Muslim Community Center in NYC or TERRORIST Training Mosque on top of Ground Zero with suspicious funds. You Read & You Decide. Part 2.

This is a response to Karen Hughes' Washington Post article, "Move the New York City mosque, as a sign of unity." Karen Hughes was an advisor to President Bush.

I believe she wrote her article as a response to my previous essay post "Muslim Community Center...Part 1." Which is fine with me. I encourage public discourse of ideas.

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Are we still talking about this non-issue?

When the Muslim Community Center is finally constructed, all this unnecessary controversy will just evaporate, then all these whining people will jump on another non-issue to complain about that Fox News will probably rile them up. Non-issues such as a person not wearing a flag pin & Latino-Americans proud of USA have converted the national anthem to Spanish.

Before the controversy, when I heard of the Muslim Community Center, I didn’t care where it was going to be built. I was just happy that it is being built.

Now after the riled-up controversy, I hope that the community center will continue to be built on the proposed location.

The #1 reason why I feel this way is not the 1^st Amendment, the freedom of religion & The Establishment Clause. They are part of my reasons, but not the #1 reason.

The #1 reason that I hope the community center will continue on the proposed location is because if they back down, it will embolden the right-wing fanatics. (Which is a staple Republican argument.) Then we still have more non-issue controversies wasting everybody’s time by right-wing fanatics. 

Maybe fanatics is a strong word. Let’s say overzealous citizens concerned over a non-issue. I don’t think the American people are Islam-a-Phobes. I still think the American people are a welcoming, tolerant, people. If you give them a chance to get to know a person.

I think there is a country that hates Muslims more than USA does.

That country is India. Growing up, I would hear elder uncles talk disparaging of Muslims.

Maybe hate is too strong of a word. How about a strong bias against Muslims? After all, India has the 3^rd largest Muslim population in the world. The country that has the largest population of Muslims is Indonesia. That goes against conventional thinking. The top three countries with the largest Muslim population are not even Arab countries. How about that?

Now my friend who was born & raised in India tells me that I am misconceived of India’s hatred. She said, “Indians are not biased against Muslims, they are more likely to be biased against Pakistani Muslims.” Now I didn’t grow up in India, she did. So I have to give precedence to her because she is more qualified than I to talk about the subject.

But for my experiences, the 2 times I’ve been to India & knowing the Indian culture, & coming from an Indian family. I actually believe that Indians would be more tolerant to a Hindu arranged gay marriage rather than a Hindu girl seeing a Muslim boy. Because inter-religion marriage between Hindu & Muslim is way more taboo to Indians than a gay Hindu arranged marriage, because the 2 guys or 2 ladies are still Hindu. But that’s just what I think.

For people trying to debate the overzealous citizens AKA right-wing fanatics, by rationalizing with them with facts & figures won’t work. Facts like, it’s a community center, not a mosque; demanding transparency of paper records & not asking the same for other religious buildings goes against the US Constitution’s Establishment Clause, placing one religion over another, and especially there is no evidence of the builder’s criminal record or violent behavior. They are targeting them because they are Muslim. 

Actually, the Imam of the community center has showed the opposite of violent behavior & tried to bring people together. At Daniel Pearl’s funeral, the Muslim Imam said “I am a Jew” & referred to himself as a Christian also. Now if he said that in any other Muslim country publicly, he would be killed. But he said it in America, where he has the freedom to say it.

So trying to rationalize facts won’t work with right-wing fanatics. Because for them, it’s an emotional issue & they already cherry picked their facts & figures to back up their emotions. So there is no moving them with facts. If you try to argue & rationalize facts to them, they will take offense as if you are insulting their intelligence because you are denying the validity of their emotional feelings.

I know this is true, because I had arguments with my pops & I would try to rationalize reasonable points to him & he angrily yells back “You think you’re better than me!”

So trying to rationalize with facts will only get them madder. A better technique is to use substitution. Validate their emotional feelings & substitute the non-issue with a more relevant issue.

