You bitcha!

[captainsblog]

The following paragraphs are directed to the ardent Tea Party supporters among you, and those who are so mortified by the plans to build a "victory mosque" on the site of "Ground Zero." The rest of you, go watch Glee or something.

Let us assume, for purposes of discussion, that you have a point. That the community center really is a mosque, that the site (further away from existing mosques and not even in sight of Ground Zero) really is "on the site," and that there's some malicious intent in the minds of the Muslims behind this effort to rub it all in the faces of the 3,000 who died and the thousands more who suffered.

Taken and noted. Now, though. Explain to me why the millions, not thousands, of victims of the civil rights struggle should not be just as offended, and the proponents condemned as being just as insensitive, because the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are holding a March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial on the exact anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. That's not the equivalent of "building a mosque at Ground Zero." That's "building a mosque at Ground Zero and consecrating it on September 11th."

Here's why I think you think "THAT'S DIFFERENT."

That place, in the context of that date, isn't a sacred space to you the way Ground Zero is. You don't relate to the historical significance of that date, for millions of Americans of all colors, who for the first time combined in such numbers, and gained the recognition and the respect of millions more around the country, to decry nearly a century of de facto enslavement following more than a century of the de jure kind.

You don't appreciate how such a large segment of our population was treated as second-class, or worse, until well into my own lifetime in a large swath of this country. How that segment was treated as chattel, and then as a nuisance- kept from the basic rights and freedoms that your precious Founding Documents ascribe to "all men" even as the later of them assigned them a mathematical value of 60 cents on the white dollar.

To put it bluntly: you, or at least your political forbears, felt that Martin Luther King was an uppity nigger to demand such things for this country after things had been going so well, just as you feel the same way about Barack Hussein Obama now.

Yes, I dropped an N-bomb. Unlike, say, Dr. Laura Schlesinger, who Sarah Palin ran quickly to the side of in defending her right to drop it almost a dozen times in a single radio segment.

Sarah Palin and her radio pinhead colleague are as offensive to the hopes and dreams of the legacy of August 28, 1963 as even Bin Laden himself is to those touched by the legacy of September 11, 2001.

They have a First Amendment right to peacefully assemble there, but that doesn't mean that they should.

Tell me what I'm missing. Give me a reason other than "IOKIYAR." Make me believe that you're not just an opportunistic hatemonger, using the efforts of men and women of peace to gain political points.

I'll be waiting. Not as long as the wait, or as much of the pain, as those whose blood and slave labor are memorialized on the Mall, but longer than I expect your reasoned response will take.

Comments

[bktheirregular]

They have a First Amendment right to peacefully assemble there, but that doesn't mean that they should.

What they don't seem to get is that you and I have the reciprocal First Amendment rights to call them out on their bigotry and small-mindedness and disgracefulness and evil.

[jcd1013.livejournal.com]

*stands up and applauds*

IOKIYAR?

[horizonchaser.livejournal.com]

Yay media blowouttaproportions.

If it gets built, it's a target. If it doesn't get built, it's a target. If I point out it's a bad damn idea because some numb nuts will make it into a target, and if it was my project, I'd walk away in the interests of preserving life and peace, I'm racist and how far is far enough and yadda yadda yadda.

But if you ask me why I wouldn't want it built there, it has nothing to do with any of the current waa waa waa. It has everything to do with thinking the Burlington Building is (well, when it was taken care of) a gorgeous old building, and just that it survived intact all these years in New York deserves a medal or something. A year ago, I could easily link you to its history. Today, even references to the Triangle Fire are cluttered with all this.

I would pay good money if they'd all just shut the hell up about it, deal with it like grown ups and get on with their lives. I could bloody well care less if someone thinks it's symbolic of defeat or rising above or even if it's a civil right.

I've got the right to pursue happiness, and they're mosque-onnoyoudon't-ing all over it.

I don't think anyone against it is by definition racist any more than I think anyone for it is automatically good. I think it's a bad idea to get into that mindset. The only people that really matter in this, those that lost family on 9/11, aren't necessarily racist - they're hurting, they're scared, they're upset, they deserve better than to be lumped into a box and called racist.

What's IOKIYAR?

[firynze.livejournal.com]

My mother and uncle are going to this rally. I am...not exactly in a good place to talk about any of this, because I'm still in a bit of shock over how far they've tilted.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had the same problem when my parents voted against gay civil rights in their state of Maine. They've got two (at very least) gay children, for FSM's sake, one of whom has been married to a delightful man for years.

Scary different people! Be afraid!

[firynze.livejournal.com]

I really and truly don't get it. Especially in cases like your parents'.

IOKIYAR

[(Anonymous)]

It's OK If You Are Republican

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

These are the people who wave signs declaring "Government Hands Off Our Medicare!" A microscope could not detect any irony neurons.