Why is this so? Isn't this racism?

Question

Why is it, when somebody on here makes a point and is a muslim, that people automatically assume the person is from another country? I asked this question trying to make the point that even though our country is SEEN as being Christian, all of the negative news does not mean that it's christianity. I was trying to make the point that you can not base the way a religion is by the negative news of any particular country. So why did so many refuse to even look at the point but make statements like "allow you in our country" and "you don't realize our country is a melting pot" ? Of course I know that, my entire family is American born and raised, and not from anywhere near the middleeast or any islamic nation. Are people trained to ignore points but just attack? I'm seriously wondering about this, because instead of answering the question and seeing the point, it was either an attack, an insult, or trying to educated this 23 year old white American woman about her own country.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqMxdSzR6xG4VGD71XP4A_Lsy6IX?qid=20070528104325AAyDCTc

Answer 1

i think people have a problem understanding that this ISNT a christian nation. the country may have christian influences but it was NEVER and NEVER WILL BE a christian nation. this nation is like you said a MELTING POT with MANY different religious, non religious people and we need to accept that instead of judging others because its "wrong" or not "normal" in out society.

Answer 2

The fact is that most people don't really listen. This is why people make the idiotic remarks that they make. I haven't checked your previous question but probably don't have to. Start pulling up any of the questions here on Answers and start reading some of the responses. Just pick the questions at random. People's ignorance and willful stupidity is pretty disgusting and that is just how it is. Pretty frightening that these are people that vote, isn't it. I don't know what your point in your previous questions was and may or may not have agreed with it but my goal would not be to insult you. I am however very honest in my responses. I just answered a mother who doesn't want any lectures on her son's behavior but wants to get him out of paying child support. I answered very honestly and I'm sure she won't like it but that's too bad. For the record, I'm a conservative Christian but that wouldn't cause me to be a jerk to you. I'm from LA and deal with many different cultures both American by generations and new to the states. I'm very blessed to be surrounded by so much diversity because it opens my eyes and gives me an understanding about people. Besides, as a Christian, I want people to say, "Wow! That Jesus Christ really has a nice group of followers!" Maybe they'll want to follow too!

Answer 3

Hello,

Unfortunately these forums are not your Ivy League or Oxford- Cambridge debating societies. At times knowledge of the subject matter as well as educational levels or fundementals of logic are noticeably lacking. Thus ad hominem attacks and hasty generalizations flourish unchecked.

It is silly and erroneous to think that all Muslims are Middle Eastern Arabs. The vast majority live in Indonesia, Pakistan and parts of Eastern Europe which covers several different races and cultures. Many have been in America for three or more generations.

Islam is not the first religion to be raked over the coals. Look at the history in America of the " papist" Roman Catholics who came to America in the 19th century; especially from Ireland. Of all the presidents only one has been a Catholic.
The pope was the Anti-Christ, their loyalty is to Rome, not Washington! It was hard for Catholics to get the vote from their fellow Christians. Lately they are in a tight race with the Muslims on these lists as far as negative publicity goes.

In summation muslims are not the first to get bashed nor will they be the last I believe.

Regards

Michael Kelly

Answer 4

Ignorance is inevitable. I just read the last question you asked, and you are totally in the right -- not that you need me to tell you that. In our modern world, tensions are high and people are constantly prepared to pounce on whatever they might perceive as a threat. It's a terrible shame, but I'm afraid that there is nothing one can do about it.

I would not really call it racism. Racism implies a sense of superiority of one race above another or all others. I would call it ignorance-induced fear. Of course, that very ignorance is induced by fear. So we have fear inducing ignorance which is inducing fear (Ironically, this is how light and all other electro-magnetic waves work.). It's a vicious cycle that seems to have no end.

As far as I'm concerned, it's high time that mankind takes the next step towards freedom and enters a new era of innovation. America just isn't cutting it any more, and it even seems to have gotten much worse over the years from the influence of big business and radicalist christians (they're just as dangerous as the radicalist muslims as far as I'm concerned).