What’s a more relevant issue? How about when there was a bill in Congress to pay for health care for all Ground Zero workers & the Republicans voted it down. Republicans denied paying health care to the Ground Zero workers. This is a more relevant issue, because the Ground Zero workers are still alive struggling to live. These men are heroes. When the buildings fell, these men dug through rubble to save lives, risking their own lives inhaling the toxic fumes of the ash. Now these Ground Zero heroes have their lungs contaminated & Republicans denied them in order to keep a tax loophole for corporations.

So validate right-wing fanatics’ emotional feelings & use that time & energy spent on a non-issue towards a more relevant issue. And if any Republican slanders the Muslim community center & use the non-issue controversy for their campaign ad, the next question for these Republicans is “How did you vote on health care bill for the Ground Zero workers? They were denied, they are heroes & they are dying. Shouldn’t they receive more attention & see if their needs are fulfilled rather than wasting time on this superficial issue?”

These Tea Party people are claiming the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party & the Founding Fathers that stood up to tyranny. They’re just wrong.

Let me tell you about another contemporary group who really has the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party. The civil right workers of the 60’s who sat at those lunch counters in the South. They stood up to an unjust law, Jim Crow Law of segregation, not so long ago. A law that restricts freedom of Black U.S. citizens. They were bombarded with food, covered with liquids thrown by racists as they sat at the lunch counter peacefully. They truly had the spirit of the original Boston Tea Party standing up to an unjust law of tyranny.

Now I’m not Black, but I am hairy. Is being hairy considered a classified group? Never mind.

I am a Hindu from a brown-skinned Indian family living in the South. So I am grateful for those civil rights workers taking all that crap from racists to stand up for freedom. So I can sit at lunch counter & not worry about bigotry & controversy. Well, not yet anyway. Wait until I open a mosque for Hairy Hindus in Atlanta, There is a Burlington Coat Factory on Buford Hwy that I will convert to a mosque for Hairy Hindus. Just like the one in NYC that used to be a Burlington Coat Factory. But mine will be different, because I will have only one half of the property to be a mosque & the other half keep it as the Burlington Coat Factory. Hey, what can I say, I’m a Hindu Indian & I still enjoy a good deal. And you can’t beat 50% off of London Fog jackets.

What’s interesting, even though the civil rights workers were shouted at & attacked at the lunch counters, they were blamed for starting the controversy. Blaming them such as, “Why are these outsiders [civil rights workers] coming to our neighborhood starting all that controversy?” Because it is their neighborhood also.

The same thing is happening again, with right-wingers asking why are these Muslim Americans building in a NYC neighborhood? Because it is their neighborhood also.

I don’t blame Republicans for riling up a non-issue controversy. I blame Fox News & talk radio. More specifically Rush Limbaugh & Glenn Beck. They & people like them are always comparing themselves to the Founding Fathers. They’re not even close. 

The Founding Fathers engage in discussion & debate such as meeting in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention to discuss & debate on how to build a country. Rush & Glenn act like heavyweights, but they do not engage in discussion. Ever notice that people like Rush & Glenn are by themselves shouting rants without any discussion or debate. They just sit there solitary, all alone on their radio show & TV shows just ranting away & tearing down people & tearing down the country. And when they do they go on air with a worthy heavyweight & engage in a discussion & debate, they just crumble. The perfect example of this is when Glenn Beck was on Fox News’ morning show, Fox & Friends. Glenn Beck claimed that the President is racist against white people. It was his fellow Fox Friends that called him out on his baseless accusation. And Glenn just crumbled & backtracked his comment.

Beck & Limbaugh & people like them are hatemongers. All they do is points who are different & say those who are different are the enemy. Since the 90’s, as they got more popular, the country has gotten more divided and went further down the drain.

I agree with the RNC, Republican National Committee chair, Michael Steele saying that Rush Limbaugh is just an entertainer, just a shock-jock. Because if Rush & Glenn & people like them really think our country is under threat & want to help the country; wouldn’t they volunteer to work in public service?

But they don’t. They keep to their private sector making their millions of dollars. They make you more fearful, more angry, more riled up, then they start hocking you products to make them richer, while they make no contribution to public service.

