Islam

My Inner Islamophobia

With all these horrific Islamophobic things happening in America, I’ve been trying to see my own inner Islamophobia more clearly.

fobiareal

You know how it sounds when someone says, “I have a black friend/boyfriend/partner,” and are saying in parenthesis, “So I can’t be racist,”… how racist that sounds… how racist it is? It is the same with my making loud declarations of having a Muslim friend. I am clearly professing, “See me? I’m not Islamophobic, but I am a really progressive liberal atheist who can sidle up to a person that much of the world wants to destroy,” making it All About Me.

I find that really disgusting.

I know very little about Islam and discussing it with my friend has taken us into really uncomfortable territory. We’ve pretty much abandoned the topic because my atheism is so contrary to his deep beliefs. I have Googled and read about Islam, sharia law, the different ways to be Muslim, Islam in the United States versus in mainly-Muslim countries and, the really tough part, Islamic extremists and why violence is so important to their causes.

modislam

Islam is an incredibly complex and varied religion, much more so than Christianity or Judaism, both religions I know and understand pretty well, having been both in this life. I’ve been told that it can take many years and a plethora of scholars to explain the Qur’an. How does a heathen learn about Islam when it is such a pain in the ass to understand?

Just looking up “Moderate vs. Radical Islam” images for this piece brings intense emotions for me because the hate in the photos and comics are so, so despicable. (Is my friend considered a moderate? A liberal?) I don’t even know what to believe anymore. Is Islam a cruel religion that does not delineate between a Muslim here or in Syria? Are all American Muslims really potential terrorists given the right circumstances and their anger level at how they are treated by Americans? (This is, I have found, one of the most common beliefs and it is excruciating for me to even utter it because I know how my friend is going to hear it.)

moderate_muslim — One of the nicer comics I could find.

For fuck’s sake, how brainwashed am I? Where did it come from? Islam is a brand new experience in my life comparatively. The horrible things I’ve learned have all been based on violence against others… against the LGBTQIA+ communities, women, American journalists, random strangers who’ve made life difficult for the killers… really skewed pictures and stories that have clearly imprinted in my mind.

understand

How do I counter these negative beliefs? I am not sure where exactly to look because the information on the Internet is widely contradictory and, I have learned, laced with radical ideas the murderers use to recruit marginalized Muslims. When I’ve asked my friend for help, things devolve into major discomfort so we just agree to let the topic go.

I’m lost, but I don’t want to be anymore.

no-bigotry

Immigration Ban Horror

How can this be happening? Just when you think nothing can get any worse with that horrible, evil man who is our president, he descends deeper into a hell the world has to cope with.

Of course, those fleeing torture and death… they definitely have it worse than many of us… directly affected by the sweeping executive order that slams the door of salvation in their faces.

Does This Make You Sick? Cry? Want to DO Something?

Tonight at JFK Airport

How can these horrible “christian” people and lawmakers turn their backs on human suffering? I cannot wrap my head around any kind of logic they could conjure. Pro-life? Fucking pigs. What about the children who are dying waiting to enter our country? The women being raped and tortured in refugee camps? Men, hopeless, feeling useless and powerless.

I wish I had answers. I suppose letting our representatives know how we feel? They don’t give one shit. No one has the cajones to stand up against that fascist dictator we now have “leading” our country.

Thank you Canada, Germany and France for stepping up and saying they will accept those trapped in American red tape. Strangling red tape.

My heart feels like it is going to fall out on the floor, I am in so much distress over what is going on. All I can do is write my feelings, trying to see through the tears, knowing I am not alone dealing with this disgusting, horrid man.

Weltschmerz: World-Pain

the depression you feel

when the world as it is

doesn’t reflect

what you think it should be

thin grey line

This Roberge sculpture comes close to how I feel right this moment.

risingcairn_2 — *Rising Cairn* by Celeste Roberge

What does Weltschmerz mean?

Weltschmerz is the depressing feeling you get when comparing the actual state of the world to the picture you have in your head of how the world should be, and knowing that the picture in your head can never exist.

What does Weltschmerz literally translate to?

Weltschmerz is a compound noun made from the words Welt (world) and Schmerz (pain). It therefore translates to ‘world pain’.

What is the nearest English equivalent to Weltschmerz?

World-weariness. It is also sometimes compared to a state of depression.

I’ve personalized the iconic photo below of the stunned-shocked Omran Daqneesh from a few days ago as a representation of the feeling that’s been growing in my heart for many months now, often threatening to drown out the real-life world I live in. The past few days have been increasingly difficult to plow through as I feel more and more helpless to do… or change… one thing going on around me.

