Trump’s Latest Anti-Muslim Plan Receives Worldwide Condemnation
Donald Trump's plan to exclude Muslims from the United States is provoking condemnation, and confusion, around the world.
Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigration to the United States for some unspecified period, along with other comments that he’s made in recent days, has resulted in a rash of condemnation and bewilderment from around the world, including from sources that have rarely if ever commented on American domestic politics:
LONDON — A day after Donald J. Trump called for a ban on the entry of Muslims into the United States, much of the rest of the world looked at the American presidential election on Tuesday with a mix of befuddlement and despair.
How is it, many wondered, that the same nation that twice put the black son of a Kenyan in the White House could now be flirting with Mr. Trump and his divisive, exclusionary stances?
His remarks ignited widespread condemnation that crossed ideological and social lines in many countries.
In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron, of the Conservative Party, dismissed Mr. Trump’s position as “divisive, unhelpful and quite simply wrong.”
Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France, which is still reeling from deadly attacks by Islamic extremists, wrote on Twitter: “Mr. Trump, like others, fuels hatred,” and “Our only enemy is radical Islamism.”
Responding to some of the blistering criticism on Tuesday, Mr. Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, steadfastly defended his proposal but said any ban would be temporary and would not apply to United States citizens.
His comments were widely shared on social media throughout the Arab world. In a region racked by conflict, his language had an impact, including in Egypt, where he was condemned by the country’s highest religious authority and by many others, who called him an Islamaphobe, a racist or, as Reem Khorshid, a 21-year-old engineering student and blogger, put it, “a madman who has no sense at all.”
Rachid Tlemcani, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers, warned that Mr. Trump could push young people toward the Islamic State.
“A lot of people in the Middle East think of the United States as the last place we can go if things turn really bad, as it is the place of freedom and liberty,” Mr. Tlemcani said. “I think that sort of comment could even invite some act of violence against America. I think he is not responsible.”
(…)
As in the United States, Mr. Trump has incited particularly intense debate, not least in predominantly Muslim countries and in Europe, where far-right parties like Marine Le Pen’s National Front have been gaining ground by invoking anti-immigrant messages similar to those of Mr. Trump and where memories of 20th-century fascism still run deep.
J.K. Rowling, the British author of the best-selling Harry Potter books, even mused that Mr. Trump was worse than the books’ arch-villain, Lord Voldemort.
Charles Grant, the director of the London-based Center for European Reform, said Mr. Trump was anathema to many Europeans because his populism had edged toward fascism and conveyed a willingness to preach an open hatred of religious minorities that many far-right leaders, from Ms. Le Pen in France to Nigel Farage of the euroskeptic U.K. Independence Party in Britain, tried to temper as they fought to move their parties into the political mainstream.
Mr. Grant added that Mr. Trump conveyed an ignorance of world affairs that Europeans found hard to stomach from a contender in a national election in the United States.
“Donald Trump strikes me as a very different kind of populist right-winger than the kind we’ve grown used to in Europe in that he shows a complete ignorance about the world,” Mr. Grant said. “While Le Pen and others may say things that are alarmist, they at least acknowledge the premise of religious tolerance we’ve had in Europe since the 18th-century Enlightenment.”
In France, which is grappling with the challenges of integrating a large Muslim population, the newspaper Le Monde called Mr. Trump’s comments “unprecedented.”
But observers in France, where the National Front won the first round of regional elections last weekend, also noted that Mr. Trump reflected a familiar nationalist and anti-immigrant impulse, extending from Paris to Budapest. After the recent influx of migrants to Europe, many of them from the Middle East, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary said that his country had a right to protect its Christian traditions by refusing to accept large numbers of Muslims.
In La Défense, a business district west of Paris, Inès Lessieur, 23, a student, said Mr. Trump depressed her. “I am sure he’ll get elected,” she said. Another student, Laura Albat, 20, responded, “No, a country that voted twice for Obama cannot elect a man like that.”
(…)
In the Arab world, Mr. Trump’s anti-Muslim comments have yielded growing alarm, as many wonder what the approaching election could mean for the involvement of the United States in their region.
“There is something disturbing about where the Americans are going in their relations with the outside world in general and with the Arab and Islamic world in particular,” said Abdulkhaliq Abdulla, a retired professor of political science from the United Arab Emirates. “All of a sudden it seems that America, or at least some segments of America, have forgotten what America stands for.”
