Hate Crimes Against Muslims Continue to Rise in 2016

[ThatRobGuy]

Sure, I'm happy to be an adult in the room, but I still don't want people to beat Muslims up.

Correct, I stated the same thing...nobody should be getting harassed/beat/etc for any reason (religious or otherwise). I was merely highlighting the fact that there are certain folks who do quite a bit of mental gymnastics in order avoid having to acknowledge some truths that are inconvenient for their own political agendas. I was also highlighting the fact that certain problems are made worse (in terms of people taking reactionary "vigilante" measures) when society does everything in their power to ignore a problem (or pretend a problem isn't a problem). Thus the reason I pointed out the parallels between the techniques used by the Muslim apologists on the left, and the "Blue Lives Matter" crowd from the right.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

We have a topic on hate crimes against Muslims and people are trying to make this topic about terrorism? Typical.

If the FBI views the two as being closely related, then why can't one be brought up when discussing the other?

...but if that avenue of discussion doesn't tickle your fancy, then we'll just skip that portion for now and focus on the 2nd part of my post, would you care to address that? (i'll paste it below)

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Again, to clarify, I'm not advocating (nor excusing) any sort of hateful acts against Muslims (even though I'll most likely be accused of that in the posts to follow)...however, once again (like I do in all of these threads), I ask...can we please be adults and just acknowledge that we know why people are a bit extra agitated about Islam (in comparison to other groups) instead of being intentionally naive and saying "gee, I just can't figure out why people are more critical of Islam than other groups...other groups do bad stuff too...hmmm...must be Islamaphobia"...we all know the answer to that question, let's not play dumb.

What people don't realize is that failure to at least acknowledge a problem just creates a more hostile environment where certain, less rational people are going to feel emboldened with the idea that "well, if nobody is going to do anything, I will!"

Progressives seem to have no problems acknowledging this as it pertains to the issue of racism and mistreatment by the police, and there are quite a few parallels. All of the arguments progressives make in defense of Islam are the exact same kinds of arguments the "Blue lives matter" people make when trying to defend the institution of law enforcement after a cop shoots an unarmed black kid. "Most of them would never do this", "you're broad-brushing based on a few bad apples", "you just have prejudice against XYZ", "the media is making it seem worse than what it actually is", etc...

And when an angry young black man lashes out on a police officer over it, progressives (and #BLM supporters) have no problem realizing that, while it was a wrong, foolish act, it was because it was pent up anger and frustration over society's failure to acknowledge a very real problem.

All I ask of people is why can't they use that kind of perceptive reasoning consistently?
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[SummerMadness]

[Staff edit]

Remember, if you're Muslim, Black, Brown, whatever is not part of the White Christian majority in the United States, then your entire group has a problem, it's a cultural problem endemic to your group. But if a Christian or white person does something similar, we must always recognize their individuality, never ascribe their actions to a larger group.

At the end of the day, a lot of the nay saying is a poor attempt to justify violence and/or hate crimes against Muslims, as if they are responsible for the actions of every Muslim in the world.

 

[MrSpikey]

While I agree that Muslims shouldn't be targeted for abuse (physical or otherwise). I do have some issues with the way "hate crime" legislation is structured and enforced.

So do I, on the whole.

First off, the laws say one thing, but people enforcing them say another:
The FBI's hate crimes statistics for 1993, which similarly reported 20% of all hate crimes to be committed against white people, prompted Jill Tregor, assistant regional FBI director, to decry it as "an abuse of what the hate crime laws were intended to cover", stating that the white victims of these crimes were employing hate crime laws as a means to further penalize minorities.

Based on that statement, it's pretty clear that the whole purpose of the creation of hate crimes were to over-penalize whites when they commit crimes against minority groups. Basically what Jill is saying is, when white people abuse others, it's because white people are bad and should be punished more...when others abuse white people, white people are bad for wanting the same kinds of laws applied consistently.

Can you base it on that statement? No link, so it's hard to see what prompted her to say that, other than your assertion of the figures. People of all ethnic backgrounds can be racist dicks, but I think you need a bit more to support the assertion you are making there.