Do they offer solutions? Other than Democrats are evil & Republicans are good. The world is much too complex for such a simple view of the world. Do they even offer humility of their stances, saying that they could be wrong when they go on & on with their rants? No, they do not. They act like false prophets acting like they know everything. But they are like everyone else, just human & they don't really know everything as they act like they do.

Muslim Community Center in NYC or TERRORIST Training Mosque on top of Ground Zero with suspicious funds. You Read & You Decide. Part 1.

My friend Cory posed a question about the Muslim Community Center in NYC on Facebook & sparked a debate. Then it became a very ugly argument over religion.
This is my input to the discussion trying to take the ugly out of it & bring it back to a rational debate.
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I recognize that this is a very emotional issue. And I can respect that.

But there are some right-wingers who do not offer the same respect. There were Muslim-Americans who also died in the WTC by 9/11 terrorist attacks. And these right-wingers minimized the deaths of these Americans who happened to be Muslim, who were also attacked by saying something like “They only consist of 1% of 1% of the Americans who died on 9/11.” Implying that their deaths are insignificant.

If one American dies under terrorist attacks regardless if that person is Muslim or not. Then that is one American too many. It doesn’t matter if the person is Muslim-American, Christian-American, or a Hindu-American. They all are still American.

I am curious of the intent of the property builders of the Muslim community center. Were they just looking for available real estate in the downtown area with no interest or concern of how close it is to Ground Zero?
Or did they intentionally wanted to be close to Ground Zero in some sort of clumsy attempt of a peace offering & blatantly ignoring people’s sensitivities & the political misperceptions of the situation?

I have worked on Wall St at the NY Federal Reserve near Ground Zero. For lunch, I would get a middle-eastern falafel on the corner & sip my Korean bubble tea with my falafel sandwich. That’s what makes NYC so great, its incredible diversity.
Then after lunch I would go back to work with my fellow coworkers, who consist of Hindu Indians, Christian Indians, Jewish Russians, Pakistani Muslims & the typical White Americans & Black Americans.
We all worked together to build something for the Federal Reserve & for our country, the US of A.

Y’know there are other mosques in the same vicinity, a couple more blocks down. And those mosques are way more Muslimy than the proposed community center. Should we tear down those mosques too?

As I understand it, the community center is like the Muslim version of the 92nd Y community center on 92nd St. So the proposed community center is open to everyone, not just Muslims. And if you are Muslim, you don’t have to be a good Muslim. You can be a pork-eating Muslim & the community center will still let you in because it is open to everyone.

The proposed location is not in front of Ground Zero; it’s a couple of blocks down that you can’t even see Ground Zero from the location.

I am so tired of right-wingers whining, carping, & riling people up over superficial issues. This unnecessary hoopla is wasting everybody’s time. I can respect people’s passions over the issue; & their emotional sensitivity. But goddammit! Can’t we use all that passion, that time & energy more constructively instead of destructively?

Our country desperately needs it. Instead wasting time & energy tearing down fellow Americans’ community center that happen to be Muslim; use that time & energy to build something. How about building something at Ground Zero? It’s been 9 yrs & it’s still a hole in the ground. Don’t tell me it can’t be done in a timely matter. While right-wingers are riling people up over superficial issues & terrorizing innocent Muslim-Americans, a foreign Muslim country has built the world’s tallest building in 6 yrs, the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai. The tower is about twice as big as the Sears Tower in Chicago. If we continue to argue over superficial arguments, as Americans our country will lag behind on the world stage as we bicker over unnecessary hoopla.

The right-wing’s favorite capitalistic intellectual, Ayn Rand, (Or is it Ann Rand? I get mixed up sometimes), escaped Communist Russia to live freely in the US. She was so impressed with America & the American spirit. She was impressed with NYC with the skyscrapers standing tall reaching for the sky for prosperity & growth.
During her time, what was the tallest building in the world? It was the Empire State building in NYC, USA. And we did it again with WTC being the tallest buildings in the world. And the US did it again with the Sears tower in Chicago as the tallest building in the world. Now, the tallest building in the world is in Muslim foreign country, Dubai, twice as tall as the Sears tower in Chicago.
What would Ayn Rand say about this? That the American spirit to be constructive & the desire to build is not in America anymore, but in Dubai. Nowadays, Americans waste time squabbling with each other destructively instead of constructively.