Hafez Al Mirazi, the director of the Kamal Adham Center for Television and Digital Journalism at the American University in Cairo, contrasted Trump’s comments with the moment in 2009 when President Obama spoke in Cairo and attempted to reach out to the Arab and Muslim world, inspiring many with his personal story of success.
“What we are getting now is really terrible,” Mr. Mirazi said. “Stuff that only the Ku Klux Klan and others would say.”
Dar al-Ifta, the authority that issues religious edicts in Egypt, called Mr. Trump’s comments “extremist” and warned that they “threatened societal peace” in the United States.
Trump also received a rebuke from abroad over his comments yesterday that there are parts of London and Paris that are so dangerous that even the police don’t go there because of the fact that they’ve come under the control of “radical Muslims.” In response, both London Mayor Boris Johnson and the Metropolitan Police, which I don’t believe has ever commented on American politics, condemned Trump’s remarks in forceful language. Although Johnson, being his usual colorful self, added that there are parts of New York City that he would not enter for fear that he might encounter Donald Trump. This reaction from London is not dissimilar to the reaction from Parisian officials when Bobby Jindal and Fox News made claims about “no go zones” in Paris that consisted of predominantly Muslim communities in that city. Quite obviously, the reaction of authorities in both cities is motivated primarily by the desire to push back against claims that their cities are dangerous, something which could scare away tourism, as it is by any desire to get involved in American political campaigns. Nonetheless, the fact that local officials feel compelled to respond to American Presidential candidates is an interesting measure of the kind of impact that the 2016 race is likely to have around the world.
In the end, of course, the comments of world leaders and opinion makers is unlikely to have much of an impact on Trump supporters, and certainly not any more of an impact than the overwhelming condemnation that Trump’s latest comments have received from American political officials, including pretty much every Republican of note at this point. Indeed, for people who support Trump the fact that people like this are attacking Trump over his plan is likely to cause them to rally behind him even more than before. That begin said, the comments from international sources do lend some support to the arguments that many of those who have condemned Trump have made that his plan would end up hurting the United States on the world stage and in the broader fight against ISIS. Especially in the Muslim world, Trump’s comments seem likely to be incredibly off-putting, and the fact that they are coming from the frontrunner for the nomination of one of America’s two major political parties likely makes the impact of his virulently bigoted rhetoric seem all the worse. This is why you see not just Trump’s Republican opponents and the many Democrats condemning Trump, but also the White House and even the Pentagon have spoken out against it. In the end, none of the criticism will likely hurt Trump, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t important for the rest of the world to know that not all of America agrees with the nonsense he is spewing.
Oh, so it’s only “temporary”….well, that sorts it then.
As for Trump’s latest Snopes-worthy comments regarding London and Paris, there is no evidence that there are Muslim no-go areas as claimed by various and sundry racists and wingnuts.
Interesting to see if his polling drops because of the near universal condemnation…but in my opinion his base just doesn’t care…they are xenophobes and always have been…Trump is just letting that freak flag fly.
I am far more concerned about this than I am any of this radical religious zealot stuff…whether it be muslims or christians.
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/8/9869918/economists-climate-consensus
Trump Gives Muslim On Fence About Radicalizing Just The Push He Needed
Also, damn you Google Translate!
But…but…I thought Obama had ruined our reputation overseas and we needed a tough, tell-it-like-it-is Republican to restore our image abroad;-)
I think we need national ID cards (for citizens and non-citizens alike) that contain all kinds of information such as religious affiliation, national origin, ethnic and racial identification, gender identification and/or orientation, etc. so that we can have security.
Maybe the microchipping of all people (like we do our pets) is an idea whose time has come.
He’s not just hurting, he’s an active and determined detriment to our image and world power. Quite frankly, he’s making us looking like giant p&$$^#$ on the world stage while France and Belgium are holding their $*^&. How exactly is everyone supposed to take our threats seriously when we need them to if Toupees ‘R Us is proving we’ll throw down our toys, run like little bitches and cry in the corner over a homegrown problem, let alone an international one?
You can’t sabre-rattle with a plastic sword – there needs to be the threat of real steel being flashed. One intimidation move I pull before fencing tournaments is repeatedly twirling my epee at high speed, twisting my arm back behind my head then scoring a point on my raised foot behind my back in one slick move. It’s a completely useless, self-defeating maneuver but looks impressive by demonstrating flexibility, speed and dexterity – aka things I’m about to hurt them with. It looks badass and when my opponent inevitably tries it, their frustration at messing it up will stay with them the whole match and cause them to make mistakes they can’t afford. The smart fencer will realize all I did was score a point on myself to freak them out and stay calm.
