The subtle micro aggressions of islamophobia

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Why don't YOU post the paragraphs where Leila Ahmed says, "hey, earlier in the book I said X. But now, I really think it is Y." That's what evolution means.

I will, when I have the time. Right now my focus is primarily on helping the writers in their investigation and research. I think I have already shown that I own Leila Ahmed's book and I have published numerous paragraphs from her book that show her positive impression of Islam. Of course you are left wondering why she wrote something differently in the first two chapters, however, and I can understand your confusion. So why don't you order her book and read it yourself because no matter what I publish, I'm sure I will be accused of misrepresenting her opinion. Although, I do wonder how likely you will be to order a book written by an author who has a favorable impression of Islam the religion. Leila Ahmed does explain why her opinion evolves in the latter chapters. And my guess as to why the publisher chose to provide that specific paragraph on google preview is to persuade those who have a negative impression of Islam to buy her book. Her knowledge of history is amazing and she explains, in a beautiful reasonable way, why Islam is truly an egalitarian religion.

Different PP here. Now I'm seriously annoyed with you, OP. I challenged your ridiculous assertion that Leila Ahmed "wrote something differently in the first two chapters" and your response to me, at your post of 17:05, was basically to challenge me to see if I own Dr. Ahmed's book. Indeed I do own her book. So I wrote the following for you at 20:03 yesterday. You completely ignored my post. Why? Because it makes your ridiculous assertion about Dr. Ahmed's opinion on pre-Islamic Arabia look ... ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote: I don't need to prove I own this book, to you or to anybody else. But I'll play along. How about on page 43, when Ahmed talks about Robertson Smith's theory that pre-Islamic Arabia was matriarchal, and Montgomery Watt's theory that pre-Islamic Arabia was at least matrilineal. Ahmed doesn't adopt these theories as being applicable to the whole pre-Islamic period, but she does think them worth mentioning. She writes, on the same page, that "Smith's and Watt's theories aside, the evidence does at least unambiguously indicate that there was no single, fixed institution of marriage and that a variety of marriage customs were practiced about the time of the rise of Islam, customs suggesting both matrilineal and patrilineal systems were extant. Uxorial practices, for example, can be found in Mohammed's background."

Go ahead and check, I'll wait for you. That was page 43. I'll toss in "gists" as the first word on page 74 and "but" as the first word on page 148. OK, now do you accept that I own the book?

So back to my point. You claimed Ahmed's book "evolves" and you insinuated that Dr. Ahmed changed her mind about pre-Islamic Arabia by the end of her book. In fact, her opinion about pre-Islamic Arabia never changes at all. I'll repeat: she never backtracks on her opinion of pre-Islamic Arabia. Instead Dr. Ahmed (quite understandably) moves to a discussion of Modern Islam, western feminists and even anthropology in our own times (the pages leading up yo p. 248). That, and not any backtracking or changing her mind about pre-Islamic Arabia, is how she ends her book.

I stand by my statement, that you twisted Dr. Ahmed's message with your insinuation that Dr. Ahmed "evolved" from her statements about pre-Islamic Arabia in the front of her book.

Let me break it down for you even more simply. Your debate with the other PP was whether jahilya was good or bad, and whether Islam was better or worse for women than jahilya. But you clearly don't want to talk about pre-Islamic Arabia, and I can understand why, because Dr. Ahmed is pretty ambivalent about that. Instead, you'd much rather talk about Dr. Ahmed's opinions of Islam *today* and her theory of ethical equality and criticism of establishment Islam, both of which she does indeed discuss at the end of her book.

You're trying to switch subjects on that PP you're arguing with. And you're doing this by exploiting the natural historic progression in Dr. Ahmed's book -- from pre-Islamic Arabia at the start of her book to Islam today at the end of her book. Does everybody see how that works?

The worst part of your behavior is how you blame Dr. Ahmed for your own effort to switch subjects from jahilia to modern Islam. That's right. Dr. Ahmed traveled 1400 years forward in history. You call this an "evolution" of opinion and "writing something different in the beginning of the book." It's obvious what you're doing here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/315/221619.page#5972250, post at 18.47. The style is unmistakably yours.

