John Kiriakou: A Racist Wake-Up Call

[marmar]

A Racist Wake-Up Call

Sunday, 27 September 2015 00:00
By John Kiriakou, OtherWords | Op-Ed


I worked proudly with Muslim CIA officers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. I used to think most Americans understood that Muslim Americans are patriots, too.

Ahmed Mohamed's recent ordeal proved how wrong I was.

He's the 14-year-old who was recently interrogated, arrested, and suspended from his Irving, Texas high school for bringing a clock he made as an engineering project to class. The school said it looked like a bomb.

Ahmed had wanted to impress his teachers. Instead, he exposed their racism and became an instant celebrity.

Ahmed, by all accounts, is a gifted student with a flair for engineering and science. He reportedly showed the clock to each of his instructors until one of them, his English teacher, advised Ahmed to put it away because it could "scare people." She then said it scared her and reported the teen to the principal, who called police. .............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/32983-a-racist-wake-up-call

[madville]

1. I'm not seeing Racism

Most likely those involved on both sides were Caucasian and Muslim is not a race.

I would more likely classify it as Bigotry or Prejudice against Muslims.

[marmar]

2. Semantics. It's the same energy.

Arab Americans for the most part don't consider themselves "white".

[madville]

3. Word meanings are important

Watering down definitions gives the other side ammunition to claim accusations are meaningless because "everything is racist".

Religions and Ethnicities are not races.

Other than the misuse of the word I agree with the overall message.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. And most Muslims are not Arabic. So using the two words as synonyms is not accurate and might

be taken poorly by the majority of world Muslims who are not Arabic. Religion is not an inborn characteristic. Religion itself declares this to be the case by accepting converts, Christianity and Islam take converts who convert themselves. No process to speak of. One can not convert from being white, nor convert from being gay. You can convert to any faith from any faith. Religion is like political Parties, you can join, leave, go back and forth and it is all a matter of your own choice.
As long as religious persons make use of religion as a mechanism for the oppression of others for their inborn characteristics it is very much unacceptable to claim religion is an inborn characteristic.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I think most people wouldn't classify Ahmed or his father as 'Caucasian'

His father was born in Sudan, an area which is arguably 'sub-Saharan'.





There isn't a definite line where you can separate one 'race' from another in the world (though oceans came close in terms of keeping populations from mixing, for a long time), but I think most racists would class both as 'the other'.