Imagine how nice the earth would be without Muslims.

Gas would be 50 cent a gallon

http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-militia-stone-youths-death-emo-style-171115804.html

3/11/2012 11:56:29 AM

fuck Muslims Shi'ite militants. ftfy

3/11/2012 11:58:52 AM

fucking barbarians

3/11/2012 12:02:07 PM

Any religious fanatics

3/11/2012 12:09:55 PM

Any anti-religious fanatics

3/11/2012 12:26:12 PM

Any fanatics.

3/11/2012 12:26:52 PM

That's a phanatic.

3/11/2012 12:40:27 PM

[soapbox]Why is it ok to say this when people would flip out if you said "Imagine how nice the earth would be without gay people."[/soapbox]

3/11/2012 12:52:48 PM

I watched "Saving Face" last night. It's a good argument for your statement.

3/11/2012 3:47:13 PM

i'm surprised at the lack of white knighting for muslims itt

3/11/2012 4:06:43 PM

What can we say?


It's taken us 200 years to get to where we are and homosexual are still not allowed to get married.

3/11/2012 4:56:51 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ipp-l_32M8

3/11/2012 5:04:23 PM

So one could say Iraq is a prime place for batman like heroics...








oh fuck it, can't miss my tv shows.

3/11/2012 5:07:13 PM

http://wtvr.com/2015/11/20/you-are-all-terrorists-bigoted-insults-disrupt-meeting-over-new-va-mosque/

Lol, 'murica

11/24/2015 11:18:08 PM

they're not wrong

11/24/2015 11:23:36 PM

^
They are actually.

11/24/2015 11:41:16 PM

Woman walking to the mosque followed by an armed protester in Irving, Texas.

11/25/2015 12:58:25 PM

why did you bump *this* thread?

fuck this bump

11/25/2015 1:08:39 PM

ha just did a search for "muslims" and picked a thread. There are a lot of bad muslims but most muslims aren't bad.

11/25/2015 1:14:42 PM

if christians were oppressed as hard as muslims, they'd be just as fanatical. I mean we live in America, and people are already talking about a war on christmas. Imagine how real shit would get if there were actually a war on christmas.

11/25/2015 3:13:28 PM

Totally agree a very small tiny minority is making a whole group of people look bad by association.

My question is, what is the group in question doing action wise to dissociate with and suppress these radical elements. Note, I would apply the same standard to any religious radical.

I.E. its like the Priest who talks about how he understands Eric Rudolph, or praises him for his actions.
Collectively the Christians/Priests/Pope/preacher/Reverend have to say, Blowing up an abortion clinic, or shooting a Dr. are wrong no matter what your motives are, or how many innocent lives you saved.

And another note on this, what can we/media do to get more exposure for the group members who admonishing the radical elements.

[Edited on November 25, 2015 at 3:50 PM. Reason : dd]

11/25/2015 3:45:59 PM

Quote :

"what is the group in question doing action wise to dissociate with and suppress these radical elements"

Lots of muslim groups condemn the radicals and terrorist actions, and do so after every terrorist attack.... but is it really their responsibility to do so? Why should some peaceful muslims in America have to publically denounce fundamentalists from the Middle East when they kill innocent people in Europe? It's silly.

Are you saying this muslim in Viriginia who was giving a presentation at a public meeting about plans to expand a mosque should start his presentation with first condemning all radical muslism?

[Edited on November 25, 2015 at 3:55 PM. Reason : ]

11/25/2015 3:52:06 PM

these are the people actually fighting /being attacked by isis the most. people here are too stupid to realize paris isn't the only place being attacked.

11/25/2015 3:56:41 PM

Quote :

"And another note on this, what can we/media do to get more exposure for the group members who admonishing the radical elements."

And yes, when things are in the headlines I think directly addressing them (not saying you need to in every time, but when there have been a couple of big attacks in the last few years)it is a good thing, and can help change the discussion, or at least dissociate the bad eggs from the remainder of the group.

11/25/2015 4:27:11 PM

I'm not saying I don't understand your point of view. I do.

But it's a stupid point of view, and I think you already know that.

I mean, 99.99999 percent of all spree killers are dudes, but I don't expect you guys to disavow spree killing when some guy shoots up a kindergarten. And, when a hooker turns up dead, I'm not looking for y'all to mention that you disapprove of killing prostitutes. And I'm not waiting on my Christian friends to explain that they would never go to Africa to promote hate crimes against gay people.

11/25/2015 5:39:10 PM

i promise to stop killing prostitutes

11/25/2015 6:52:36 PM

That's reassuring!

But I'm afraid there are still 15 other male users currently logged in who have not disavowed the murder of sex workers. I'm not saying they're all gonna brutalize some hookers tonight, but at the very least, they're obviously murder sympathizers.