"If the program is going to show Muslims, it's a bit strange to practice people who may not even practice Islam."

So, still want to say you didn't see it?

First of all, I do not agree with that poster's assertion that Shia are nonMuslim. My own husband is Shia. I did not even read that part of his comment. I read the part where he describes the haram money making activities, the tattoos…These things may show a person is not practicing Islam. But one can fail to practice Islam in his or her life but still remain a Muslim if they still believe in one God and acknowledge that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. The best of Muslims are those who have the belief and the practice. The worst of Muslims may be the ones who may still retain the belief but not the practice.

Wait a minute....so you claimed, a dozen or so times, that you didn't see the posts calling Shias non-Muslim. And after the PP demonstrated - not once, not twice, but a dozen or so times - that you did see it and responded to it, you changed your story to how you actually did read his post, but you read sentence #2, #3 and #4 without reading sentence #1? Is that what you're saying NOW??

Wow. One would have to be pretty dumb to believe that.

Liar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It isn't uncommon for Muslims to judge one another, much the same way Christians or Jews may judge one another. I'm not sure where you got the idea I would defend any Muslim engaged in wrongdoing.

Ummm....from the fact that it took you several days and several rounds of shaming from different posters to finally do it? By contrast, you take only minutes to respond to posters you call Islamophobes. One can see where your priorities lie.

And even when you did it, you included a bold-faced lie that you never saw these posts before, when in fact you responded to one of them in the past.

That immigrant poster was never on my radar, the Islamophobes are. They are the subject of the articles soon to be written and I am immersed in helping the writers right out. I only noticed the Islamophobe picking on his English, which I thought was lowly, even for the Islamophobe.

Well, you're doing your best to pick on the PP's English, so how exactly are you better than her? She actually writes pretty well, admirable for a non-native speaker, if she is that. On the other hand, that guy's English was pretty atrocious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
- has called individual posters bad cooks, retarded (her word, not mine), Pakistanis, unemployed, and more that I'm probably forgetting
I don't recall calling anyone "retarded". Where is that post? And why is it bad to say someone is Pakistani?

You accused your nemesis of having mental disorders on a couple of occasions. Pretty low move and showed you were out of reasonable arguments.

Anonymous wrote:
- has called all of us Christian-evangelical-crusading gap-toothed STD-ridden grannies in mini-skirts with drug-addicted kids.
That has been apologized for. If you are unable to accept the apology, that is not my issue. It was in response to islamophobe suggesting Muslima post a pic of herself with her veil to garner public sympathy and to also show the offensiveness of stereotyping Muslims and Islam as barbaric. I had hoped that by drawing attention to typical American stereotypes, you would see how offensive and hurtful stereotyping can be. Apparently, you did not.

It wasn't, actually. You used it in different threads, on different occasions, entirely divorced from the veil comment. And the crusader comment was made way before the veil comment. You're lying if you said you called someone an evangelical crusader in response to the comment about the veil.

Anonymous wrote:
You can all do the math....

Not all. At least one of us can't figure out if 25 thousand is greater than 100 thousand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In fairness to OP, she MAY have been responding to other parts of the poster's description of American Muslim when she said they were not practicing Muslims--even though the description did NOT say the Muslims depicted did not practice their faith:

"That show was nonsense, the families they showed were shia, aka non-Muslims, its a completely different faith! They had tattoos, the women weren't covering all the time, a few were wrapped up in haram (forbidden) money making (The club) and the list goes on and on. It was an extremely poor representation of what a real american Muslim is. Now don't get me wrong they had some key points and very real life situations that everyone goes through, but I'm glad they didn't renew it."

So perhaps OP inferred that the families did not practice Islam because:

1. They had tattoos--Unlikely, tattoos are not necessarily unIslamic

2. The women didn't cover up all the time--I guess it depends on your view about the necessity of women covering up in Islam. I certainly know practicing Muslims who do not cover their head ever, but maybe OP thinks this is enough to make one not practicing?

3. Some were involved in suspect businesses--This kind of makes me laugh. Plenty of people out there going to the mosque every Friday and making their wives cover from head to toe who are involved in unsavory business enterprises.