I like to thank my friend Cory for his attempt to elevate the discourse & he offered a very sound argument. Muslim-Americans have a right to purchase property for a community center, & people in the community have a right to protest the construction. Just as Cory says a community would protest to a construction of a strip club. Just as Cobb County citizens protest & denied a construction of a Wal-Mart in their community. The right to protest is the essence of American freedom.

You don’t have that right in Communist China; go ask the Chinese guy who stood up to the military tank in Tiananmen Square. However the community center is not a strip club associated with illegal behaviors such as drugs, violence, & prostitution. The community center is not a Wal-Mart that may harm local small businesses. The community center is there to build a better community, just like the 92nd Y community center founded by German-Jewish folk but is open to all races & religions.

This community center is open to all races & religions but founded by Muslim-Americans who denounced terrorist attacks at the White House. (That fact always seemed to be overlooked by the critics)

But the cause of all this friction is because the community center is Muslim & they do not advocate terrorism. But they are still being judged because they are Muslim.

That right there is very, very intolerant, & very Un-American. It is in the US Constitution that we as Americans have the freedom of religion & there is also the Establishment Clause, which states that the government shall not establish a national religion over another religion. It is these constitutional principles that make America free & great. 
And for those who say we shouldn't build the community center until Saudi Arabia builds a church. We are not Saudi Arabia. We are Americans & we are better than that.

Why do innocent Muslims always have to prove to someone else that they denounce terrorist attacks? Maybe we should force all innocent, peace-loving Muslims to wear T-shirts on a daily basis that say “I denounce terrorist attacks.” That’s how we can distinguish the good ones from the bad ones. They may be Muslim-Americans, but they are still Muslims & they can’t be trusted. We should presume them to be guilty until proven innocent.

Y’know we don’t have such a demand of proof of denunciation with other groups. Other groups such as the architects of the Iraq War of the previous administration. Over 3000 US soldiers’ lives were lost over Weapons of Mass Destruction that wasn’t there in first place. 

Did Iraq War architects take responsibility of this glaring mistake? 

Did they apologize for this mistake? 

Did they denounce the mistake at all? 

No, they actually got medals & rewards for their mistake. But hey, the Iraq War architects are mostly Christian with no Muslims, so we should presume them to be innocent until proven guilty. So I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Who knows? Maybe hanging in their closets are T-shirts that say “Oops. There were no WMD’s, after all. My bad.” They just don’t wear them on a daily basis. 

Now we can all agree we were attacked my Muslim terrorists. But what happens if you start grouping all Muslims together as terrorists. You get overwhelmed by emotion & trigger happy that you invade a country that nothing to do with 9/11 attacks looking for WMD’s that wasn’t there in the first place.


I’m a naturalized citizen. That means me & my moms had to study & pass a citizenship test in order to be proud US citizens that we are.

I don’t want to hear that this is not my country because I’m a Hindu.

I don’t want to hear that this is Christian country.

We have a majority Christian population, but according to the US Constitution’s freedom of religion & the Establishment Clause, this is not a Christian country because the US government cannot establish a national religion. I know what I’m talking about, I had to study & take a citizenship test, which is more than other Americans do who were born here, I’ll bet their grades in history class were dismal.

And if I do hear crap like that, I will smack you in yo’ face.

Wait, I would like to apologize & denounce my violence tendencies. I am a Hindu. Genetically speaking, Hindus are more prone to violence. Just look at Gandhi. Before the Nobel Peace Prize & hunger strikes, he smacked people left & right. So I do apologize. We Hindus can’t help ourselves, it’s in our nature.

The Pragmatist from Kansas: President’s pragmatism can bring progressive change.

There is an idea that government can run smoother if government runs as a business. That is a fallacy. Businesses are businesses because their goal is to make a profit. The goal of the government is to provide services. If the government were in it to make a profit, then that would be corruption.

Government is not a separate entity to be feared. The government is us. To hate the government is to hate ourselves. Don’t like the direction, then take some responsibility & participate. But keep it civil. Please no temper tantrums, tea party people.