Trump thinks he’s pulling flashy moves to show off his skills, scare ISIS and show the American public what’s what. In reality, he’s scoring cheap points on himself that don’t count and make him look stupid by doing it wrong. How can we expect our allies to take us seriously if this is a leading contender for our top job? How are our enemies to fear us when we can’t stop fearing for ourselves?
Some columnist suggested that Trump is saying this stuff because he’s hoping for more terrorist attacks to ensure he gets the nomination.
Trump has pushed this to the point where it can no longer be parsed or debated. I think it’s bizarre that the threat to forcibly export 11 million people didn’t trigger the fascist awareness response, but cutting off immigration from the Muslim world did. But OK. Life generally doesn’t make sense.
The reality is that Trump’s various clearly unconstitutional add-ons (registering Jews, er, Muslims etc…) puts the whole immigration question way out of bounds. It’s simply toxic. And me arguing jesuitically that this or that element is or is not fascistic is pointless.
I hate being pressured to conform. I don’t play on a team. I think most of you have heads full of untested assumptions and tediously smug memes, and that you don’t have a testicle between you. I don’t ever want to find myself getting a beatdown in an alley and counting on any of you to save me. But gosh if I ever need a hashtag. . .
But I’ve been quick enough at times to suggest people stop straining at gnats and unite for a common cause, so I’ll drop my objection to allowing some continuing immigration from the worst shitholes on earth, and I’ll pretend not to know that the people we’re talking about importing are rabidly anti-semitic, hate gays and treat women like cattle. Or that a certain unknowable percentage are already ISIS supporters or likely to become so.
Last night I was listening to Bernie Sanders on Maddow and it was surreal. I was being lectured by a 1930’s style socialist responding to the statements of a fascist demagogue. Bernie was simultaneously compassionate about working class white voters in a way utterly lacking around here, and completely irrelevant in his actual answers. By the end he was just another politician.
But as sanctimonious, airheaded, disconnected, effete, rigid and suffocatingly smug as the Left has become, it isn’t after evil ends. The Trump Right is. I may not be much of a Jew but my Shtetl Sense was tingling about Trump, about his mini-me Cruz, and the appalling Trump voters, long ago, back when I was calling him a fascist and my liberal brethren here were telling me I was going way over the top. I know a fascist when I see one. And it was his insane plan to forcibly eject 11 million people that made that unmistakably clear. To me.
And on the good side the seriousness of this issue, of the Trump voter, of the fascism at the heart of the modern Republican Party, will at least I suspect cure Democrats of their trivial obsessions like “spot-the-microaggression,” and endless rounds of “who’s got privilege?”
But this is dangerous, toxic stuff coming from the comb-over Duce. Worse is likely to come if (when) ISIS or some other terrorist hits us. The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast as Dylan sang. I remain deeply unimpressed with the people on the barricades, but I do know which side of that barricade I belong on. I know where I stand on fascism.
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/12/08/free-press-editorial-muslims-trump-bigotry-we-stand-together/76974510/
@michael reynolds :
Why no dear, the chaffing was a bitch. How casually sexist of a man who was chiding us for not expecting reguee or immigrant women to be potentially dangerous terrorists not a day ago.
I must agree that the general public should have lost it at this. That most of the condemnation came from the left and not the right doesn’t speak well for them. This is a case of better late then never, I guess. America has a disturbing tendency to accept a little bit of fascism when wrapped in pretty little distractions – it’s not our best side.
Ditto. But you don’t have to like your fellow solider, just need to be assured of no friendly fire and no Bravo Foxtrots allowed. Divided we fall, indeed….
@michael reynolds:
Yes, Michael, you’re the only Real Man here. Save us. Save us all.
@michael reynolds:
Yes, only to you. That’s what’s most important, after all.
Why all the vituperation? The plan to eject 11 million Mexicans by force was demented. And unworkable without the imposition of martial law.
Plus it was a preview of coming attractions. First eject all the Mexicans. Next the Muslims. Who after that? Anyone who thinks Donald Trump is an ignorant vulgarian with abysmal taste?
I think Conor Friedersdorf hit the nail on the head. I don’t know if Trump is bigoted. In fact, he probably isn’t. But I know that he thinks *we* are. You don’t have to go very far back to find him praising Latinos or hob-nobbing with Muslims or acting like a civilized human being toward people who are different from him. But now that he’s running for office, he’s running on pure xenophobia. I just hope that, at some point, all these people who like Trump for being un-PC and “saying it like it is” will realize that they are being played.
