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"Am I racist for being 'alarmed' at this?"
Seriously, be racist. See if I care. Nobody cares. But stop whining and acting like you're not! Just go whole hog and be a fucking racist and fess up to it like you're not ashamed to be a throwback in this day and age.
Or, since you *are* ashamed (and really should be) try not being a racist. Or just think once in a while, all right? And by think, I mean something deeper than "Oh, there's baby boys named Mohamed in England! It's so scaaaaaaary, those babies might cry on a plane, and it'd all be a plot. Ooooooooh!"
Or, since you *are* ashamed (and really should be) try not being a racist. Or just think once in a while, all right? And by think, I mean something deeper than "Oh, there's baby boys named Mohamed in England! It's so scaaaaaaary, those babies might cry on a plane, and it'd all be a plot. Ooooooooh!"
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And I hesitate to bring this up, because it's so not the point, but the coverage of the original "story" continues to annoy the half-assed statistician in me, because if the same percentage of white Britons were named John and Mary as a century or two ago, Muhammad would likely be a distant third at best.
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Exactly. All this really shows is that most Brits have become less conformist in how they name their kids, but Muslims in Britain still favor the name Mohamed.
(For that matter, if there were a surge in people naming their kids Mary and Sean, nobody would go "OMG! IRA!" on them, and I'll guess more people have been killed in the UK due to Irish terrorism than Muslim terrorism. Not that I've looked up these numbers, of course.)
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But I probably wouldn't actually do it, because naming a kid because you want to see people's reactions is probably a bad idea. (Now, if I decided I just really really loved St Ahmed, it would be a different story.)
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Islam is not a race, not even by the loose and sloppy definitions that serve for 'races' in other contexts. It's a religion; a person does not have to be born into it; a person who is born into it can choose to leave. It isn't racism to disagree with or disapprove of a person's or organization's philosophical or socio-political opinions.
None of the Abrahamic religions has any room to be pointing fingers at any of the others, saying "Oooh, bigots". The Jews, the Christians and the Muslims have been killing and oppressing each other (and anyone else within reach) for a lot of centuries now, and they show no sign of wanting to stop. It's very regrettable, because a lot of these warring morons have children, who will inevitably be the ones to suffer most from their parents' insane superstitions, but what can be done? Education, yeah, but that doesn't go so fast.
People can't help their height, skin color, facial features, body types, sexual orientation, disabilities, allergies, etcetera - all those things that come along with the physical body - and one's ethnic origins are certainly a big factor in one's gene-profile. They don't dictate one's belief-system, however. It's not racism to hold a low opinion of an adult who not only still believes in Santa Claus and the Boogeyman, but goes around trying to convince or coerce others to pay homage to these entities. Their faith is their own business, but if they're going to go around spouting that stuff, other people are not obligated to respect them for it.
See, these people making absurd statements about Muslim garb and babies named Mohammed are Christians, so the pot is totally calling the kettle black. Hasn't Christianity gone around the world for centuries, imposing dress codes and other silly personal rules, and doing violence to those who wouldn't obey them? Hasn't Christianity been pushing the whole Be Fruitful And Multiply agenda on its believers from the start? How many students have Biblical names? Sheesh, they're so common that people generally don't even notice that they are Biblical any more.
About Williams, I wouldn't have expected a grown man to stand up in public and admit that he was frightened of other peoples' fashion statements. I also have to wonder if he's really only frightened of those fashion statements on bodies with dark hair, skin and eyes, and wouldn't be scared by a blonde in the same garb, which would indicate genuine racism, or at least 'racial profiling'.
This other guy complaining about the baby-names seems to be primarily a victim of his own poor logic and inability to do math. If Christian parents traditionally gave the name Mary to at least one of their daughters, there would be a plethora of babies named Mary, but that wouldn't necessarily mean the number of Christian babies had increased.
Since one of my major objections to the Abrahamic religions is that they are based on warfare and over-population, which go hand in hand. Bear more Sons of the Faith, to replace and avenge those who died for the Faith: God Wills It! What the people of Earth desperately need is less religion - particularly less Abrahamic religion; the other types aren't so virulent - and far less breeding.
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Betcha a dollar this guy thinks all Muslims are Arab and all Arabs are Muslim. If HE thinks they're a race, and he's prejudiced against them, isn't it still racism even if he's just wrong outright?
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It's kind of surreal, though. It's like when on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Worf and Dax were getting married, and there was all this huffing about 'mixed marriage' - I was like, WTF? People seriously need to get a life if they're that upset about a Klingon/Trell marriage - the actors aren't getting married, and the characters are fictional members of fictional species. This guy all upset about "Muslim garb" - basically he's afraid of clothing he regards as 'Muslim', regardless of whether or not the person inside the clothing is Muslim, or Arab, or whatever. Bizarre. I keep thinking of the Empty Pants in Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches and Other Stories: aaagh, scary clothing!!!
But that raises the question: if he thinks all Muslims are Arab and all Arabs are Muslim, but the only way he knows to distinguish Muslims/Arabs is by 'Muslim garb', then is he a racist, or is he just a fashion Nazi? Because he seems to be saying that the problem he has with Muslims is just their terrifying outfits, and that he'd feel much better if they all wore jeans or something instead.