Dick Armey, a republican, head of FreedomWorks, & a tea party organizer is always saying that an expansion of government is an encroachment of his freedom & liberties. I noticed that when he & speakers like him start criticizing the expansion of government, what they are really concerned about is the encroachment of their huge wads of cash. Dick Armey & speakers like him are millionaires, and they translate even the smallest expansion of government into a decrease of their huge stacks of cash. He equates his freedom with money; so when he says encroachment of his freedom, he really is thinking it will decrease his millions. 
Now I do think he is sincere & honestly believes in what he is saying. But he is the frontman for big corporations who fight government (and by the transitive property, corporations are fighting us, the people of the government). Big corporations will use ideological speakers such as Armey as a frontman to fight against regulation & government & us.

The President’s pragmatic skill can bring progressive change. The perfect example of this is when he ran for the head of the Harvard Law Review at Harvard. It was a heated competition against Harvard federalists, a.k.a. Republicans & others. Obama was friends with the conservative federalists, that didn’t mean he agreed with their stances, he just respected their friendship. In the final rounds of voting for the head of the Law Review, the conservative federalists agreed to vote for him in for a consensus. Obama’s fellow liberal editors of the Law review were ecstatic for his election to the head of the Harvard Law Review, especially African-Americans because he became the first African-American head of the Harvard Law Review. He appointed 3 conservative federalists to the Law Review, to the disappointment of African-American liberals who received fewer appointments. To see why he chose his appointments that way, you can watch the Frontline piece here.


This proves he is a pragmatist from Kansas & not an extreme communist lefty. With his pragmatic style, progress has been made with the 1st African-American to be elected as the head of the Harvard Law Review.

People shouldn’t be fearful of government. Military service is public government service. War supporters are always talking about volunteer military. But if you gave a free college education to every US citizen, you will see how the military rolls will drop; it doesn’t mean that they are unpatriotic either.


War supporters really like military service. In a sense, military service is a social service where if you risk your life; then education, housing, day care, health care will be provided. All you have to do is risk your life.


Offering free college education will receive accusations of socialism & communism & a weak defense.
For the accusation of socialism, military service is an excellent example of providing social services for Americans & these Americans are the best of the best, highly skilled & very productive because military social services were provided to them. Wouldn’t it be great to provide the same services to the rest of America, so the rest of America can be highly skilled & productive also? 


Now we are still the US & respect private enterprise. But for the past couple of years, we have seen what the private sector has done to the country as a whole. All we have to do is come up with another public service or a combination of public/private service that Americans can get the same social services as in military social services without risking anyone’s lives. 


Now for the accusation of weak defense is trickier. We still need defense, but to what extent? At what cost? And to whom? 


I don’t know if this feasible & I have no idea about the mechanics of this sort of implementation. But I’m just offering a different way of thinking. The US has the largest military budget in the world. The next 4 countries’ military budgets combined doesn't even meet halfway to the US military budget.

There may be an accusation of being unpatriotic also. For this, I have a breakdown of the US population technique in rough estimates that I usually share among friends. 
There is 13 % Latino population, 12% African-American population, & 5% Asian population of the US. 
This adds up to be 30% of US population that are people of color roughly. 
That means that there is 70% Caucasian, that’s a lot of white people. 


In every population there slightly more women than men, so in that 70% sample, let’s say 40% are white women & 30% are white men. So in this rough estimate the white male population of only 30% throughout history has held 99% percent of every institution of power, public & private sectors. (Until recently, the 2008 elections it got knocked down to 98%) 


Now there are 2 institutions where blacks & Latinos are over represented. 
One institution is the prison system. Does that mean that blacks & latins are inherently prone to crime & violence? No I don’t think so. 
The second institution is the military where blacks are over represented. Does that mean that blacks are more patriotic than whites? I don’t think that’s true either, there are other factors.

30 Days

I don’t really care for reality TV shows. But “30 days” is my favorite reality show with Morgan Spurlock. It’s different from other reality shows. The people are ordinary, normal people who get to live in another person’s shoes for 30 days. This show is unlike other reality TV shows that have exploitation, manipulation, humiliation, deception & other words that end with –tion.