@Hal_10000:
I doubt it, Hal. They have far too much invested in Trump as their savior to admit they’re wrong, at this or any point. Just last September 19 Trump announced that he “love[s] the Muslims. They’re great people” and that he wouldn’t hesitate to put a Muslim-American in his cabinet. Did it make any difference to his fans? No. They claim CNN invented the quote, despite the fact that you can watch the clip with him saying it.
You’re making the mistake of thinking that Trump’s ardent fans are capable of reason. They’re not. They’re running on pure emotion, 99% of which is insensate rage.
These are the people who were deprived of a candidacy of their former savior, Sarah Palin. They’re not going to be balked again.
@Hal_10000:
Not even if he stood on the convention stage in prime time and said, “Gottcha. I punked you idiots. I can’t believe you bought that crap!”
@michael reynolds:
With all due respect, I don’t remember this as you do. This was widely condemned on various terms, but I think the reduced response (compared to the response on the Muslim exclusion plan) was because:
1) At that time, most of us still assumed that the Trump sideshow would die soon. OK, it didn’t. Sorry.
2) I think we also (rightly) assumed finding 11 million people and shipping them out was totally impractical and would never happen, even if Trump magically got elected. I still think this.
Well, Trump’s still here, and it’s even conceivable that he gets the nomination, and it actually is moderately practical to exclude Muslims from entering the country. That’s the difference.
@michael reynolds:
Just couldn’t resist, could you?
I mean, the loathing is clear. Does it really need to be re-iterated? (And I’m not trying to tone-police. But, like, can we take it for granted at this point that you think we’re nutless pantywaists? It’ll save you some typing, if nothing else.)
That said.
I too share this hope that the left stops beating the culture war drums over this nonsense. But I’m not counting on Trump’s candidacy to be the catalyst.
Indeed, I think the goofiness we’ve seen on the right, the disarray, the chaos, has actually opened the doors for the left’s overreach on this stuff. Who on the right has a credible response? Even if they’re not, they’re going to come off as bigoted, tone-deaf, or disingenuous. The defenders of the patriarchy, shining white knights of racial privilege.
If we want to defeat this stuff, we’re going to have to do it from within, on our own. Conservatives will not, can not help.
“I don’t ever want to find myself getting a beatdown in an alley and counting on any of you to save me.”
Lol, we might be the ones doing the beating 🙂 – You have been going for the “Get over yourself award” recently. I think you might have just earned it.
Anger leads to the Dark Side, Mr. Reynolds – Deep breaths…
@michael reynolds: Because the deportation of 11 million people is something that everyone realized can’t be easily done. Care to imagine the bureaucracy necessary?
Here, barring Muslims from entering the country IS far more physically and legally possible. That’s why everyone is flipping.
Trump is terrible. Just like Jimmy Carter when he revoked existing and suspended issuing any new visas to Iranians.
It is also amusing how much ignorance Trump is revealing the the Leftists and non-Leftists alike. His proposal is entirely Constitutional, it is supported by a large body of judicial decisions and, it is considered solely a Presidential matter related to foreign affairs and national security. The only thing up in the air, is if it is compatible with the majority of opinion in the US, which the election of Trump would definitively answer.
@Jane:
But there are several cities in Britain where the police and social services actively worked to keep pre-teen and teenage girls in sexual slavery to Islamic men. ….years.
And really Trump should adjust his claims to whether the police go to those areas only when in force or if they do regular patrols.
@JKB: I have news for you: Iran is a country, not a religion
@JKB:
The brain cancer guy?*
At any rate, where does this even come from? “Like Jimmy Carter? Then you’ll love Donald Trump!” Who even thinks like that? Isn’t this just more pointless hypocrite hunting**?
Seriously, “Jimmy Carter did it too” is what kind of defense?
* This is a parody of millennial ignorance, by the way.
** For the love all that is holy, if you’re breathing, you’re a hypocrite. Very few of us have the courage to live out our convictions, and it’s because our convictions are mutable, not because we’re lacking courage.
@JKB:
What a profoundly dumb point, though I’m sure it’s getting a ton of play on the RW websites. Not that you’re susceptible to logic or anything, but has it occurred to you that a person’s nationality (Iranian) and their religion (Islam) are two vastly different categories. Most obviously, one’s nationality can usually be verified. How exactly do you propose checking who is a Muslim and who isn’t? Are we just going to ask nicely and assume that everyone tells the truth? Jesus…do you people ever even think before you repeat whatever nonsense Hannity et al. pump into your mind hole? Never mind…I think I know the answer.
