Lexis Nexis news database search for August finds that the New York Times and Washington Post reported 56 and 53 stories respectively including discussion of the "Ground Zero" "mosque." In comparison, just 22 stories at the Times and 11 at the Post discussed the controversy as revolving around the proposal of a "Muslim community center." In other words, frames that actively misinformed the public were between two to five times more prevalent in the allegedly "liberal" elite press. Click here to get Truthout stories like this one sent straight to your inbox, 365 days a year. Media-induced misinformation and racism are accompanied by serious consequences when we examine the state of American public opinion. Nearly half of Americans think "Islam encourages violence," while the public is twice as likely to associate the Islamic religion as comprised of "fanatics," as "radical," or as "terrorist" than they are to characterize the religion as including "devout," "peaceful," or "dedicated" followers. [7] What are the major causes of this racism? My own statistical analysis of public opinion polling finds that racist views are most likely to be held by specific demographic groups, including: conservatives, Protestants, Republicans, whites, and older Americans. After controlling for these demographic variables, however, three other vital factors also explain racist views: lower levels of education, the lack of acquaintance or friendship with a Muslim, and increased reliance on the mass media for one's information about Islam. [8] As causes of public ignorance and racism, the lack of education and extensive reliance on the mass media for racist cues would not have surprised the late Edward Said, who chastised America's "Orientalist" media and political culture, which fails to distinguish between Islam as a religion, Arabic as a language, and "brown" as a skin color. [9] All three qualities are often lumped together in the public mind as part of a distinct "other," which is often seen as representing a monolithic threat to American cultural identity and national security. Of course, Orientalist stereotypes are the product of individual irrationality, bigotry, and racism, rather than objective reality. Global public opinion polls find that the vast majority of those throughout the Muslim world reject the idea that they are involved in a religiously inspired "clash of the civilizations" with the West and reject the use of terrorism. [10] While Muslims reject the notion of culture war, they perceive U.S. foreign policy and domestic political culture as driven by a hatred of Islam. Nearly eight in ten Muslims in countries surveyed feel that "the U.S. goal is to divide and weaken the Muslim world." [11] This conclusion is not all that surprising in light of the racist rhetoric driving U.S. domestic politics (a la the Muslim community center "controversy"). That perception should perhaps be expected when reflecting upon the (past) U.S. positioning of military bases in Saudi Arabia (home of Islam's most sacred city, Mecca), the longstanding U.S. occupation of Muslim countries, the dehumanizing behavior of U.S. troops at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib against Muslim prisoners (often undertaken explicitly in the name of offending the prisoners and their religion), the unconditional U.S. support for Israel and the Zionist declaration that Israel (a state in which one quarter of the population is not Jewish) is a "Jewish state," the polarizing binary rhetoric of the Bush administration stressing the "War on Terror" between "good and evil," the initial designation of this war as a crusade, and Bush's repeated religious references in later years to how God was "on his side" during these wars. There was much celebration after the election of Obama of how the U.S. had "moved beyond race," and how this "fact" was allegedly proven by the emergence of our first African American president (no, Bill Clinton wasn't black, contrary to some silly portrayals). It turns out Americans were not as enlightened as they want to think, as the media-driven Islamic cultural center "controversy" demonstrates, and as the "Obama as a Muslim foreign threat" phenomenon indicates. Many Americans appear to be willingly manipulated in light of right-wing fear mongering and bigotry expressed against those who don't fit the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant mold. Obama fits the Protestant part of the bill, but one wouldn't know this from the current uproar. If we learn anything from this chapter of American politics, it is that America still has a long way to go before it purges its reactionary, racist, and religiously inspired beliefs from the public vocabulary. ----- http://www.truth-out.org/mediated-racism-orientalism-birtherism-and-muslim-community-center63045 We have a long way to go peoples. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mediated Racism: Orientalism, Birtherism and the Muslim Community Center Thursday 09 September 2010 by: Anthony DiMaggio, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed Anti-Obama conspiracy theories have gone viral in right-wing peer groups and within right-wing media outlets. The opposition to Obama is reaching crisis proportions. Just one third of Americans can correctly identify Obama's religion as Christian. Forty three percent don't know what his religion is, and 18 percent actively believe he is a Muslim, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. [1] Public opinion on race and religion-related issues has deteriorated significantly in the last two years. While 34 percent think Obama's a Christian, that number represents a decline of 13 percent since March 2008. Feelings that he is Muslim have increased by six percent in that time as well, while uncertainty about his religion has increased by seven percent. In many ways, uncertainty about Obama's religion is just as disturbing as the conclusion that he's a Muslim. It's a major accomplishment for religious bigots that nearly 61 percent of Americans believe Obama's either a Muslim or that he may not be