11/25/2015 7:08:03 PM

dead hooker white knighting itt

11/25/2015 7:09:02 PM

What you fail to see is that my point of view is the Realistic one for the world we live in. You can call it stupid, but so are a lot of people, and that is whom you need to appeal to.

Because society is looping Muslims with the extremists its important to work to break down that line. That may require folks to take an exaggerated stance. In short run a PR campaign.

Outside of that, society general acceptance of some Muslims when dress and other factors serve to further separate them from the majority of society. I'm not saying that they need to necessarily change, I'm just saying that that will further work to slow acceptance. You can say the same of other immigrant groups, the most successful ones were the ones that blended into society, not tried to stay separate from it.

11/26/2015 12:21:58 PM

Black people have been trying that same rhetoric for years now, get in line.

11/26/2015 12:26:39 PM

One of my really good buddies here in Germany is a Muslim, but it never occurred to me that he was a Muslim until that one time when we went into a bar and they refused to serve him and let him in.

11/26/2015 12:41:30 PM

^ how is that allowed? Surely that must be illegal.

And how did they know he is Muslim?

[Edited on November 26, 2015 at 1:47 PM. Reason : ]

11/26/2015 1:46:36 PM

^^^^
The problem is that there's no PR that would satisfy the people who hate Muslims. Muslims taken out at least 1 full page ad in magazines, they continuously and repeatedly denounce terrorism, especially when it happens, they try to have festivals that show the "good" side, and these things fail to gain broad media attention or get protested by islamophobes.

WHats more likely to help is having Muslims in tv and movies doing normal things Muslims do (which is things everyone does). I didn't realize Aziz ansari was raised Muslim and his parents are Muslim for example. Watching Master of None, you would realize it and it wasn't brought up in the show.

11/26/2015 1:57:41 PM

Oh it definitely happens quite frequently in Germany when you look like you are of Middle Eastern decent and speak with a slight accent. It is something that Germans try to keep as a secret, but racial profiling happens here as well as throughout most Western Europe.

He could have/should have called the police, but they would have just said that they were closing or something and nothing would have happened. The bad thing is that the yelp culture has not really blown up here yet, so certain restaurants that have a reliable clientele know how to play the game.

[Edited on November 26, 2015 at 2:34 PM. Reason : a]

11/26/2015 2:33:51 PM

^^ Exactly my point is that somebody is more than their religion. When you start blending into the culture you become part of it and its a mix. However, if you want to defend your religion sometimes you have to take that extreme counterpoint.

Was every catholic priest a pedofile, was a very small minority yes. Did that mean that priests made sure they weren't alone with little boys for a few years, fuck yes.

11/26/2015 4:19:28 PM

Quote :

" Woman walking to the mosque followed by an armed protester in Irving, Texas."

Imagine if it was a Christian woman walking to church and was followed by an armed Muslim... what would happen to him???

11/28/2015 11:10:07 AM

Hmm. Probably time the other counter cultures strike a few blows.

11/28/2015 1:55:18 PM

If blacks and muslims starting performing peacefully armed protests, this wouldn't help anything, only escalate. This would lead to more violence. Just another one of the "systemic majority biases" present in our society, but it's what we have to work with now.

11/28/2015 2:09:55 PM

Thanks again T.E. Lawrence

5/11/2016 3:23:13 PM

Quote :

"WHats more likely to help is having Muslims in tv and movies doing normal things Muslims do (which is things everyone does)."

This. When a group starts appearing in mass media in an everyday context, it has enormous value. It would be overstating the case to say, as some have, that Modern Family and Will & Grace led to the rapid change in attitudes on gay marriage over the past ten or fifteen years, but they definitely helped move the country in that direction.

One problem that Muslims have had in mainstream culture since 9/11 is that oftentimes even the positive representations are linked with terrorism. A lot of shows (Homeland and 24 spring to mind) go out of their way to highlight some of their Muslim characters being good guys who also hate the terrorists, but it's still linking them intrinsically with violence.

What you need are popular shows in which main characters:

1) Are Muslim
2) Are not defined by Islam
3) Go about their lives in a relatable way

Historically sitcoms have been the best mechanism -- see the aforementioned shows with prominent gay characters, or the significance of mainstream black shows in the 1960s and 70s. They are accessible to the masses, they engender positive feelings, and they are (I think this is important, so I repeat it) relatable. You need Bubba to come home from his job at the astroturf factory and see Ahmed doing something he does or aspires to do.

5/11/2016 3:57:18 PM

People aren't defined by societal constructs? Prove it.

Maybe people should go the fuck out side and talk to their local muslims (who have yet to wage Jihad against them) rather than getting all of their information about society from that vast information stream we call television?