@Franklin: I’m actually pretty sure that I referred to “boxcars” when talking about Trump’s plans for undocumented immigrants, and I’m also pretty sure that I wasn’t the only liberal to draw lines between Trump’s plans and various Fascist regimes.
Why Michael now feels the need to believe — and trumpet — the idea that he was the only one who objected to the Trump plan is completely beyond me.
@JKB: Well, you’re plumbing Sarah Palin levels of stupidity here. Has anyone ever pointed out to you that Iran is a country, not a religion? And that not all Iranians are Muslim?
@WR:
Reading Michael’s writings as of late, don’t you get the feeling that all along he’s been thinking “If someone agrees with me then I must have been the one to put that thought into their head.”
It’s the only way I can think of that he can revisit those threads–and commenters have aptly provided him links to those past threads–see the dozens of upvotes for him, and that pretty much only Pinky was full-throatedly against him–and think “I was the lone prophet.”
Not, you know, that as a professional author he has a practiced skill at voicing common thoughts in ways better than those who aren’t professional authors.
Either that, or Michael’s self-worth was a lot more dependent on OTB commenter’s platitudes than we thought. With a majority of commenter’s against him on this issue, he’s having an existential breakdown.
Normally I wouldn’t play pop psychologist, but since MR has descended into argument tactics usually reserved for toddlers (“I’m tougher than you! You’re stupid! One day you’ll be sorry!”), I don’t feel too bad this time.
@michael reynolds:
As I wrote at the time:
Your response to this was to call me smug because:
What you were hyperventilating over was the proposal to deport 11 million people. Not even an ordered scheme, the mere fact of its being voiced. You had no regard for how it would get done (unless you were bloviating on the idea of new concentration camps), nor any concern for how the numbers of people supporting it were insignificant for the task. You gave a sh!t over the drama, not the dry, boring practicalities or the national mood that would make it possible. “The unthinkable can become thinkable very quickly” was the platitude you had in response.
Worse, you had no excuse: you’ve lived through the last five years of a presidency where nothing much got done due to a dedicated opposition, but somehow if Trump was elected the Democrats would buckle and let him deport the families and brethren of one of their key constituencies. And you now have the gall to write that the rest of us have heads teeming with unfounded assumptions!
Barring Muslim immigration or Syrian refugees, in contrast? Far, far more easily done. So easily done it was your solution to the left appearing weak! Muslims are barely more tolerable than atheists to most people, and they’ve been vilified in the media constantly since before 9/11. A few changes in text on a law would do it, no need for further infrastructure. Equating the two as if the left “missed its moment” on a danger to our way of life is your sick way of justifying your self-righteousness, and has nothing to do with facts or logic.
@JKB: And there are several cities in the USA where the Catholic Church actively allowed pedophile priests to operate with impunity. What does that have to do with the claim of no-go areas in London and Paris?
I might add that the UK continues to investigate and prosecute the criminals you mentioned, so hardly abetted by police or subject to no-go claims.
@Tillman: You know, Franklin said it better with less words, so now I feel bad for not reading the thread first.
@michael reynolds:
Says the man who sh!ts his bed at the thought of 5 yr olds.
Universal criticism is a feature, not a flaw in his appeal to the GOP.
This is a hell of a paragraph to be calling other people smug
Count me in as someone who didn’t take Trumps nonsense about deporting 11 million people too seriously. First, it’s physically impossible. Second, the business community AKA Big Ag. would never allow it.
It was simply a right wing buffoon bloviating to the rubes. Nothing more.
As pointed out so well earlier, the restriction on immigration from the Islamic world is an entirely different matter. It could be done very easily and would face significant approval.
Everybody gets that we need our vegetables picked, our lawns mowed, our dishes washed. The utility of allowing illegals in the country are obvious. I believe it’s been badly handled but that’s not relevant to the bigger picture.
The utility argument is much tougher to make about allowing further Muslim migration to the U.S. You want more people? Allow more from Asia. More from Latin America. Lots of people there want to come here and none of them (OK, I know there are insurgents there too) will be spraying down concert goers over some B.S. Jihad. (That attack was in France but I believe like all elections are now national all terrorism is now local. That attack might as well been in Peoria.)
I do foresee a day when visa’s from Saudi Arabia and sundry countries are very much curtailed. The muslim community is a very small subset of the population that is seen by many as a foreign element that does not want to assimilate. Every picture of muslim women with their headscarves on drives that point home to the public. And yes, it’s not at all fair to them but as we eventually all learn, life aint fair.