Second, I don't like that they cover circumstances of choice the same way they cover circumstances of birth. Why should religion be an thought process for which an attack against someone else carries a heftier sentence. Why should a person attacking a Muslim get a harsher sentence than the Cleveland Indians fan who punched out the Cubs fan last year? Both were cases where the person wasn't like because of an ideology they held...one just happens to be where a person thinks a particular deity is better, where the other is where a person thinks a particular city/team is better. Why is one special?

Intellectually, I agree. I can't remember the last time Cubs fans had to flee their country for their lives, though. If someone is taking part in an a deliberate campaign to attack people because of their choices, in a wholesale manner, the victims deserve protection. The question of what is "choice" and "circumstance" is never far away from the forefront of American politics, either.

Lastly, I don't like how much they've watered down the terms "extremism", "radicalism", and "terrorism". It's blatantly obvious that they've watered down the terms with the sole purpose of political correctness so they can pad the stats creatively to make it sound as if "every group does it at the same rate" to counter people who are upset at the fact that certain groups have higher concentrations of large-scale, violent outbursts...

They'll trot out these doctored up statistics where they can say "well, ya know, white power groups and Christian extremists have actually committed more acts of extremism since 9/11 than Muslims".

They conveniently leave out the fact that they're treating an instance of graffiti/vandalism the same as Pulse nightclub for the purposes of reporting.

Sorry, 2 instances of spray painting a swastika isn't "worse" than 1 mass shooting simply because "The number 2 > the number 1". However, that's the way they report these stats for the purposes of political correctness. Both acts are deplorable, both are not equally deplorable.

Yet you trot one act out (Pulse) and say it is being compared to graffiti. Maybe you could have thought of some more serious acts to relate this to?

If you want to provide some evidence that it's "blatantly obvious" that "they can pad the stats creatively" to paint "white power groups and Christian extremists" in a bad light compared to the extremism of "Muslims", since 9/11, please do so. Without it, your argument is mere conjecture, and not without it's own bias.

Again, to clarify, I'm not advocating (nor excusing) any sort of hateful acts against Muslims (even though I'll most likely be accused of that in the posts to follow)...however, once again (like I do in all of these threads), I ask...can we please be adults and just acknowledge that we know why people are a bit extra agitated about Islam (in comparison to other groups) instead of being intentionally naive and saying "gee, I just can't figure out why people are more critical of Islam than other groups...other groups do bad stuff too...hmmm...must be Islamaphobia"...we all know the answer to that question, let's not play dumb.

Show some evidence, please. The FBI stats on domestic terrorism disagree with you, if you want to undermine them, then you need to provide evidence, not conjecture.

All I ask of people is why can't you use that kind of perceptive reasoning consistently?

Well, quite.

 

[CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN]

I'm curious to see how much more violence arose since Trump became president. Since he seemed to encourage hate. Against Muslims.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. . .

 

[SummerMadness]

Spoiler

The treatment of women under Sharia Law is the most prominent hate crime globally.



If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. . .

What does this have to do with hate crimes?

 

[Wolfe]

If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. . .

Nahh man, totally like, the best group ever man, like, we should be totally accepting dude, love not hate bro.

 

[Wolfe]

What does this have to do with hate crimes?

The fact that it's a hate crime, might have something small to do with it.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

What does this have to do with hate crimes?

Hate produces hate. You reap what you sow.
.

 

[Wolfe]

The fact that it's a hate crime, might have something small to do with it.

Point is, you demonize it when it happens to muslim, but you shut your mouth when muslims do stuff like this.
It's sick.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

Point is, you demonize it when it happens to muslim, but you shut your mouth when muslims do stuff like this.
It's sick.

On a Christian site, I've seen cop killers and terrorists being defended, while Christians are demonized. It boggles the mind.

 

[Wolfe]

Cop killers and terrorists are well-defended, while Christians are demonized. It boggles the mind.

Aye, it does, it really does.

But hey, wouldn't wanna seem intolerant eh?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Yet you trot one act out (Pulse) and say it is being compared to graffiti. Maybe you could have thought of some more serious acts to relate this to?