It's a mistake to try to make sense of crazy behavior; the reason it's crazy is because it doesn't make sense.
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Hey look, green pants aren't meant to walk around with nobody inside them!
Because he seems to be saying that the problem he has with Muslims is just their terrifying outfits, and that he'd feel much better if they all wore jeans or something instead.
He's actually happier that they wear their scary clothing, because then he knows whom to hate. However, he hates them because they're refusing to assimilate and wear what he wears.
It's a mistake to try to make sense of crazy behavior; the reason it's crazy is because it doesn't make sense.
The scary thing is that it does, you just have to find an opening into their round circle of circular reasoning.
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... the opening into the circle of crazy reasoning is the realization that it is crazy. His logic, if you can even call it that, is all based on the axiom People like me are Good and its corollary People different from me are Bad. The Bad people are therefore Bad whether they're shamelessly flaunting their differences, or insidiously trying to conceal them.
The only solution therefore is to eliminate all the Bad people, which is right to do because they're Bad, which can be seen by how hostile and aggressive they get when Good People tell them how Bad they are and try to eliminate them for righteousness' sake.
The whole thing's crazy. It's like a scratch in the record, a glitch in the program, an endless cascade of pop-ups all saying the same thing: clearly a malfunction. The defining characteristics of right-wing authoritarianism (http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=right-wing+authoritarianism&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=d7bb1fad9f187d5c), which is what this is, read like diagnostic criteria out of the DSM: faulty reasoning, hostility to outgroups, profound character 'attributes', blindness to their own failings and to those of authority figures whom they respect (source here (http://www.suite101.com/content/right-wing-authoritarianism-a61455).) Such people aren't rational; their behavior makes no sense (is not adaptive or productive) because it's based on delusional thought-processes.
One could pity them, if they weren't so dangerous, because sheesh, think about how much it must suck to go through life like that. You see a man in a cotton shirt, or a woman in a skirt and shawl or whatever, and instead of thinking "Hmm, nice embroidery", you're filled with anxiety, thinking their choice of clothing shows they're Bad People who want to kill you. What amazes me is that anyone can even listen to this sort of talk without going "Dude, you seriously need therapy."
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I wonder what you think of the Bahá'í faith, then. (Or whether you consider it non-Abrahamic, not a separate religion, or a "sect or manifestation" of one of the three most well-known ones, presumably Islam.)
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Surely, there are good people of every faith, and the fact that I oppose the power-agenda-based premises of the Abrahamic religions doesn't mean I hate or dislike the people who practice them. Sheesh, that would mean hating over half the world, millions of people! No indeed, I look on the Abrahamic religions as being like alcohol or tobacco in a whole lot of ways; just because I think they're bad for people doesn't mean I think people are bad for doing them. Nor do I think that my opinion that something is bad for people is a justification for trying to take it away from them. They have brains of their own; they can decide for themselves what's good or not good for them.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_the_Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_Faith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahai
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_laws
Truthfully, I find that their official attitudes have much to recommend them, although I doubt anybody will change their religious beliefs just to suit me (and I wouldn't want them to either).
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Hmm. Try German nationalist pseudo-paganism. Heck, try nationalism in general. That generally managed to cause quite a lot of suffering in quite short periods of time.
(Sorry - I am not even a huge fan of the religion I was raised in, but statements like that make me go defensive faster than one can say 'Amen'...)
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I'm glad you add that qualifying pseudo-, because although I haven't been to Germany, we've got some of a similar lot over here, and from what I see, they're nothing even close to 'pagan'. They look to me like a low grade of burn-again Protestant Fundies who've adopted a bunch of 'ancient' names and lore because it's So Cool, but still think and believe pretty-much what they grew up thinking and believing.
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I think the problem boils down more to humanity being, on the whole, less good and pure than one should like - and the tendency of people to justify their dealings (particularly the ones that need justifying, i.e. the nasty stuff) with their reference framework. While said framework very often happens to be of a religious nature, it doesn't have to be (Communist China comes to mind)...
Oh, I wasn't talking of that sort of people (though of course we have them, too). I was talking of Third Reich attempts to 'reinstate' a "true Germanic" religious cult, based on a sort of romantic idea of "What Our Noble Forebears The True-Blooded Spear-Bearing Germans Used To Believe Before Christianity (OMG JEWISH SECT) Came And Made Them Soft", a mix-and-match cult based on neo-pagan ideas, theosophy and other forms of 19th century mysticism, general social Darwinism and specific Nazi ideology. Pseudo in every direction, really.
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Not that it matters, really, it's like debating the difference between "dim" and "shadowy". Whatever the nuances, one thing you can be sure of is that it is NOT well-lit, bright, etc.
Similarly. Bigotry and racism, whichever one showed up this time, it probably ain't a GOOD thing whichever flavor you're looking at.
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Muslim babies are c. 1% of all babies in the UK, and Muslims are c. 3%, and and it's been that way for a long time.
If you combine all variations of Mohammed -- and DON'T combine all variations of Jack/James/Jimmy et --, 'Mohammed' leads. Also because most Muslims tend to put Mohammed in a name somewhere, as Christians in the past would have a lot of Mary Sue, Mary Jane, etc.
It doesn't mean there are suddenly more people converting to Islam or that the Muslims are having more babies than anyone else.
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