So we are left with one of two conclusions as to why OP said the Muslims depicted were not practicing Muslims: either it was because they were Shi'ite or it was because the women didn't cover up all all the time, If it's the former, she should own up. If it's the latter, she should come out and just tell us that the sine qua non of Islam is that women cover up, which is pretty much the view of every fundamentalist group that has gotten power in the Middle East.

That doesn't explain 1) why she claimed, on several occasions, that she never saw that post, when she clearly did, and 2) why she saw someone performing an act of takfir on the Shia - a very great sin in Islam - and said nothing, all the while accusing non-Muslim posters of propagating hatred and divisiveness. I guess it's OK if a Muslim does it, huh. I guess her Islamophobia alarm only goes off when the kuffar get mouthy. Other Muslims can engage in Shia-phobia and Sufi-phobia and still get a pass.

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I will, when I have the time. Right now my focus is primarily on helping the writers in their investigation and research.

OP: Dear investigative journalist. Did you go to Harvard? Well, anyway. I have a blockbuster idea for your next article!

Investigative Journalist: Thanks! What is it?

OP: Islamophobia among suburban moms! Together we can be the next Woodward and Bernstein.

IJ: Hmmm, maybe. What do you have on these moms?

OP: Well, you gotta see this site, DCUM.
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile last August.
2. Somebody called Islam barbaric in September.
3. Somebody said the reason Muslima posts a pic of a veiled woman is to garner sympathy. Also in September.
4. The moderator said he agreed with me, two months ago. He's been assisting me to uncover a ring of secret islamophobe organizations. You'll see he posted that he hasn't seen anything. But I know he's just keeping it all on the QT, until you and I have enough info to expose them.

IJ: Um, OK. That's a lot of links you're sending - six threads, each with 20-30 pages. What's in the rest of this?

OP: They disagreed with me! About women's equality, the number of converts to Islam, voting rights 1400 years ago, and jahilya. It's outrageous Islamophobia!!!

IJ: Uh, the line is breaking up. ... Can you hear me? ... Hello? ... I'll keep it in mind... losing you... *click*

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Different poster here. OK, you've made hay about four posts:
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile back in August.
2. Somebody called Islam "barbaric" on September 6 or 7.
3. Somebody said that the reason Muslima posts a picture of a veiled woman because she wants to garner sympathy. (Originally, you claimed this poster told Muslima to remove her veil, but people produced the original post and showed you had made that up.)

Do us a favor. Identify some more of these "hundreds of posts vilifying Islam."

Oh wait, people were merely disagreeing with you about things like how to define women's equality, or whether Islam gave women the vote 1400 years ago, or whether the conversion rate exceeds the immigration rate. In your mind, that's equivalent to "vilifying" Islam. Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Cool story, sis. Bottom line is, you ignored his bigotry because he was clearly Muslim. We don't know if he's an immigrant, btw. We are all immigrants here, you know. Still, well done. The worst Muslim is better than the best of non-Muslims. Bin Baz is sending you air kisses from his grave.

My merry band of three? I have a band? Well, I'm glad but who are they? Just curious how you are counting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Different poster here. OK, you've made hay about four posts:
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile back in August.
2. Somebody called Islam "barbaric" on September 6 or 7.
3. Somebody said that the reason Muslima posts a picture of a veiled woman because she wants to garner sympathy. (Originally, you claimed this poster told Muslima to remove her veil, but people produced the original post and showed you had made that up.)

Do us a favor. Identify some more of these "hundreds of posts vilifying Islam."

Oh wait, people were merely disagreeing with you about things like how to define women's equality, or whether Islam gave women the vote 1400 years ago, or whether the conversion rate exceeds the immigration rate. In your mind, that's equivalent to "vilifying" Islam. Got it.

I think religious statements are factual to those who believe in them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Different poster here. OK, you've made hay about four posts:
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile back in August.
2. Somebody called Islam "barbaric" on September 6 or 7.
3. Somebody said that the reason Muslima posts a picture of a veiled woman because she wants to garner sympathy. (Originally, you claimed this poster told Muslima to remove her veil, but people produced the original post and showed you had made that up.)

Do us a favor. Identify some more of these "hundreds of posts vilifying Islam."

