Fire at Tenn. Mosque Building Site Ruled Arson

Originally posted by seagull
reply to post by Annee

 

There may be some who buy into that notion, wrong though it may be...

In all too many cases, especially in public schools, and colleges, American children, not just whites, are taught just that. Evil was done by whites, therefore, by default, the whites are, or will be, evil if given the chance...

No No No No - I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I'm anglo and live on the AZ Mex border.

I hear the fear every day from whites how they are becoming the minority. And that's the mild version.

I live it.

Originally posted by Annee
What I'm seeing is a European world of mostly white Christians - - being displaced by a different ethnic group - mostly darker skinned of different culture and different belief system.

And I'm supposed to have sympathy?

What goes around - comes around.

I think there is a failure by both camps in the immigration/cultural/tolerance vs tolerance debate to acknowledge a maxim demonstrated by history...

Ethnicities/cultures merge...

America is the "Melting Pot"...an Alloy is a combination of metals whose final state is stronger than any of it's individual components.

Religious view....ALL Gods children

Scientific view...Here is something few Americanike think about.

African Americans migth celebrate thier roots and black heritage, BUT...
Ever wonder why African-Americans are by and large a much lighter color than contemporary native Africans?

The vast majority of African Americans are a genetic mix of White/Black and can count white Americans among thier ancestors.

Now try this on for size...when an American child was born in the 1700's, 1800's and even 1900's...to a white mother/black father or a Black Mother/white father...a decision was made near the time of birth.

Is the child light skinned enough to pass for white? If so the child was raised as white and that child's black ancestry was obfuscated or hidden.

Both before and after the American Civil War, many people of mixed ancestry who "looked white" and were of mostly white ancestry were legally absorbed into the white majority.

Prominent examples of persons of mostly white ancestry who were accepted by the white community in the nineteenth century were most of Thomas Jefferson's alleged mixed-race descendants. Three of his four surviving children by Sally Hemings, who were seven-eighths white by ancestry, moved into the white community.

en.wikipedia.org...

A study was done by a geneticist named Mark Shriver sampling thousands of "white Americans" that found that 30% have black ancestry.

He assumes the number would be much higher if he excluded the descendants of the European flood of Immigrants during the late 1800's early 1900's and just focused on Americans who traced their roots back to early America.

Yep...Many of those "pure-bred", "white-pride" folks in the south would have a serious shock to thier world-view if they ever got a detailed DNA test.

MY POINT???

One Culure...One Race...ONE ETHNICITY has NEVER EXISTED in AMERICA.

AND THAT IS WHAT MAKES US THE BEST NATION IN THE WORLD.

One Culture DOES NOT DISPLACE another in America.

In America we take the best of a culture and make it our own in the melting pot...and discard what is incongruent with founding principles.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THIS WAY.

There have always been voices of intolerance with regards to Immigration!!!!

I am a Genealogist (Hobby)...I got stuck on a Great-g-Grandmother in Philly during the 1800's. I couldn't find her parents...until I visited her grave.

Her parents were there burried beside her...with a German last name, hers was very simliar, but had been altered to an English spelling of a prominent Anglo-Saxon name. She had changed her name to an Anglo-Saxon name...I discovered a personal letter she wrote explaining that she did it with great heart-ache to protect her children from being picked on in school for being German Immigrants...It was a heated debate at the time.

Irish? Catholics? Irish Catholics?...They were literally called "white N*&^s" on the street during the Irish Immigration wave (Potatoe famine)

WE ARE MUTTS...ALL OF US...and the idea of one culture displacing another...or "whites" becoming a minority in the USA is the most INANE rhetoric I can concieve of. OUR CULTURE IS A MELTING POT....and from that melting pot emerges a cultural fabric that is admired the world over.

Cultural displacement? It is illogical ad infinitum...It is an idea that is refuted BY OUR ENTIRE HISTORY and absent logic, what it leaves is just old fashioned intolerance of the flavor that has always slowed America the melting-pot's ascent to being the greatest nation on earth.