1187 — Omran Daqneesh, 5-years old, Syria

From Trump (spit spit spit) to ISIS killings to the never-ending Boko Haram insurgency to child suicide bombers to laboring pregnant Syrian women being bombed on the way to the hospital, their babies born dead and needing a miracle to bring them to life to the heart-wrenching photo and story of Omran and the death of his brother Ali… and and and… the list of armed conflicts multiply on top of each other; it’s just so horribly overwhelming.

As I write around the Web, I keep being asked, “What can I do to help?” I’ve gathered some well-known (and hopefully properly-run) organizations we might find a way to assist. Obviously, this list will not be complete or exhaustive, but it’s a beginning. I wish I could have helping agency connection links to all the conflicts/wars/evil around the world, but this post would run on forevermore.

While I crouch filled with rocks, I will try to do even a grain of sand’s worth of love for those in excruciating pain and circumstances.

Ways to Help in Syria

WARNING: I need to preface this with, as I searched, I came up with sites extremely negative and even violently angry about every one of the following organizations. I have been warned that ISIS is pervasive online and I saw that clearly during my research. When researching individual organizations, be aware of the hate out there in the Netiverse.

SAMS Foundation – SAMS Foundation is a nonprofit humanitarian organization established in 2007. Its volunteer physicians deliver direct medical care in Syria, Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon. Charitable gifts are tax-deductible.

The White Helmets – “When the bombs rain down, the Syrian Civil Defence rushes in. In a place where public services no longer function these unarmed volunteers risk their lives to help anyone in need – regardless of their religion or politics.”

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières – “We help people worldwide where the need is greatest, delivering emergency medical aid to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health care.”

Islamic Relief Syria – “Whoever saved a life, it would be as if they saved the life of all mankind.” (Qur’an 5:32)

The UN Refugee Agency – “USA for UNHCR helps to save, protect and rebuild the lives of millions of refugees and others forced to flee their homes due to violence and conflict.”

A wonderful article, “10 Ways You Can Actually Help Syrian Refugees” offers even more legitimate organizations that need immediate help.

How to Help Refugees (& Others Around the World)

As you can imagine, the list is exhaustive, so I encourage you to Search: “How Can I Help Refugees” or “How Can I Help <fill in the Conflict here>” You can even Search: “How Can I Help Refugees Without Money”

Lastly, SPEAK UP! I know it is heart-wrenching to look at the images, to imagine the horror these people are going through, but we cannot look the other way any longer.

We must do something.

My Most Un-PC Post Ever

I have quietly sat on the sidelines, watching the world pass me by, feeling like a really old cranky woman.

Scarily, I can relate to some of the dotard supporters.

I wonder if being Politically Correct has not gone too far. Way too far.

Crazy Making!

Some of the things that make me shake my head in bafflement:

the ever-morphing gender names
the ease with which to transition
kids medically and surgically transitioning
how one can “be” a she/her in the morning, a they at lunchtime and a he/him by sunset… and how anger feels justified if someone misgenders the person
how people quash free speech in the angry alt-right
how stupid the president is… and no one is stopping the crazy-making behaviors before he kills all of us
how easily people lie (myself included)
how men really are led around by their cocks (blame my sex work job for that one)
how transwomen insist they were not acculturated into the male world growing up and insist on crashing women-only spaces
how people lobby to make Disney characters gay or lesbian
how the word “fat” is the nastiest epithet someone can call another person
how the more I know about Islam, the less I respect it
how “christians” in the US have become the most hateful people on earth (so much for cultivating new christians through love and kindness)
how stupid people can be not understanding kneeling for the National Anthem – they are purposefully being angry just to annoy those of us who believe Black Lives Matter
how a “snowflake” is now an epithet instead of a lovely geometric design
how “The Wall” is quietly being built and people just sit and watch
how Flint, MI still doesn’t have clean water (that legacy is going to haunt us for eons)
how Puerto Rico is being treated like shit because they are brown people and how Americans bloody well know it and don’t care in the least
That In the Heights in Australia was shamed into not being performed amidst accusations of whitewashing when they did their best to fill the actor slots with People of Color

I was tempted to defend myself (I use PC terms when I can, I am not prejudiced against these folks, etc.), but I am leaving this piece to speak for itself.

Thank Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir for the Craft for this vomiting of things I have been too afraid to say out loud. He tells writers to “Be brave!” and write the things that are the most difficult to say.