Oh wait, people were merely disagreeing with you about things like how to define women's equality, or whether Islam gave women the vote 1400 years ago, or whether the conversion rate exceeds the immigration rate. In your mind, that's equivalent to "vilifying" Islam. Got it.

I think religious statements are factual to those who believe in them.

True. But adults can distinguish between disagreement and vilification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I will, when I have the time. Right now my focus is primarily on helping the writers in their investigation and research.

OP: Dear investigative journalist. Did you go to Harvard? Well, anyway. I have a blockbuster idea for your next article!

Investigative Journalist: Thanks! What is it?

OP: Islamophobia among suburban moms! Together we can be the next Woodward and Bernstein.

IJ: Hmmm, maybe. What do you have on these moms?

OP: Well, you gotta see this site, DCUM.
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile last August.
2. Somebody called Islam barbaric in September.
3. Somebody said the reason Muslima posts a pic of a veiled woman is to garner sympathy. Also in September.
4. The moderator said he agreed with me, two months ago. He's been assisting me to uncover a ring of secret islamophobe organizations. You'll see he posted that he hasn't seen anything. But I know he's just keeping it all on the QT, until you and I have enough info to expose them.

IJ: Um, OK. That's a lot of links you're sending - six threads, each with 20-30 pages. What's in the rest of this?

OP: They disagreed with me! About women's equality, the number of converts to Islam, voting rights 1400 years ago, and jahilya. It's outrageous Islamophobia!!!

IJ: Uh, the line is breaking up. ... Can you hear me? ... Hello? ... I'll keep it in mind... losing you... *click*

Had a good laugh on this. Well done PP.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to add--From one of your merry band.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Different poster here. OK, you've made hay about four posts:
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile back in August.
2. Somebody called Islam "barbaric" on September 6 or 7.
3. Somebody said that the reason Muslima posts a picture of a veiled woman because she wants to garner sympathy. (Originally, you claimed this poster told Muslima to remove her veil, but people produced the original post and showed you had made that up.)

Do us a favor. Identify some more of these "hundreds of posts vilifying Islam."

Oh wait, people were merely disagreeing with you about things like how to define women's equality, or whether Islam gave women the vote 1400 years ago, or whether the conversion rate exceeds the immigration rate. In your mind, that's equivalent to "vilifying" Islam. Got it.

I think religious statements are factual to those who believe in them.

So arguing over the "facts" makes one an Islamaphobe? I think we are getting closer to the heart of the thing....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Quite simply because as I have said, I did not see that part of the post and because you and your merry band have spent hundreds of posts now vilifying Islam, but as far as I now know, that immigrant poster spent one post stating Shia are not Muslim. What you and your merry band of three have done to all of Islam is far, far worse than that immigrant poster has done. Bottom line.

Different poster here. OK, you've made hay about four posts:
1. Somebody called Mohammed a pedophile back in August.
2. Somebody called Islam "barbaric" on September 6 or 7.
3. Somebody said that the reason Muslima posts a picture of a veiled woman because she wants to garner sympathy. (Originally, you claimed this poster told Muslima to remove her veil, but people produced the original post and showed you had made that up.)

Do us a favor. Identify some more of these "hundreds of posts vilifying Islam."

Oh wait, people were merely disagreeing with you about things like how to define women's equality, or whether Islam gave women the vote 1400 years ago, or whether the conversion rate exceeds the immigration rate. In your mind, that's equivalent to "vilifying" Islam. Got it.

I think religious statements are factual to those who believe in them.

So arguing over the "facts" makes one an Islamaphobe? I think we are getting closer to the heart of the thing....

No, refusing to watch youtube links she provided does...

[Anonymous]

I feel like OP needs to take a trip over to one of the many threads hating on Christians.

The Christians there aren't calling people Christianophobes. Apparently they think that's pointless.

Instead they're arguing on facts about Jesus, facts about what's in the gospels, and points of belief. Most of them are careful to say "I think" or "some Christians think" instead of "all Christians think X." Also relevant to this thread is that when there's difference on something Christians take on faith, they don't call other people Christianophobes; instead, they'll generally point out that there's a difference in this particular point of faith.