Answer 5

Racism, bigotry and discrimination have been part of America since the beginning of things here. It's one thing to welcome everyone at the immigration ports of entry, it's another to change minds about what integration means. I find myself jumping to conclusions and stereotyping people from all the years of my upbringing, absorbing all my parents' biases. It takes education and even then, people will wage war on a minority group or even a majority. Religion is especially touchy since each has in it's basis the belief that God chose them over all others. There's not even a consensus for a definition of God. I sympathize with your predicament, but I know no easy solution. Time is the only true leveling agent. I guess I always think of Latka on the TV show Taxi. He said about America, "This is a tough town."

Answer 6

The war in Iraq has most Americans thinking that Muslim is a terrorist religion. They are scared, for the most part, of Muslims and of the things they don't know or don't understand.
So they overreact. It is sad that before 9/11 Muslims in this country freely worshiped with little or no problem. Now, anyone of that faith is thought to be a terrorist and an immigrant. It's sad.

Answer 7

What is wrong with those people in this country is they don't wish to understand. Ironically, they like to be open-minded. But open-minded in thier terms. That's unfair. If you don't agree to what's consider popular, they look at you as an outcast to society, or a threat. I guess the people who answered the question, must really have a bad IQ. Or may lack wisdom. Yet, these are the same people that probably go to church and don't know the true meaning of things. Who knows?

Answer 8

I understand your frustration. As a non-Christian living in the U.S., I have to remind people that this country was founded on the separation of Church and State. I also have to remind people that regardless of your family history, when you're born in this country, you're AMERICAN! If you were born someplace else but have attained citizenship, YOU'RE AMERICAN. Unless someone is from a native-American Indian tribe, that person's family was an immigrant family, too. As I told a man during a heated discussion, "Since when is Hungary a native American tribe?" We're all from someplace else. That diversity is what has made our country so special!

Answer 9

It sounds like plain old ignorance. I admit I know very little about the Muslim religion, or Christianity for that matter. Right now North-Americans are scared and fear is one of the driving forces, I think, behind racism and religious prejudice. The "allow you in our country" statement is ludicrous. Who does this country belong to if not to us (I'm Kenyan-American)? Also, I find there are lots of racist comments on Yahoo Answers, unfortunately.

Answer 10

It was the Prophet Mohammed himself who attempted to negate the positive image of the Jew that had been prevalent earlier. According to historian Bernard Lewis, the Prophet Mohammed's original plan had been to induce the Jews to adopt Islam; when Mohammed began his rule at Medina in AD 622 he counted few supporters, so he adopted several Jewish practices-including daily prayer facing toward Jerusalem and the fast of Yom Kippur-in the hope of wooing the Jews. But the Jewish community rejected the Prophet Mohammed's religion, preferring to adhere to its own beliefs, whereupon Mohammed subsequently substituted Mecca for Jerusalem, and dropped many of the Jewish practices.

Jews faced the danger of incurring the wrath of a Muslim, in which case the Muslim could charge, however falsely, that the Jew had cursed Islam, an accusation against which the Jew could not defend himself. Islamic religious law decreed that, although murder of one Muslim by another Muslim was punishable by death, a Muslim who murdered a non-Muslim was given not the death penalty, but only the obligation to pay "blood money" to the family of the slain infidel. Even this punishment was unlikely, however, because the law held the testimony of a Jew or a Christian invalid against a Muslim, and the penalty could only be exacted under improbable conditions--when two Muslims were willing to testify against a brother Muslim for the sake of an infidel.


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Answer 11

Unfortunately so many people on this sight don't pay attention to the detail of the post. They pick out what they can easily attack with no facts.

Some even act like they know everything about everything when they don't even have a clue.

I take comfort in knowing that the people like this on here have no meaning in my personal life nor do they pay my bills.

Don't dwell on it, they really are not worth the effort.

Best wishes to you.