Uh, oh, Joe, get ready to be accused of being PC: but isn’t it time to really say it? Something truly ugly is now being unleashed on our land in the name of gaining votes, creating wedge issues and getting big ratings — and although some will definitely see big political and financial payoffs there are also now signs that there could be serious consequences.
First, we had the case of a New York City taxi driver who was asked if he was a Muslim, said yes and had his throat slashed. Officials are trying to unravel the motive while the lawyer for the 21-year-old who was reportedly drunk when he got an answer he apparently didn’t like to the question insists it wasn’t motivated by hate. Could it be because his client is charged with a hate crime? (Just asking..)
And now there’s this:
In the latest in a spate of anti-Muslim incidents over the last two days, an intoxicated man entered a mosque in Queens on Wednesday evening and proceeded to urinate on prayer rugs, New York police officials said.
The man, identified as Omar Rivera, reportedly shouted anti-Muslim epithets and called worshippers who had gathered for evening prayer “terrorists.” One witness told the New York Post the man was “very clearly intoxicated” and had a beer bottle in his hand at the time.
“He stuck up his middle finger and cursed at everyone,” Mustapha Sadouki, who was at the mosque at the time, said. “He calls us terrorists, yet he comes into our mosque and terrorizes other people.”
Rivera has been charged with criminal trespassing.
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko told msnbc.com that New York City has not seen a change in the number of hate crimes reported by Muslims so far this year, but every report is taken seriously.
So let me get this straight now:
To be sure, there are an increasingly large number of Americans who genuinely..honestly…sincerely.. do NOT feel it’s appropriate for the so-called “Mosque at Ground Zero” that really won’t be at Ground Zero but two blocks away to be built anywhere NEAR Ground Zero. Many of them simply feel: it is inappropriate given the tie in between the hijackers/killers and the bloodthirsty version of Islam that the suicide-mass-murderers espoused — a version rejected by most American Muslims and by most Muslims. That famous leftist/liberal George W. Bush always reminded us of just that (thought I’d add the adjectives I’ll get in emails or in comments and save some folks the trouble).
But what is now happening is that you have well-fed politicians who know precisely what they are doing which is trying to create a wedge issue. Because stirring up hatreds against a group can motivate chunks of the electorate to race to the polls to try and save America from those they have been convinced must be fellow travelers of that group — or even without evidence — a member of the group that has been unfairly demonized. Wedge issues — used by both parties but most effectively by the GOP since the days of Richard Nixon — are highly effective in politics.
Add to that fat-cat talk show hosts who fly around the country in their chartered or private jets, are driven to and fro in chauffer-driven cars, enjoy multi-million dollar contracts, and who are in no danger of losing their homes or health care as they ridicule and second-guess those who struggling to survive the recession. They see that they can go after and negatively define an entire religion and make their argument stronger by cherry picking, omission, and innuendo..and do it all within the cacoon of “deniability” that everyone knows is just that…and get big, fat ratings.
The name of the game here is “deniability.”
Because everyone knows what the politicians are doing and why they are doing it.
And everyone knows what the talk show hosts are doing and why they are doing it.
But in American politics there is a little ballet where many pretend what is happening is what people say is happening or what isn’t happening is what people say isn’t happening.
But everyone really knows what is happening and why and that the words are really THIS.
An entire religion is being demonized — not by all who criticize the mosque plans. And it’s for political and ratings gain.
And collateral damage?
A throat being slashed.
And literal evidence now that we’re in the middle of a highly dangerous, high-stakes, quintessential “pissing match.”
UPDATE: Time Magazine’s Newsfeed also notes these two incidents and adds this:
As protests in downtown Manhattan over the “Ground Zero” Mosque have escalated, violent incidents involving Muslims have increased. Forget simmering debate; this is closer to a full boil.
It recounts the stabbing and urinating and goes on:
Faiza N. Ali, community affairs director for CAIR-NY (Council of American Islamic Relations) told NewsFeed that “The constant vilification of Islam and its adherents over the air on talk radio and peddled by some politicians is contributing to the rise in anti-Muslim sentiment across the country.” The recent attacks, she says, are a “manifestation of hate and fear-mongering.”
On Tuesday, the same night a NYC cabbie was stabbed, a mosque in Madera, CA was vandalized with a sign reading ‘Wake up America, the enemy is here.’
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.