Christian. [2] Much of this opposition is likely based upon a number of factors. One explanation is the stoking of public racism in the "Ground Zero" Muslim "mosque" fiasco, in which the American right has mobilized to try and create public opposition to the creation of an Islamic community center a few blocks from Ground Zero. The campaign was always fanatical and racist in orientation, but it has won a number of converts in a country that has long held irrational views of the foreign, dangerous "other." Obama likely made himself a target of the racist segments of the populace when he recently defended the Constitutional right of the proponents of the community center to build their facility near Ground Zero (neither he nor any other prominence Democrats have defended the actual choice to build the community center near Ground Zero, by the way). Polling finds that a majority of Americans - 85 percent - have been following the New York community center "controversy."[3] A majority of Americans disapprove of the community center, with 61 percent opposed to its construction, according to a recent poll reported on by Time magazine. That same poll finds that 70 percent think it would be "an insult" to those who died on 9/11. [4] Time finds that opposition to the community center is clearly driven to a large extent by open racism against Muslim Americans. Twenty-eight percent of voters don't think Muslims "should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court." Around one-third believe "adherents to Islam should be barred from running for president." [5] An ABC/Washington Post poll shows that nearly four in ten Americans admit to having an "unfavorable opinion of Islam." Much of this is likely related to public ignorance, as 55 percent admit that they "feel [they] do not have a good basic understanding of the teachings and beliefs of Islam." Nearly six in ten admit they don't personally know anyone of Muslim descent. [6] Another major source of opposition likely comes from right-wing media. Reactionary pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage - among many others - have taken to repeatedly attacking Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama." The attack is obviously intended to emphasize Obama's "foreign sounding" name. Little else explains the practice of spelling out Obama's entire name; how many on the left, after all, attacked Bush by repeating "George Walker Bush," slowly, over and over, in a condescending tone and expecting a negative public reaction to his name? Prolonged media attention to the "birther" conspiracy and framing of Obama as a Marxist or socialist are also integrally related to construction of Obama as the brown, foreign, religious fanatic other. A Lexis Nexis search of the terms "Obama" and "birth certificate" from January through December 2009 finds nearly three dozen programs on the topic run on Fox News, or an average of nearly three per month. Similarly, a search of "Obama" and "Marxism" finds nearly three dozen Fox stories, while a search of "Obama" and "socialism" finds more than 300 stories. Reporting of Manhattan's proposed Muslim community center has also been characterized by blatant misinformation and racism. By now, most should be familiar with the incendiary and hatred-filled attacks of right-wing pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and Sean Hannity. These figures seek to create analogies between the establishment of the community center and Nazism, KKK southern segregationist violence and lynching, and Japanese aggression at Pearl Harbor, among other ominous comparisons. The "objective" press has not fared all that much better. While news outlets like the New York Times have editorially condemned the racist fear mongering driving opposition to the community center, the outlet (among others) has played into conservative hands by actively misreporting the details of the issue at hand. A Lexis Nexis news database search for August finds that the New York Times and Washington Post reported 56 and 53 stories respectively including discussion of the "Ground Zero" "mosque." In comparison, just 22 stories at the Times and 11 at the Post discussed the controversy as revolving around the proposal of a "Muslim community center." In other words, frames that actively misinformed the public were between two to five times more prevalent in the allegedly "liberal" elite press. Click here to get Truthout stories like this one sent straight to your inbox, 365 days a year. Media-induced misinformation and racism are accompanied by serious consequences when we examine the state of American public opinion. Nearly half of Americans think "Islam encourages violence," while the public is twice as likely to associate the Islamic religion as comprised of "fanatics," as "radical," or as "terrorist" than they are to characterize the religion as including "devout," "peaceful," or "dedicated" followers. [7] What are the major causes of this racism? My own statistical analysis of public opinion polling finds that racist views are most likely to be held by specific demographic groups, including: conservatives, Protestants, Republicans, whites, and older Americans. After controlling for these demographic variables, however, three other vital factors also explain racist views: lower levels of education, the lack of acquaintance or friendship with a Muslim, and increased reliance on the mass media for one's information about Islam. [8] As causes of public ignorance and racism, the lack of education and extensive reliance on the mass media for racist cues would not have surprised the late Edward Said, who chastised America's "Orientalist" media and political culture, which fails to distinguish between Islam as a religion, Arabic as a language, and "brown" as a skin color. [9] All three qualities are often lumped together in the public mind as part of a distinct "other," which is often seen as representing a monolithic threat to American cultural identity and national security. Of course, Orientalist stereotypes are the product of individual irrationality, bigotry, and