I got nothing against American Idol, but I didn’t understand it when it first aired. I always thought of it as Star Search with a meaner Ed McMahon. My apologies to American Idol.

I heard this NPR report about TV reality shows’ most common phrase was “I’m not here to make friends. This is business.” Actually, in the real business world, making friends is proper business practice: networking. Businessmen & Businesswomen do not go to networking events and say “I’m not here to make friends.” They go in there with a friendly, professional manner to do business.

So most reality shows do not have any reality in them. But “30 Days” does.

My favorite episode is the 1st one, where Morgan & his girl, Alexandra go to Cleveland & live on minimum wage. He gets a job as a landscaper & she gets a job as a dishwasher. They get an apartment they could afford. They played by all the rules, working hard & trying to get by, paycheck to paycheck. Alexandra walked to work instead of taking the bus to save money.

It got harder with kids, when they had to take care of Morgan’s nieces. The couple took the kids to the movies. Then Morgan & his girl got into an argument over buying popcorn for the kids. Alexandra, being the sensible woman that she is, argued the popcorn is too expensive, she walks to work in order to save money & the cost of the popcorn is like 2 hours of labor, washing dishes at her job for minimum wage. Morgan thought buying popcorn for the kids should not be a luxury good.

Basically, they were both right. They didn’t yell at each other, but it was a very tense argument. Arguments like these happen over & over & over again among working-class families across the nation.

They didn’t have health insurance, so they had to go to the ER when Morgan sprained his wrist & Alexandra got sick with an infection. My favorite part is when they get the hospital bill. Both Morgan & Alexandra were extremely angry. I thought their anger was so appropriate & fitting. For all those who are angry against the President for bringing health care to more people. Their anger against the President is misdirected.

Pundits say expanding healthcare will cost. Things of value always have cost. Morgan got injured on the job landscaping, his productivity went down. Alexandra got sick & couldn’t work. A healthy people is a productive people. To be productive, we have to keep our people healthy & health care is greatly needed. The number one reason for bankruptcy in the country is health care bills.

In a "60 Minutes" piece, a trucker from Dalton, GA took his family to TN for free basic health care being offered by a group called Remote Area Medical. But the group only offers the health care for only a weekend, then packs up & leaves. People come early & wait all weekend long for health care. You can watch the "60 Minutes" piece here.

The Dalton trucker from Georgia is not even uninsured. He has health insurance, but he is underinsured. His insurance does not cover all of his family’s health care needs. Most likely, he’s a Republican also. I would like to see all those Republicans & Tea Party people who spewed hate protesting against healthcare to go protest at the people waiting in line for the whole weekend at the next health care offering from Remote Area Medical.

Back to minimum wage & the “30 Days” episode. The show did leave out the counterargument against raising the minimum wage. Even though I grew up working-class, the counterargument is valid. Majority of businesses in the country are small businesses. Raising the minimum wage for these small businesses will increase their costs & sometimes they have to handle these costs by laying off some of their workers.

Congress always has a difficult time raising the minimum wage. But they are able to get their raises every time. Despite the times they voted for their pay raise, the economy kept on. Not only that, the vote for pay raise is an automatic Yay, a yes vote. In order for congressperson to vote no, they have to go through a complicated voting structure. I learned that from CSPAN.

So, if you hear congressperson saying that it would be bad for the economy to raise minimum wage. The next questions for them should be, “Did you vote yes or no for congressional pay raises?” & “Do you plan to help change the complicated voting structure that allows automatic Yay’s for congressional raises?”

Despite the recent great recession, the US GDP is still the largest in the world.

Now there is a flip side to this. Let’s say there is reform on Congressional pay raises. That means congress have to find other streams of income. So they will become more dependent on campaign donations, special interest groups & lobbyists. The solution to this is campaign finance reform.

Money is not free speech, it is property. And how in the hell did non-human entity, corporations get more human rights than actual humans do?