If you want to provide some evidence that it's "blatantly obvious" that "they can pad the stats creatively" to paint "white power groups and Christian extremists" in a bad light compared to the extremism of "Muslims", since 9/11, please do so. Without it, your argument is mere conjecture, and not without it's own bias.

Maybe you're missing the point of what I was trying to say. The FBI is putting all things they define as "hate crimes" and "extremism" under one blanket...and then news outlets, desperately trying to be PC, report aggregated stats that tell a very different tale than reality.

They're casting a wide net in terms of what they consider "terrorism".

So when you see statements made saying "Well, actually neo nazi extremists have committed more acts of terror on US soils than Muslims since 9/11", what they're not telling you is that 99% of the acts of extremism coming from the neo nazis involve property damage and hate speech...the same isn't true for acts of extremism as it pertains to Muslim radicals.

Or, I can just put it the blunt way... people are more concerned about Islamic extremism compared to other forms of extremism because Islamic extremists are killing more people than the other forms. (in more instances, and in larger concentrations)

Show some evidence, please. The FBI stats on domestic terrorism disagree with you, if you want to undermine them, then you need to provide evidence, not conjecture.

Again, I know their stats disagree with me...I disagree with lumping "spray painting a Jewish synagogue" with "racially or religiously driven mass shooting" and calling them both "terrorism". Like I said, both acts are deplorable, both are not equally deplorable.

They need to make more granular categories for these sorts of things.

Terrorism in the United States - Wikipedia

A lot of this started in 2015, when a statement by Sally Kohn went a little something like "Since 9/11, right wing extremism has killed more people than Islamic extremism".

Of course, many far left media outlets (like Slate and Mother Jones) went off to the races and used that as a means to call anyone who was more concerned about Islam vs. "right wing" as a bigoted hypocrite.

A couple of big issues with her statement:
1) If the context of the discussion is delving into "why people are more afraid of some groups than others", then using the "since 9/11" qualifier. Essentially, that qualifier is saying "We're going to see why people are afraid of certain group, but let's leave out the largest incident in history"

2) The comparison itself is flawed, comparing Islam to "Right Wing" is comparing one specific group, to an entire category that contains dozens of different groups. Basically, they had to look at all of the data, and lump the KKK, Anti-government radicals, Army of God, Neo Nazi groups, etc all into one category called "Right wing" (even though many of those groups don't have that much ideological overlap), in order to come up with a grand total that was convenient for the message they were trying to deliver.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Remember, if you're Muslim, Black, Brown, whatever is not part of the White Christian majority in the United States, then your entire group has a problem, it's a cultural problem endemic to your group. But if a Christian or white person does something similar, we must always recognize their individuality, never ascribe their actions to a larger group.

I've discussed this aspect with you before, comparing racial groups to ideological groups is incredibly flawed.

If this conversation was isolated to the topic of race, then you and I would agree 100% as I do agree there's a huge double standard on that topic when discussing white vs. black/brown.

However, ideological groups are a very different thing. It's a group that people choose to be a part of that has questionable texts and instructions. When there are a high concentration of incidents (or high profile incidents) involving people acting out violent instructions taught in the official doctrine of said ideological group, criticisms of that ideology (and being leery of people who would choose to be part that kind of ideology) aren't in the same ballpark with the bigot who says "hmmm, the killer was a black guy...must be a black thing" but then doesn't feel the same when the shooter is white.


If you had just seen 5 news reports over 8 months showing Neo Nazis blowing up black community centers, and then I showed up at community center wearing a swastika armband and you were both outraged and fearful, would I be justified in saying "now c'mon, those guys don't represent me, don't judge me based on them"?