[edit on 1-9-2010 by maybereal11]



[edit on 1-9-2010 by maybereal11]

reply to post by maybereal11


Nicely said.
However, couldn't faith be a greater barrier to integration than ethnicity or culture?
Aren't a lot (not all) of Protestants required to denounce other faiths to remain in good standing with their church?
Aren't Catholics required to agree to raise their children within the faith before their inter-faith marriages are considered valid by the Church?
Aren't Muslim women forbidden from marrying outside their faith while Muslim men may marry women " of the Book", provided she converts to Islam?
Aren't Orthodox Jews forbidden to marry outside their faith and Progressive Jews encouraged to raise their children Jewish?
It would seem that this American melting pot has always required conversion or a lessening of devotion.
While co-existence is the issue, the reticence of Southern Protestants to marry outside their faith is nor more of an impediment to integration than the views of any of those other Abrahamic religions.
They all form enclaves, some are just larger than others. It's the nature of the beast.
Tolerance often boils down to a question of numbers.
Haven't some members of all of these groups have been guilty of intolerance and discrimination when their majority permits?

reply to post by maybereal11


Yes - I agree.

I live in SW AZ now - - but grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles county.

We have Olvera Street - - China Town - - Vietnamese areas - - etc.

Are they melding in society and/or holding on to their heritage and traditions?

In housing I think they are melding - because they don't live exclusively in their "designed" cultural areas.

But - I also witnessed White Flight in 1965 because of busing.

IMO - Whites (mostly Christian) are definitely having an issue with being push out of what they for many years claimed as exclusively theirs. They are in fear and fighting against becoming the minority.

Oh - and I'm as WASP as you can get - leaning toward Atheism.

I have just never had an issue with prejudices for race/skin color/belief/culture - etc. Now my daughter who also lives in AZ - - does have a problem with it. She gets panicky in areas predominately Mexican.

It just doesn't bother me.

Originally posted by 23refugee
reply to post by maybereal11

 

Nicely said.
However, couldn't faith be a greater barrier to integration than ethnicity or culture?
Aren't a lot (not all) of Protestants required to ...
Aren't Catholics required to ...
Aren't Muslim women forbidden from ...
Aren't Orthodox Jews forbidden ...

It would seem that this American melting pot has always required conversion or a lessening of devotion.

Haven't some members of these groups guilty of intolerance and discrimination when their majority permits?

Please excuse the editing of your question...It's a very valid and very big question, I'll try to be brief with my opinion.

You are correct...Each and every faith IMO trys to inflate thier following by having strict rules of marriage etc. Love as a tool of conversion and children as a tool of growing the flock etc.

The flaw in that plan is ironically a power designed by God (if you belive in God)...otherwise nature..Love.

Despite oaths of faith, there will always be those that choose love over devotion to a given orthodoxy...and more so in America than anyplace else.

I have the Huey Lewis song playing in my head right now..."the power of love"

Not to go all disney and flowers on you...but I do believe it. No religious enclave can remain intact forever...you can delay it by building a compound in the desert, but even they have deserters.

I know a Muslim woman who is married to a buddy of mine who is Catholic. Both of them retain thier given faith...their parents went bonkers when they got married...but both subjugated thier Orthodxy to thier love for eachother...they are wonderful people...they have 2 really neat kids who will be one step further away from the strict orthodox views of thier grand-parents..

So in the melting pot, does religion "melt"? Yes in my opinion and I am not sure that it is more entrenched than the old souths views about race, or some peoples current views on race or ethnicity.

Religions change all the time....And people do to. Just my opinion.

Originally posted by Annee
Now my daughter who also lives in AZ - - does have a problem with it. She gets panicky in areas predominately Mexican.

It just doesn't bother me.

I feel for your daughter. I get uncomfortable at times when I am walking in a neighborhood that overwhelmingly black, or hispanic...I mean I stand out don't I? I'd feel the same if I was walking down the street in my own nieghborhood with a bozo wig and clown nose.

I make an effort to own those emotions and think them through.

All I can say is that I have found the greatest rewards in life come when I overcome my stupid fears.

I assume your daughter will eventually hone her safety radar beyond the superficial. A party or a late night at a bar with people "like you" can be more dangerous for your daughter than simply being in predominately hispanic Neighborhood. Normal looking white folks do bad things all the time.

If staying safe was only as simple as avoiding the neighborhoods full of people that don't look like you.

reply to post by maybereal11


An apology for going all disney and flowers will never be required with me.
I'm an emigrant to one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world. I've been all over Montreal and I'm aware of the reception I get in various neighborhoods. I grew up in Appalachia, I know I pass for straight. Those looks are due to the fact that I'm a big, bearded "white" guy. Are all those people racist, or is it just fear of the outsider, as in my own culture at home?
The predominately Muslim people in our neighborhood eventually relaxed, as people do. Gradually they realized that I was "with" that other big, bearded "white guy". Back to square one, go no further.
Of course, it's personal experience, but was the first racial prejudice I encountered more loathsome than religious prejudice that followed?
Both are deeply ingrained in the culture, just as it is in a lot of America, including the South.
I simply can't see one group as being more bigoted than the other.