The muslim community is going to have to become much more pro-active at rooting out the radicals amongst them. The alternative is not going to be business as usual. That’s what’s key here – understanding that business as usual is not going to be acceptable and there are people like Trump who know this far better than most of the mainstream.
So how stupid was Carter for banning Iranian Christians, who would not normally be sympathetic to the Islamic theocracy then and now controlling Iran.
But the argument was that Trump’s announcement was unconstitutional and unconscionable, but the restriction of foreign nationals from entering the US based on nationality, religion, etc., is a long practice.
Obviously, any restriction upon visas to Muslims would be country based although perhaps also country of origin based. Blocking muslims from Syria is one thing, but now that the EU is overrun, we’d need to block most muslims from Germany, or Sweden, etc. depending on the reliability of the adopted country’s police/intelligence sources.
@JKB: Not only is Iran a country, Carter was responding to an action that country’s government condoned, if not encouraged, inside it’s own borders. It was a state to state response. Once ISIL is recognized as a country and issues passports, I am perfectly happy to have the President deport or refuse entry to those holding ISIL passports.
That’s easy, “Are you Muslim” “No.” “Then draw a picture of Mohammed” “or have a ham sandwich”.
If you wish to go on about feasibility or advisability of Trumps idea, that different than trying to argue constitutionality or legality.
Obviously, with the decline in nationalism, the nation-state based passport system is no longer effective and one based on religious or ideological beliefs may need to be substituted.
@Joe:
Actually, with today’s level of data, we can deport or deny entry to anyone who has travelled or had sustained communications of ISIS controlled areas in the last 5 years. As soon as someone drops off the grid, near Syria, or pops up there, they go on the no-entry list. We could even extend the ban to those with close ties to the individual that has traveled to ISIS controlled areas.
Regardless of national citizenship, residency or passport
@JKB:
I like your ideas a lot more in the original German.
@JKB:
Why don’t you just run home to mommy and ask her to protect you? Seriously dude, abject cowardice is not an American value.
@Hal_10000:
I hope that if they do it isn’t until the general, because if they figure it out too much sooner we’re looking at nominee Cruz.
@mantis:
Or the original American. Let’s not pretend, after all, that virulent racism and classifying people into religious/racial/ethnic categories to discriminate against them is some form of foreign import. It’s been what America does best from the day the first slave was imported, the first Indian was slaughtered, the first Chinese was denied entry.
@michael reynolds:
Your arguments have been a lot of things of late, but jesuitical isn’t one of them. Well, unless you are talking about the circularity of their arguments on things like transsubstantiation.
You many be crap at analogies, but you are definitely a pro at irony.
and the irony keeps coming… if only it was intentional
You are remembering that very differently than everyone else that was there. You are also remembering it differently than all of us that have since gone back and looked through those threads in the past couple of days. The objections, other than Pinky’s, were that although fascistic it was a plan proposed by a carnival barker and supported by (at the time) 25% of 25% of the population. The plan was and remains unworkable and impossible to get through the senate. You aren’t Cassandra, no matter how much it feels to you like you are.
Like your other predictions of late, I very much doubt it.
@James Pearce:
The problem with concepts like privilege and microaggressions and quite a lot of other widely misunderstood sociological and psychological concepts isn’t the concept itself. The ‘problem’, such as it is, is kids taking their first course in psychology, sociology, or (fill in the blank) studies and thinking they now hold the key to understanding all of society’s ills.
As much as you may dislike the term privilege is real and effects our society in very real ways. Understanding that helps us understand our society. Shouting privilege from the rooftops or bringing it up when it is tangentially related at best doesn’t help. Neither does pretending it doesn’t exist because of overexcited, if well meaning, college kids.
The same is true of microaggressions. The term is valid and if you lived a life filled with dozens of them every day they add up. They are in a way like paper cuts. No single one is a big deal, but if you go through your day experiencing dozens of paper cuts and every new interaction held the possibility of a new paper cut, you might feel differently.
I understand being frustrated by the misuse of the terms by too earnest kids and maybe that’s what you’re reacting to, but this ‘problem’ is rather inconsequential relative to almost every other problem we are facing today.
@michael reynolds:
Believe me, the feeling’s mutual.
Actually, I’m glad you said this, because I didn’t know that about you. It helps me understand your responses of late. The machismo about terrorism, the deeply ambivalent feelings about Muslims (which I think most of us share, even if we don’t want to admit it), the desire for Democrats to project “strength” on ISIS and banning refugees, the fact that you lose your shit when Muslims shoot guns but not when white losers shoot guns.
