posted 09-11-2001 23:04         

According to the local news, the Islamic
mosque/elementary school here in West Chester (that's a suburb of Cincy) received ignorant phone threats all day today, and I don't imagine that it's too horribly different anywhere else either. You'd think that any reasonably intelligent/literate adult (not that we have too many of them this close to the Kentucky border) would be able to separate regular folk
domestic Muslims from the shotgun-totin' redneck Palestinian Muslims who were whoopin' it up on the news.

What's more, let's face facts: Osama bin Laden bears much the same resemblance to the garden variety of Islamic militant as a Double Whopper bears to a White Castle slider. Whereas the bulk of saber-rattling, suicide-bombing nuts we see on the news are basically uneducated peasantry caught up in an ethnic war that they were born into, bin Laden is by all accounts a living example of Intelligent Evil Incarnate, with both know-how and resources. Moustache-twirling super-villain material all the way. The fact that bin Laden hides behind a religion is just a sad coincidence.

posted 09-12-2001 00:08            

1st off, I'm an avid penIs reader, but I only registered an account yesterday, so most of you don't know me.

I'm arabic. Now I'm only 1/2 arabic, so I do'nt really have dark skin and I don't stand out really from anyone 'normal looking' american. But my neighbors that just moved in are arabic. The women cover everyhting except their hands and their eyes. They are obvious. My fear this evening is the anger of the rest of the residents in my nieghborhood. I live in a college townhouse neighborhood, so many kids here are hotblooded and quick tempered. I'm afraid that I'll go out for a smoke break in the next few days and see some violence next door to me. I'm afraid that they'll be beaten or attacked or curses/sneered/spit at. I'm afraid for them. They didn't do anything. I didn't do anything, but I'm not about to go shouting my last name, which is very arabic, for fear of my safety.

What was said about all it taking is a few racial slurrs to influence a group is correct. I'm afraid other residents here will be sitting around getting shitty drunk, trying to drown out the pain of their family/friends that they might've lost today and feel the need to take the situation into their own hands. I'm afraid that means attacking anyone 'foreign.' This scares me

I've been on the verge of tears all day for the freakish nature of todays' events and for my friends that live in NYC and the fear I had that my dad could be comming home from overseas today and could've been on one of the hijacked flights. And the sickening feeling I had from seeing the planes hitting the buildings and seeing people jump to their death.

I guess what I'm trying to say is please be accepting of everyone around you. Just because someone has dark skin, does not make them a sand nigger or camel jockey or raghead. They're not all ignorant militant terrorists. Please judge everyone on an individual basis, not as group. You're could be effecting peaceful people. Please think before you act or say something.

Thanks for reading this.

posted 09-12-2001 03:08            

Pierced- I think you're completely correct, and right to be scared. America is not a bunch of saints. We've done bad shit to the japs, the krauts, the negroes, and of course the communists, all within the last hundred years, all on a mass (not individual) basis, and all our OWN citizens.
Now is definitely the time to hate individuals, not groups, because this shit _can_ spiral out of control- we're not too "civilized" to cheer when congress passes the temporary arab quarantine act.
If I were you, I'd be staying indoors, at least for a few days until there's a clearer idea who did all this (or who we're going to blame). And if we declare war on, say, Afghanistan, I'd get a t-shirt made that said "I'm from that other part of the middle east where we hate those fucking Afghanis".

fen

posted 09-12-2001 05:51            

One last time for the record, I would not support the hypothetical "Arab quarantine act" Fen mentioned, or any other measure discriminating against Arabs. I would come to the defense of any Arab or Pakistani or name-the-middle-eastern-nationality-here that I saw being harangued by a crowd on an American street unless I personally heard them saying how wonderful the WTC tragedy was. (And please note the personally heard part, there. It's important.)

In the immortal words of the befuddled Dean in the movie Real Genius, "never... no, wait... always check your sources." I'm not going to be one of the folks dragging arabic folks out of their houses or cars, or even so much as looking at them cross-ways. There will, however, be such people.

I'll be one of those folks decrying those people when that sort of things happen. I'll be one of the people loudly protesting any hypothetical "Arab Quarantine Act" or etc.

I'll also be one of the ones angrily complaining about "fucking ragheads" when I see video clips of people celebrating atrocities in the streets in Palestine or Afghanistan or Pakistan... AT THE SAME TIME I'm fighting for American arabic people's rights, if those rights become threatened.

I hope that's a mix of attitudes you can respect, but in the end, it's one you'll have to live with... because I don't see it changing too much.

posted 09-12-2001 06:03            

Islamic schools are closed. Why? Somebody was calling in bomb threats... to a school... with innocent CHILDREN!
This whole thing makes me physically and mentally ill.

Port of Miami is locked up tighter than Fort Knox.
All airports are still shut down.