One person cannot implement change & reform by their self. History is full of fallen individuals who tried; fallen "Piggy's". (Piggy is a character from the "Lord of the Flies". Don't know what that is? Look it up. Consider "Lord of the Flies" to be the precursor to the TV show "Lost". )

One person cannot do it alone. It will take a whole nation of us.

Anger in the Townhall Meetings

Last year there were outbursts in the town halls. People claim that the outbursts were about health care & government, but questions arose. Are these outbursts racist? Where is all this coming from?

It has always been there, festering under the skin. Even people who didn’t realize they have it under their skin, until they feel threatened or provoked,then it bursted out.

The outbursts came from predominately white group. These outbursts were full of anger; a white anger.

These people would dismiss evidence that rebuke their exaggerated ridiculous claims. So it wasn’t about discussion & understanding, just anger. Although their argument & philosophy may have originated from an honest & valid place; its expression has developed to something ugly with a racial tinge to all this white anger. It’s like a heightened, irrational fear of the different & unknown.

A public option that is optional & use free market forces to lower prices for consumers has somehow became interpreted as a communist government takeover. Explicit reading of the bill of NOT covering illegal immigrants has become interpreted as covering illegal immigrants. For all those who say these outbursts & disruptions are patriotic. Wrong.

Protests are perfectly fine & essential to American freedom; but yelling fire in a public room causing disruption when there is no fire, is not a federally protected right & not patriotic. Just like that Republican congressman who yelled at President Obama disrupting the State of the Union last year.

Remember a couple of years ago Hugo Chavez of Venezuela came to the UN in NYC and called President Bush “the devil”. Who stood up for Bush? 

Even though he disagrees with the President Bush on many issues, Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel stood up for President Bush & denounced “the devil” comment. Now that’s patriotism.

I do agree it’s not all about race. I do not consider most of these people who are angry as hard-core racists. But our American history is so intertwined with race, and we do have the most diverse country in the world; so you have to consider looking through a racial prism. Not all the time, just time to time.

Race is such a difficult discussion to have.

There are conflicting points of view.

The white community do not see themselves as a group but rather as individuals. They have worked hard to get where they are. Generally speaking, the white community are so tired talking about race, they feel that progress has been made & they are ready to move on.

People of color, especially those who experienced racism, view race as a continuous work-in-progress; in which progress has been made and I would hope that progress will continue. The perfect example of this is the election of our current President & white people start congratulating themselves saying it’s now a “post-racial” society with the election of 2008, while people of color still see a lot of work to be done.

I have seen this white anger before.

Being the non-negro, non-gringo, & non-latino in the room, I can offer a different perspective. I’ve always felt that I had to conform to white people & prove myself to black people. This white anger is not limited to the right-wing, I have seen this white anger on the left side also, probably not as often, but it was there.

When I was in college, I took a film class in 2000. The class took on many topics. One week the class discussed race. We had to read an article & watch a film about race. Then we had to post our thoughts on the class newsgroup, an electronic discussion forum on the computer. This is before the savvy internet we have today, so the newsgroup was DOS based. My class was predominately white. After I watched the movie & read the article I went on the computer to read my classmates’ posts. My class members’ posts were full of much anger. I can understand disagreeing with the article & film. But they dismiss the whole issue altogether with no further discussion & angry for bringing up the issue in the first place. I did not consider my fellow white classmates who posted these angry posts as racist. So I offered my perspective on my post. Here is an excerpt:

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The article we had to read was by Manthia Diawara “Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance”. The article was written in 1988 about the dominant white narrative in films, and funny enough, the essay focused on Eddie Murphy movies of the 80’s. The essay describes how film portrayals of African-Americans are ascribed as a lone, isolated black character domesticated into a white environment in movies. Since the essay was written in 1988, Murphy’s later films of the late 80’s & early 90’s are left out. So in the 2000, I made these tables in my post below to show the contrast between the 2 periods.

Before 1988

Film: 48 hrs (1982)

Character Role: Leaving prison to assist a white detective.

Film: Trading Places (1983)

Character Role: Street bum transfers to the white world of wallstreet.

Film: Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Character Role: A street-wise urban detective from Detroit relocates to the extravagant, white, Beverly Hills.