Hillary is a technocrat with a charisma score of 3. Bernie is a fussy old socialist who has admitted on live TV he doesn’t care about foreign policy. I don’t see them projecting the kind of “strength” that you would want in the general election.
Actually, for the modern media, the blowback against Trump and the Republican base has been pretty impressive. I guess the business class is worried about Trump finally.
@JKB: “That’s easy, “Are you Muslim” “No.” “Then draw a picture of Mohammed” “or have a ham sandwich”.”
And if that ends up keeping out Jews and vegetarians, well, that’s a win-win for JKB.
@Grewgills:
No doubt. But if your understanding of this country is that it’s power structures are based on unearned privilege that breaks cleanly along racial lines, then you don’t really understand this country.
What makes you think I haven’t?
(Is it because straight white males don’t experience microagressions? Or because we just experience the iniquities of life minus the fancy name?)
It’s not the misuse of the terms that object to, it’s the terms themselves. It’s how they’re applied.
Not to thread jack this, but I read a piece by Slate’s Aisha Harris* recently that included this paragraph. First she quotes a guy, then she mocks him:
She literally dehumanizes him, then makes weird comments about “all that whiteness coursing through his veins.”
And then her big complaint:
She, no doubt, thinks a statement like this is not racist. But it is.
* You can google it. Don’t want to engage the spam filter.
@James Pearce:
I think we’re sufficiently far in and enough time is elapsing between comments that that isn’t an issue.
If that’s your understanding of the term privilege, then you don’t really understand the term.
If you can’t see that being white, being male, being perceived as christian, being tall, being attractive, being wealthy and coming from wealth all confer degrees of privilege, then you don’t really understand this country.
I would recommend others to also read the whole article as the excerpt does not convey the tone of the whole piece.
Honestly if you find her saying,
to be dehumanizing, then you haven’t experienced being dehumanized in the way many people do on a daily basis. That was, at worst, mild mockery, or maybe even a microaggression 😉 The “all that whiteness” comment was odd. From the rest of the article I would guess it was a poorly worded way of saying that even though he was white and at least peripherally a part of the Hollywood power structure, he could still see the racism that the cover was representative of.
That, frankly, is a load of sh!t for several reasons.
1. Take a look at big budget Hollywood films even today. If you cannot see that there is a preference for stories for, by, and about white people then you aren’t looking. Hell, they just made a couple of big budget movies set in Egypt and the cast was all white. Rom coms set in Hawai’i have not one major non white character. If you can’t see that the people responsible for casting have a bias in favor of white people, then something is blinding you to it.
2. Racism, as a sociological term, is about both racial prejudice and power that supports and enforces that prejudice. Even if her statement was prejudiced against white people, rather than just recognizing an obvious fact, there is absolutely no power enforcing and supporting that position.
It is amazing to me how sensitive you are to even rather small slights to white men and how opposed you are to the language and tactics of people fighting to bring minorities and women to equality with white men while largely supporting their goals.
Here is a quote from Dr King to mull over.
@Grewgills:
I would argue with all of those except for wealth. The others can provide degrees of privilege. It doesn’t follow that they do.
I live in America. Of course, I experience dehumanization on a daily basis.
My point is, though, that if someone were to write about Aisha Harris that way, give her a biscuit and a pat on the head for being a good social justice warrior, it would be consider gauche, no?
Maybe? If Rush Limbaugh said something about “all that blackness” coursing through Ms Harris’s veins, it wouldn’t be confused with microagression or mild mockery. It would be seen for what it is, racist.
Not kinda. Just the plain old garden variety level stuff. And I understand the urge to let it pass as a kind of corrective. “Hey, we’re trying to break down the white patriarchy here. It’s okay if we’re just a little racist. You started it!”
I’m, of course, juvenilizing it for effect. But that is my problem with the social justice movement as it stands now. If it were meant to stamp out racism in all its forms, fine, sign me up. Pitchfork in this hand, torch in the other. But it doesn’t do that. It perpetuates it, tries to steer it in a different direction.
Same with sexism.
As for the Hollywood stuff, I really really wish this would stop being such a focus. Liberals should be protecting the arts, not policing them. Hollywood only sees one color: Green.
If your movie “opens,” they’ll put you in another one. White, black, Korean, whatever. Want to see more people of color on the big screen? Go see their movies. There is no other way to do it.