It is speculated that these terrorists may have, at one time, stayed here in Florida... Miami maybe. Gasp, no.

Let's say for arguement that it was indeed Bin Laden... what can America do? Nothing. This man is worth 400 million (and still wears a cheap robe) and America has been after him for a long time, offering 5 million to anyone who can bring him in, dead or alive.
What now?

My mind is still scrambled and my chill bumps haven't yet gone away, but I'm still hot...

posted 09-12-2001 09:31            

Yes... most americans are dumb as a brick. I complain about them every day. Unfortunately, I also happen to be one of them.

Wisconsin schools were all asked to stay open by the state government. If individual districs closed down out of hand then I dont know about it. Personally I think this is a VERY good thing for kids to watch in school. Watch this in the classroom, witha teacher there to help them understand. Parents did of course have the option of picking their kids up without any penalty, and many did... then they all went to wait in line for gas.

There was a man arrested in Milwaukee today for phoning in bomb threats to a muslim school... that man also does not speak for an entire country. I find the phoning in of bomb threats to a school in your own country much more cowardly than the tradgedy that caused this.

Hussain: Are there still good hiding spots in Northern Canada?

posted 09-12-2001 11:59            

It's that sort of thign that scares and pisses me off. I have no affiliation with terrorist groups, I'm a fucking student, I go to school, I drink beer with my neighbors and I listen to music just like every other person my age.

posted 09-12-2001 12:14            

I believe all American white men are to a degree racist. It is whether or not we choose to realize that, that things can change for the better.

I'd like to see racism die. It won't, but I will continue to be as conscious as possible about the affect of my language.

posted 09-12-2001 13:24            

Amazon - Off topic, but have you heard about the little religious thing going on in Ireland [ I believe ] with the catholic and protestant [ sp? ] schools? Fire bombs and stuff happening, the kids [ elementary school aged ] had to be escorted to the school by police with riot shields... it's disgusting.

Psyci - O.o; That's what 10 years of Catholic school, 16 years of not knowing the world, a lifetime of anger thrown inside and locked away, and being in one's sexual prime with no significant other will do to you :P Well, that plus just being a dork with no life in general :P

Oh yes, and about where to move to. I say we build a giant pirate ship and sail around, pillaging cruise liners. Arrh!

------------------
We live life afraid of death, but only live to die.

posted 09-12-2001 13:49            

Peter.

posted 09-12-2001 14:29            

Raghead takes less time to type than "Middle Eastern Citizen" or whatever the hell the PC term is, Palestinian or whatever, I don't care.

Words are words, they don't hurt people. People get hurt from how they react to them. Someone calls me whitey or cracker or honkey or whatever "That's nice, you are observant, G'Day." and that's it. I don't understand why people get so upset and angry at a word used to describe them. It just seems petty and stupid.

posted 09-12-2001 14:54            

Your people (my people too) were never enslaved, beaten, and raped because of there color, and the ignorance of a self proclaimed superior race.

Your religion was never oppressed, because you lived in a land who's religion was the religion of the land.

If your a white american christian living in a box... try having a conversation with a black man who's been charged with LWB his whole life.

LWB - Living While Black.

posted 09-12-2001 16:47            

I just -love- how people can't let go of the fucking past. Whites enslaving blacks ended over 100 years ago. Get over it. Those who live in the past don't deserve to live in the present. Just how I see it, anyways.

Racism only exists because people allow it to.

posted 09-12-2001 17:32            

I'm sorry, but I feel you've been most naive.

posted 09-12-2001 18:00            

Who the fuck do you think was selling the people to the slave traders?

Whites have been enslaved plenty of times... just not for around 400 years or so, and then by other whites.

Everyone is racist. Hate everyone and make it fair.

Hussain: I have a lot of experience with living in basements. If it comes down to another world war or something, I'll be right over.

posted 09-12-2001 18:33            

Certain racisms here stem from slavery, the slaughter of native americans, etc, etc...

And, yeah, hate everyone... sure that'll solve everything.

posted 09-12-2001 19:04            

In the united states

Were sold to the slave traders

by other blacks

from their native countries.

The united states was one of the last countries to make slavery of any sort illegal, but they were not the only ones doing it. This does not make it right, but it sure puts things in perspective.

I didnt' say anything about hating everyone solving anything, I said it would be fair. Its unrealistic to say "dont hate anyone". The people I hate I tend to hate for themselves, not because of their religion or their color. Except for N'Sync. Them I hate outright just because its fun.

My grandfather is half Norweigian, half Indian. How does he feel about the "raping of america by the white man"? Well... that was a 150 year war and the indians lost.

How do I feel about slavery in america's history? Its in the past. I didn't do it, dont know anyone that did it... concentrate on today man.

To forget history is to repeat it, but to dwell on it forever is stupid.