Originally posted by maybereal11
A party or a late night at a bar with people "like you" can be more dangerous for your daughter than simply being in predominately hispanic Neighborhood. Normal looking white folks do bad things all the time.

If staying safe was only as simple as avoiding the neighborhoods full of people that don't look like you.

I didn't say I was stupid. I said I've never had a problem being prejudice.

I pay more attention to peoples actions then I do their appearance.

Once my daughter got lost riding her moped. She ended up in Watts wearing her high school cheerleader outfit. The black man from the liquor store went out and got her from the pay phone booth - - took her and her moped inside the store. Put her safely in a back office with a phone - so no one would bother her - - and so she could call home.

There are good people every where. There are also bad people EVERY WHERE.

Originally posted by Annee

Originally posted by maybereal11
A party or a late night at a bar with people "like you" can be more dangerous for your daughter than simply being in predominately hispanic Neighborhood. Normal looking white folks do bad things all the time.

If staying safe was only as simple as avoiding the neighborhoods full of people that don't look like you.

I didn't say I was stupid. I said I've never had a problem being prejudice.

I pay more attention to peoples actions then I do their appearance.

Apologies if it came off that way. I was more or less speaking out loud and not implying that you didn't have a bright and aware head on your shoulders, your posts are usually clear and sharp, I can't always claim the same

I was just "chatting", not implying you weren't aware of the same.

reply to post by maybereal11


No Problem.

Perfection only happens in imagination or some altered state - LOL

reply to post by 23refugee


Well you have the misfortune of being in a minority that multiple religions have issue with. Geez...It's probably the only issue Extremist Christians and Muslims agree on..

You asked about different religions and the melting pot? My sister is a unitarian, she has a lesbian pastor that her family really loves.

I am glad you are finding your way and living your life. Life is short, find happines with whomever you choose and ignore the unfortunate folks who don't get it yet.

...I probably don't have to tell you that, I imagine your circumstances have given birth to an unusually strong and enlightened character...just opining here

Originally posted by Annee
reply to post by maybereal11

 

No Problem.

Perfection only happens in imagination or some altered state - LOL

""Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for; for none of us, no, not one, is perfect; and were we to love none who had imperfections, this world would be a desert for our love."

Thomas Jefferson

dp

[edit on 1-9-2010 by maybereal11]

reply to post by Annee


Glad that story ended happily.

All too often they don't. The "different" are always subject to that. No matter what the "different" is...

Prejudice and hate come in so very many different shapes and sizes...hard to keep track of them all.

reply to post by maybereal11


Thanks for the sentiment.
Not to sound flippant, but aren't the Muslims of Murfreesboro subject to the same misfortune as myself? A presumably oppressed minority surrounded by a majority with differing religious values. The fact that they are now the victims does not change the fact that they are bigots, as well.
Those Protestants are bigots. Those Muslims are bigots. Neither can honestly lay claim to a "live and let live" philosophy from where I stand.
One is no better or worse than the other.

I think that the FBI needs to check out this woman...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/ad06a762bb62.jpg[/atsimg]



Her name is Laruie Cardoza-Moore, and she has been a very vocal opponent of the mosque in New York as well as the Mosque in Murfreesboro.

If one is to investigate a crime, one must look at motive. This lady certainly has motive.



[edit on 9/1/2010 by whatukno]

reply to post by whatukno


That did feel creepy. For what it's worth, I felt her performance lacked the cadence required to incite some real pew jumpin' and Bible thumpin'.
Humor aside, is there a video that systematically rebuts her points, instead of just calling her a hatemonger.
Specifically, is there a concerted effort to legalize female circumcision in the U.S. Are we discussing pricking the clitoris or removing it? I was under the impression that that was purely a cultural thing, not an Islamic thing. Is that a lie that doesn't need to be refuted?

reply to post by 23refugee


I don't know of anyone in their right mind that would do that to a person. But hey, maybe that's a cultural thing. I have no idea.

Muslim community leader arrested for 'making up Arson Attack & BNP kidnap story'

A Muslim community leader who claimed he was kidnapped from his home at knifepoint and dumped in woodland after a BNP hate campaign has been arrested for perverting the course of justice.

Mr Ramjanally had also alleged that his Loughton home was firebombed in July and that he had received hate mail threatening his family.

Mr Ramjanally was arrested amid suggestions that he made the whole incident up

www.dailymail.co.uk...

reply to post by ollncasino


Not the same story mate. This occurred in Tennessee here in the United States and not in England.