The problem isn’t that Hollywood has a preference for “white stories” -whatever those are- but the audience has broader tastes. They’re interested in aesthetics, not ideology. This doesn’t seem to compute with the culture war critics.
I just don’t find this as objectionable as you do. They just did a live musical remake of the Wizard of Oz on TV and the cast was all black. Who cares?
Again, it comes down to aesthetics, not ideology. If Christian Bale sucked in Exodus and Jaime Lannister sucked in his Egypt movie, that’s one thing. But to complain about their casting because of their race?
That’s on the same level as those bitching about Finn from Star Wars. Not on a different level because they’re white and there’s this White Hollywood problem we have to tackle. No.
The same level.
Ha! Trust me, I’m not really looking out for the White Man. Our society has too many problems with racism already, and the casual racism against white people in the social justice movement just adds to it.
Me, I think racism is stupid. In all its forms.
Well, when they said equality, I didn’t realize they meant they would be racist dicks.
All this effort to bring to bring low the domination of the straight white man isn’t going to raise up minorities and women. It’s just going to bring down straight white men.
Which is not the same thing.
@James Pearce:
No, all of them do confer degrees of privilege. Privilege isn’t a golden ticket that means everything goes right for you or even that certain things are guaranteed to go right for you, it just means that things will be a bit easier because of that factor. For instance, all else being equal, you and the African Amerrican version of you go to hail a cab who gets one first? All things else being equal, who gets their resume looked at, you or the African American version of you with an African American sounding name? etc. You seem to think people are saying privilege is more than it is. People with privileges can have difficult lives too. White dirt farmers have hard lives. All things else being equal, black dirt farmers have harder lives. If you can’t see this you are blind.
Do you seriously believe that if you were the exact same person you are now, but black or a woman that your life wouldn’t be more difficult? That some opportunities you’ve had might not have been there for you?
Historical context does exist.
It comes down to money in an institutionally racist society.
Again, read the Dr King quote. The equating of your feelings about how people talk about institutional racism with actual institutional racism is part of the problem.
If you think the focus is to bring white men down, then you don’t understand the people who are fighting for these causes. It is pretty much the same argument that calls feminists man haters and says they just want to bring men down.
Also consider the difficulty of having an equal society with any race or sex dominates.
All that being said, neither of us will ever change the other’s mind on this point, so have a last word if you want. I’m done for this go round.
@Grewgills:
We’ve gone through this before. You’ve identified an injustice, and rather than stopping there and condemning it and working to end it, you’ve gone a step further and declared the absence of this injustice a “privilege.”
And what makes it worse is that instead of demanding an end to the injustice, the demand is for more privilege for one group, less for another. Cast a person of color, not the white guy. Give the job to the woman with the African sounding name, not the white guy.
It’s an idea that dispenses with merit and focuses, just like racism, on surface qualities that, I hope we can agree, do not actually matter.
I’m clever enough that I think I would have a decent shot at it, black, female, or otherwise. But then again, I’ve made a conscious choice not to engage in the victim mentality.
It’s pretty easy for a white guy, that’s true, but I think that choice would be much more complicated for someone who is, ahem, less privileged. How tempting it must be indulge in that if you can. (White people do it too.)
It does, but it doesn’t justify continued racism.
I do understand the people fighting for these causes. I’m one of them.
The cause, for me, is bigger than “too many white people in movies” though.
Don’t give up, bud. Keep fighting the good fight, and I will too.
@James Pearce:
This statement made me wonder–is “privilege” simply “the absence of injustice,” or is there something more to it? The Wiki on “Privilege(social inequality)” contained a link to an academic article that addresses this very point–the author asserts the term “privilege” is insufficient because it fails to adequately differentiate between “spared injustice” and “unjust enrichment.” He defines these thusly:
You and Grewgills might find the article interesting and relevant to your discussion.
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/lawrence_blum/publications/publications/A57.pdf
@Mikey: Alright, I’m in.
@Mikey:
All of that has been part of my understanding of privilege that it is inclusive of all of those things. It can also be useful to explore it in terms of each of those individually too and I believe many already do. I think it is mostly those who aren’t experiencing the downsides that have a hard time wrapping their heads around these concepts or who are rejecting them for other reasons. Anyway, thanks for the contribution.
@Jane: Jane – perhaps you need to travel a bit more. Can i suggest an evening on your own or with girlfriends around the St Lazare Station in Paris. Perhaps a little real life would convince you of the impending disaster.
But of course you wont do that – why….. is it too dangerous? Come on Jane – try it out and then comment on reality