[Edited on May 11, 2016 at 4:00 PM. Reason : ]

5/11/2016 3:58:04 PM

Ideally, yeah.

But in the real world, where I live, there isn't a way to make people go outside, let alone talk to anybody in particular. And given that, which do you think is more likely to happen in the foreseeable future -- a likable Muslim TV character, or the sudden rejection of television/mass media by the majority of Americans?

Because I'm pretty sure it's the first one.

[Edited on May 11, 2016 at 5:17 PM. Reason : might as well say, "maybe people should all be nice to each other on big rock candy mountain!"]

5/11/2016 5:16:23 PM

While I like the idea of having muslim personalities on TV that are welcoming, the fact that Donald 'every muslim is in ISIS' Trump is a legitimate candidate for the president of the free world would be a conflict of interests no? Lets not forget that the purpose of mass media is to peddle ideology to "The people". There is no such thing as 'entertainment'. You are either contributing to or collecting ideas from the marketplace. The secret is to not collect. Make your own logic and verify what you believe for yourself. In the out of context words of NOFX "fuck collusion" lol


[Edited on May 11, 2016 at 5:28 PM. Reason : ]

5/11/2016 5:27:51 PM

On the other hand, netflix is probably the closest thing anyone born after 1995 will ever get to a library so maybe you do have a point

5/11/2016 5:29:20 PM

I know quite a few Muslims, they're all pretty decent, normal people. Their religion didn't usually show up at surface level outside of say, eating halal. However, many of them are super, super conservative on social issues like a Southern Baptist might be and held some beliefs that were really, really backwards.

Several of them had real issues reporting to a female supervisor. They'd follow directions, but they were often subtly insubordinate, or weirdly passive aggressive. I never met a single Muslim who was not at minimum repulsed by homosexuality and usually were hostile towards anyone who was. Like a lot of religious people they genuinely believed that culture should conform to what the religion taught.

It's was usually pretty predictable based on where they were from. The Moroccan guys and Persian Iranians were not as conservative as the Pakistani guys.

All in all I've seen nothing that changes my opinion that in many respects Islamic society is basically a Christian European society from 4 or 500 years ago. Like many Muslims I think they're badly in need of an enlightenment period and/or a strong central leadership which can truly define what is and isn't orthidox. I don't think the middle east would be in such a bad state had the Ottoman Empire not been shattered following WWI.

5/11/2016 5:52:21 PM

Quote :

"if christians were oppressed as hard as muslims, they'd be just as fanatical."

The only religious fanatics I know are Christians.

Quote :

"What you need are popular shows in which main characters: 1) Are Muslim 2) Are not defined by Islam 3) Go about their lives in a relatable way"

I both agree and disagree. On one hand, yes, it will help normalize Muslim presence in society. However, as many gays and Jews will tell you, this can lead to incorrect branding and stereotypes.

Think about the emergence of black characters onto television. All in the Family, Good Times, the Jeffersons, Sanford & Son, etc, all created caricatures that while lampooning racism still hurt African-American images in 70's culture. And what good did Urkel ever do?

5/11/2016 5:58:37 PM

It's also rather notable that you pretty much never see an hasidic jew on TV outside of a diamond robbery on law and order. Most of the Jews you see on TV are ethnically Jewish but religiously secular or non-practicing. I dont even remember seeing a TV character wearing a yamaka on a regular basis. Maybe this is reflective of the Jewish population or maybe not.

Maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems like for many people who belong to a minority population a lot of their individual identity is tied to simply being a minority whether that is race, sexual orientation, or religion. You could argue that this is largely because of how society views them, but nonetheless in many cases it's a big part of who they are.

It's difficult to portray an ethnic or religious group on TV without wither falling into a trap of either pandering or stereotyping.

5/11/2016 7:03:01 PM

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/10/the-citadel-will-not-allow-an-exception-to-the-uniform-to-let-a-muslim-student-wear-her-hijab/

5/11/2016 9:18:37 PM

Quote :

"A complete denial was very shocking,” he said. They had expected their request to be granted. “The father said, ‘We live in a land of laws. These outdated traditions violate that law’ ” that protects religious freedom, Hooper said."

I love irony. This outdated tradition of the uniform is ridiculous. Our outdated tradition of requiring head covering is reasonable and needs to be protected.

Legally I think the citadel is probably fucked here, philosophically if they're a private institute (i'm not sure if they are or not anymore) they ought to be able to require all students wear the same uniform, just like a private women's school should be allowed to exclude a man from attending or a religious university should be able to exclude someone who is an atheist.

5/11/2016 9:45:06 PM

they are funded by the State of SC

5/11/2016 10:00:07 PM