1988 - 1995

Film: Coming to America (1988)

Character Role: A prince of a successful & prominent African country.

Film: Harlem Nights (1989)

Character Role: An influential gangster of Harlem.

Film: Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

Character Role: A smooth West Indian Casanova vampire.

In Murphy’s earlier movies, he plays the lone portrayal of an African-American in a white setting. The latter films show more than one African-American character, showing more shades & differences within the black community. Also the stories are set in a black setting. Now, these movies are just entertaining pieces of comedic fiction. The dominant white narrative also exists in dramatic films that try to deal with real social problems.

Film: Colors (1988)

Subject: Gang violence in East L.A.

Main Narrative: 2 white officers

Film: Time to Kill (1996)

Subject: Racism in the South.

Main Narrative: 2 white lawyers

“Time to Kill” dealt with racism & the torment of the KKK. Historically, the Klan terrorized black people & Jewish people. However, in this film, the wrath of the Klan is portrayed from the perspective of 2 white, gentile lawyers. “Colors” was the 1st mainstream film that dealt with gang violence, yet it was through the eyes of 2 white cops. These 2 films are fictional accounts. Let’s examine the dominant white perspective with films based on historical fact.

Film: Geronimo (1988)

Subject: Land taken away from Apache Indians.

Main Narrative: White lieutenant of US Army.

Film: 7 years in Tibet (1997)

Subject: Young Dali Lama.

Main Narrative: White mountain climber. Character based on a person who was part of Nazi party.

Film: Cry Freedom (1987)

Subject: South Africa Apartheid.

Main Narrative: White journalist.

Film: Mississippi Burning (1988)

Subject: Murder of 3 civil rights workers: 2 Blacks & 1 Jewish person.

Main Narrative: 2 white gentile FBI agents.

Film: Glory (1989)

Subject: Civil War Black regiment.

Main Narrative: White sergeant.

Film: Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)

Subject: Murder of civil rights leader, Medger Evers.

Main Narrative: White lawyer.

Film: Amistad (1997)

Subject: Slavery.

Main Narrative: 2 white lawyers.

Film: Windtalkers (1996)

Subject: World War II: Use of Navajo Native-American's language as US military code.

Main Narrative: White marine.

The white dominant perspective exists on films about Black history, Native-American history, & even Tibetan history. Now does this trend really matter? I believe that these films are not intentionally racist; they are actually entertaining & educational.

However, if you consider the film “Braveheart”, its narrative is told from the perspective of the Scottish minority being oppressed by the British majority. Would it be the same film if the story were told from a sympathetic British duke?

Also, consider the film “Grapes of Wrath”, its narrative is told from the perspective of the “Oakies”, Oklahoma farmers surviving the Dust Bowl & migrating to California just to be manipulated by capitalists. Would it be the same film if the story were told from a sympathetic California landowner? Would either film be just as compelling? I do not think it would. With stories of oppression & bigotry, it is more effective when it is told from the perspective from the bottom where the pain & the struggle is the harshest.

End of excerpt.

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Backstory:

I was inspired to write this essay in my class way back when, after I saw a debate on Nightline (The one with Ted Koppel, not the crappy one they got now.) It was over the movie "Amistad" & Spike Lee was debating one of the producers of the film, Debbie Allen. When I start watching the news program, my initial reaction was "What is Spike complaining this time?" & "Why is he yelling at Debbie Allen? She's adorable, she's a dancer/ slash /actress & a movie producer."

But after hearing both arguments, I have to say, I was in agreement with Spike Lee.

So what I learned from the news, I wrote that essay for class.

Now the following day in class after my posting my thoughts on the DOS newsgroup, there was a much calmer tone in the air. I had no idea if anyone actually read my post at the time. Could it be that my post calmed my classmates’ anger down? Even the professor called on me in class to share what I wrote on the newsgroup to the rest of the class just in case other classmates didn’t get a chance to read it. Now this caught me by surprise. I didn’t understand why the professor would call on me to speak to the class. Because all the information I culminated for my newsgroup post was already out there. All I did was to remind everybody where everyone wants to be, a place of understanding & respect.