So I did.

(And yes, I feel shame.)

“Make a choice. Speak up. Unsubscribe.”

Jarrett Hill wrote an OpEd piece called “White People, It’s Time to Use Your Privilege, Whether You Believe You Have It or Not,” for NBCBLK September 24, 2017.

It began:

“A message for white people:

“I know how jarring it may be to hear a non-white person, or maybe anyone, even say the words “white people,” as it can take on a pejorative connotation. That’s fine. This isn’t always comfortable to have to say, but that doesn’t make it any less true, necessary, or timely.”

The challenge is for white people (myself included) to stand UP, (and kneel DOWN), speak UP and stop being complicit in the systematic and so-deeply-ingrained-whites-don’t-even-see-it-anymore prejudice and hate against People of Color.

“Sorry, but not sorry, you’re going to have to take a side. And yes, you have to do it now.”

The United States has always had a divide between races. But now, with the dotard “president,” it has become a chasm, one that grows more visible and wider with each new tweet. White people just cannot keep their… OUR… mouths shut anymore. We have kept silent and turned our backs for far too many decades.

Blacks are being killed by the police nearly every day. Latinx are being confiscated from their homes, from schools, their places of employment and even in hospitals and churches. Muslims are accused of violence simply because of their religion… one many of us do not understand (myself included), but the harassment and death threats are just not what the United States was founded to represent. All of this in order to fulfill the dotard’s horrific ideas… and plans… to rid the country of anyone not white.

“It’s very likely, and understandable if you feel this is unfair, this is inconvenient, it’s frustrating, it’s difficult, it’s embarrassing, it’s going to alienate you from people you know, love, work with, watch the game with.”

Too fucking bad. SPEAK UP! Speak for those who get killed when they open their mouths, receive death threats when they kneel at a football game (exercising their First Amendment exquisitely). We whites cannot leave Black & Brown people hanging out there alone anymore.

I read an article yesterday (that I cannot find again for anything) where a Black Medical Resident was leaving work after a more-than-30-hour shift in the Emergency Room and a white man in a car started screaming the N-word at him, over and over again. He added some other racist epithets, but mostly it was the N-word. He said the white man was laughing so hard at his hilarity the doctor thought he would have to give him aid when he finally collapsed in hysteria.

While that part is gross enough, the part that was the most offensive to him (and me) is the whites in the parking lot who said NOTHING.

NOTHING.

He said they skittered away, trying not to get involved.

What the holy fuck, white people!

SAY SOMETHING! SCREAM BACK!

Yeah, I know… they might have a gun. If they do, they do. You are supporting/protecting/showing love for another human being that is in the line of fire. If you believe in a God, He will surely reward you for speaking up.

“That’s privilege. Someone once said, “when you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.” This is a taste of equality.”

It’s tough to say something when we are so used to just walking on. We cannot just walk by anymore.

WE CANNOT IGNORE THE ISSUE ANYMORE.

WE HAVE TO SPEAK UP!

OPEN YOUR MOUTHS, WHITE FOLKS!

SCREAM when others simply cannot or are hoarse from doing so.

ENOUGH.

kaepernick_final — One of my heroes… Colin Kaepernick.

The Birth of Censorship

Today I read about a library in Evanston, Illinois, outside Chicago, having several Islamic-oriented books defaced with slurs and swastikas.

Evanston Public Library Books About Islam Defaced With Swastikas, Racial Slurs

book-defiled

One book about the Qur’an, pictured above, said “bullsh*t hatred cover to cover” with a swastika drawn below it written on the title page of the book. Neal said other books in the same library section were also defaced. She wrote in her post to urge readers to speak out against hatred and intolerance.

“Evanstonians like to think we are safe in a bubble of tolerance, but none of us can afford to pretend that we are not affected by the hatred that surrounds us now,” she said. “None of us can afford to sit this out, to hope it goes away, and leaves us untouched. Whatever your politics, if this kind of hatred and intolerance disgusts you, speak out today.”

Censorship Begins

It might seem a stretch, if not ridiculously impossible, for this one defacing act to have anything to do with Censorship and the end of the Free Press, but I promise, it absolutely is just the beginning of the encroachment of the boot heels of those-soon-to-be-in-power onto the fingers of the writers of, not only books, newspapers and magazines, but also on the keyboards of little blogs like this one… all because we/I dare to question the status quo.

Their goal of erasure of conflicting opinions has begun.

sealedshut

Category: Islam

My Inner Islamophobia

Islam

Immigration Ban Horror