racism, rather than objective reality. Global public opinion polls find that the vast majority of those throughout the Muslim world reject the idea that they are involved in a religiously inspired "clash of the civilizations" with the West and reject the use of terrorism. [10] While Muslims reject the notion of culture war, they perceive U.S. foreign policy and domestic political culture as driven by a hatred of Islam. Nearly eight in ten Muslims in countries surveyed feel that "the U.S. goal is to divide and weaken the Muslim world." [11] This conclusion is not all that surprising in light of the racist rhetoric driving U.S. domestic politics (a la the Muslim community center "controversy"). That perception should perhaps be expected when reflecting upon the (past) U.S. positioning of military bases in Saudi Arabia (home of Islam's most sacred city, Mecca), the longstanding U.S. occupation of Muslim countries, the dehumanizing behavior of U.S. troops at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib against Muslim prisoners (often undertaken explicitly in the name of offending the prisoners and their religion), the unconditional U.S. support for Israel and the Zionist declaration that Israel (a state in which one quarter of the population is not Jewish) is a "Jewish state," the polarizing binary rhetoric of the Bush administration stressing the "War on Terror" between "good and evil," the initial designation of this war as a crusade, and Bush's repeated religious references in later years to how God was "on his side" during these wars. There was much celebration after the election of Obama of how the U.S. had "moved beyond race," and how this "fact" was allegedly proven by the emergence of our first African American president (no, Bill Clinton wasn't black, contrary to some silly portrayals). It turns out Americans were not as enlightened as they want to think, as the media-driven Islamic cultural center "controversy" demonstrates, and as the "Obama as a Muslim foreign threat" phenomenon indicates. Many Americans appear to be willingly manipulated in light of right-wing fear mongering and bigotry expressed against those who don't fit the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant mold. Obama fits the Protestant part of the bill, but one wouldn't know this from the current uproar. If we learn anything from this chapter of American politics, it is that America still has a long way to go before it purges its reactionary, racist, and religiously inspired beliefs from the public vocabulary. ----- http://www.truth-out.org/mediated-racism-orientalism-birtherism-and-muslim-community-center63045 We have a long way to go peoples. not really.. it will all be over as soon as muslim azz gets outa office... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Not even. I hope he decides to stick around for a while.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Not even. I hope he decides to stick around for a while. he still has 2 years left, maybe he will come around to be an American by then... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He's more American already than some on these forums in my opinion.
I don't care for his Christianity much though. He shows too much of it on the job. Needs to keep it to himself. |
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
d24
on
Thu 09/09/10 09:50 PM
|
|
He Is Scum. Why are hard headed people still milking him? Talking him up. He Is nothing but a Racists spineless coward. Soon all of his "Beleivers" will hopefully catch on BTW FYI He Is No More American than any of us born here
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He Is Scum. Why are hard headed people still milking him? Talking him up. He Is nothing but a Racists spineless coward. Soon all of his "Beleivers" will hopefully catch on BTW FYI He Is No More American than any of us born here |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Right! How are you Moe?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Right! How are you Moe? good, D, how you been? |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell gotta quit whacking off so much... take a break, it will get better... 
J/K |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Edited by
d24
on
Fri 09/10/10 12:13 AM
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell gotta quit whacking off so much... take a break, it will get better...
J/K Good one! That Gout aint no joke Im on all kinds of Meds nothing dulls the pain
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell gotta quit whacking off so much... take a break, it will get better...
J/K Good one! That Gout aint no joke Im on all kinds of Meds nothing dulls the pain
yea, that's the problem with pain killers, the ease the pain but don't do nothing for whats causing the pain... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell gotta quit whacking off so much... take a break, it will get better...
J/K Good one! That Gout aint no joke Im on all kinds of Meds nothing dulls the pain
yea, that's the problem with pain killers, the ease the pain but don't do nothing for whats causing the pain... Yup There is no cure for gout either it is hard to type |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok I have had the gout in my wrists for 3 weeks now. It hurts like Hell gotta quit whacking off so much... take a break, it will get better...
J/K Good one! That Gout aint no joke Im on all kinds of Meds nothing dulls the pain
yea, that's the problem with pain killers, the ease the pain but don't do nothing for whats causYup ing the pain... There is no cure for gout either it is hard to type
i'm not sure what gout is... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Not even. I hope he decides to stick around for a while. It won't be "his decision" but the voting populations decision.......of course I don't believe in him at all.....but don't believe in the GOP candidates either.......and do not see where the government is on a fiscally sound path or even trying to be........and am concerned for the future of the US,.... |
|
|
|
|
