Yesterday Arabian Dissent had an interesting post on racial profiling. When I read things from a Muslim perspective, like this post or a Salim Mansur column, I'm never surprised by the rational approach taken by the writer.
I think many of us who aren't members of minority groups pause over the keyboard, lest we write something that might be offensive to others. I know I do. When I've written on same-sex marriage, I've been careful not to use inflamatory language, and I try to make my arguments specific to the issue.
The above editorial cartoon from today's National Post is a perfect example of political correctness. I like Gary Clement and I think his approach to the issue of terrorism has always been matter-of-fact. This particular cartoon was a disappointment.
I tried to look for irony -- thinking perhaps Clement was trying to show how terrorism can have the affect of causing irrational fear of all things, but given the general malaise amongst Canadians about security issues, it just doesn't read that way.
The cartoon is dishonest. Pretending that race or religion is not an issue in terrorism or in the fear it creates, is disingenuous.
canadianna
cross-posted to civitatensis
10 comments:
anna...not only is it disingenuous,but it speaks loudly to the over riding bent of todays libralism/socialism in the world;blame the victim and apologize for the criminal.Once again,the MSMS(National Post??) can't bring themselves and the terrorist to account for their actions,as that word is akin to hate ,especially from a media and government that sees all white people as racist.
Amen canadianna. It's annoying how the media goes out of its way to portray the majority of Muslims as moderate and even more obnoxious when PC politicians say Islam is a religion of peace. Astonishingly, most people prefer to believe Mormons and evangelicals are more dangerous than Islamists. When will liberals acknowledge that this is a war between us and them, a war between civilization and savagery, that there is a clash of civilizations, and yes, heaven forbid, there are differences between the races?
The US, the UK and the rest of Europe are now pay the price for political correctness and it's only a matter of time before Canada does too. Toronto and Montreal are full of Islamists but of course, you'll never hear it from the MSM because mulitculturalism works so well in Canada! It's important for those of us who see the truth to inform the CBC-watching zombies of what's really going on out there!
The concept of placing "labels" on entire groups, as being bigotry, is sound. But, at some point entire groups must wear a label, in order to simplify the process of protecting society. For example, when the FBI was warned about Muslim men taking flight training, without learning how to land, prior to 911, the FBI said that it did not have the resources to check into "all" people in the USA taking flight training. What the FBI was doing, was being politically correct, in assuming it had to check "all" students rather than isolating a specific group. (this actually happened) Had they decided to check middle eastern men who were not citisens, the job would have been doable. At times, society must profile, and inconvenience the innocent in order to snag the guilty. The squeamishness of the "personal rights at all costs" crowd, just puts the rest of us at greater risk.
I know that I also tend to watch what I write, even when I'm angry. 'Cause whenever a conservative says something that may be taken as intolerant, the Lib-Left jump all over that person and depict them as a bigot.
Yes, a lame cartoon indeed.
Political correctness-and that word is much too kind for what is the greatest form of censorship in my lifetime-will only go away when people allow themselves to laugh at the accusatory language of the politically correct.
If a Christian were to call someone who had a one night stand a 'sinner', most likely in today's liberal culture they would be laughed at.
If someone calls you a racistmisogynisthomophobebigotwhatever, we must learn to do the same.
We can't defeat these words until we neuter them in our culture.
Now unfortunately, racism is real and does exist...but too often the liberal left uses the word to silence and allow them to perpetrate racism themselves. Joe Volpe is a great example of a minister who exploits a race-his Italian voters-then accuses others of racism.
Until people are comfortable in realizing political correctness is a liberal value system not an empirical one...we will continue to get lame editorial cartoons like this one.
The cartoon's point about people jumping to conclusions is perhaps less absurd following today's reports that the man shot and killed by police in a London Tube station was NOT connected to the bombings.
Like many, I simply assumed that a man in a bulky coat shot by undercover officers MUST be a bomber, but if you read the story here, you'll see that Scotland Yard is now caling the shooting a "tragedy" and that a former Met police commander says he expects officers to face criminal charges. So even trained police officers can come to the wrong conclusions about someone based upon the way they dress, or the way they respond to authority figures.
The cartoon would have made more sense had it had a person who didn't look like a young white boy. People are not likely to jump to conclusions about a white teenager with a knapsack - that's reality.
When I heard about the shooting yesterday, I wondered about witness accounts that the man was tackled and then shot. It would seem that if a bunch of policemen had him restrained, deadly force was going too far -- even if he was a terror suspect -- because suspect has to remain the operative word.
If someone calls you a racistmisogynisthomophobebigotwhatever, we must learn to do the same.
We can't defeat these words until we neuter them in our culture.
Please! Please do this as quickly as you can! I totally agree with you! Then I won't have to read any more absurd articles complaining about "political correctness."
Whenever someone tries to justify racila profiling, I always hark back to Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nicholls, who almost got away with the Oklahoma City bombing because the police were busy spread-eagling every dark-skinned person in the county.
I also think of the Lockerbie bomb, which actually was the work of Muslim terrorists -- but which was carried aboard by a pregnant French woman.
misterniceguy1960 - you're right, racial profiling doesn't always work -- which is precisely why they no longer intern all people of a particular race in order to 'protect' society.
We've come a long way -- we realise that you can't use broad strokes, but remember too, that they caught, convicted and killed Tim McVeigh -- and they were able to do that because although they racially profiled, they also allowed themselves to be open to the facts.
The fact is though, that whether or not authorities racially profile is irrelevant -- the public does. The cartoon in question is intending to represent the public being afraid of a white kid with a knapsack -- in my opinion, that doesn't reflect reality.
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