Or compare that to a real world example, after Dylann Roof shot up a black church, you certainly had a lot of anger over confederate flags and people who fly them. The vast majority "just wanted to fly their flags and be left alone and weren't bothering anyone" (subbed in for the typical "the vast majority just wanted to practice their religion and be left alone and weren't bothering anyone" argument), yet, in confederate flag topics on CF, you had no problem acknowledging the concepts that:
1) When a person chooses to be a part of a group that's associated to some negative doctrine, the fact that they, themselves, aren't directly engaging in that behavior doesn't exempt them from criticism for their group association (IE, your posts telling other people that even if they're not committing hate crimes themselves, if they're waiving that flag, they're part of the part of the problem)

2) When people willfully attach themselves to a doctrine that has some serious issues, it begins to normalize those issues and causes problems therefore being an apologist for that ideological group carries with it a certain level of comp


So, as an experiment, why don't we try evaluating Islam (and people that would choose to adhere to it) the same way we'd evaluate confederate flag waiving (and people that would choose to engage in it).

I'll go first, both have some very very concerning histories and morality issues that find abhorrent and I wouldn't want to be part of either one.

 

[essentialsaltes]

So, as an experiment, why don't we try evaluating Islam (and people that would choose to adhere to it) the same way we'd evaluate confederate flag waiving (and people that would choose to engage in it).

It's hardly a fair comparison. Al Qaeda =/= Islam.
You might as well point to the KKK, Army of God, and abortion clinic bombers and evaluate Christianity (and people that would choose to adhere to it)

Or the Khmer Rouge and atheism (and people that would choose to adhere to it)

People are just not going to give up their belief system, because some of their fellows have been driven by their particular flavor of an ideology to do horrible things. #1 the idea is dumb. #2 no one would be immune.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It's hardly a fair comparison. Al Qaeda =/= Islam.
You might as well point to the KKK, Army of God, and abortion clinic bombers and evaluate Christianity (and people that would choose to adhere to it)

Or the Khmer Rouge and atheism (and people that would choose to adhere to it)

People are just not going to give up their belief system, because some of their fellows have been driven by their particular flavor of an ideology to do horrible things. #1 the idea is dumb. #2 no one would be immune.

Well, as Sam Harris pointed out, what's being discussed is the link between doctrine and behavior.

To the best of my knowledge, their is no Atheist equivalent of the Bible or Quran. (although some would jokingly say it's "The God delusion" by Richard Dawkins lol).

As far as the KKK, Army of God, and abortion clinic bombers, people link those to Christianity all the time...in fact, it's the first thing Muslim apologists usually default to in the "christianity vs. islam" debates.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Well, as Sam Harris pointed out, what's being discussed is the link between doctrine and behavior.

To the best of my knowledge, their is no Atheist equivalent of the Bible or Quran.

Sure, there's no text, but that doesn't mean there can't be doctrine. I mean, plenty of Christians and Muslims have never read their holy texts. They get their doctrine from their teachers. I mean, if you were stuck with just the texts, you'd be hard pressed to find the doctrines of the Trinity or Transubstantiation.

So people get their doctrine from the teachers they follow, whether it's the pope, Fred Phelps, or Sam Harris.

As far as the KKK, Army of God, and abortion clinic bombers, people link those to Christianity all the time...in fact, it's the first thing Muslim apologists usually default to in the "christianity vs. islam" debates.

Are you saying you don't link them to Christianity?

 

[SummerMadness]

I think it's odd to talk about a subset of Muslims and say it applies to all Muslims, but then say, "Well you do that with Christians!" Well, no, that's absolutely false. No one brings up the Army of God or KKK to criticize Christianity. If anything, those groups are brought when people ignorantly attack all Muslims, those groups are brought to show that such thinking is foolish because in every religion, there are different interpretations. You have Christians on this very forum questioning the Christianity of others. If we recognize that nuance in Christianity, why can't we with Islam. I think the simple fact is the people that fail to recognize this nuance lack any real connection to Muslims. They have no intimate friends or family members that follow Islam, so they of Muslims as caricatures.

However, what does this have to do with the rise of hate crimes against Muslims? Why is there a need to attack Islam? 1% of the American population is Muslim, yet there are many here that believe they are experts on Islam because they know a Muslim or claim expertise in the Quran. Attacking Islam does not justify hate crimes, and if you're starting your post off with, "Attacking someone for being Muslim is wrong, but..." then you're doing it wrong, you are attempting to justify those hate crimes even if you claim you're not.

 

[USincognito]

Delered.