How many straws can rest atop a camel’s back before it breaks?
That’s the question that spurs this entry. I routinely receive mounds of junk e-mail from conservative causes, mostly because I am looking for the shred of truth in whatever arguments are being made on various issues. While my search is typically in vain, at least I try, and I will continue to do so.
Then there are the stoooopid e-mails that “friends” forward along because they think that the content is funny or somehow profound. I have gotten fairly good at blindly deleting many of these e-mails without reading them, because there are only so many silly kitten photos or “pro American” messages that I really need in my life on a daily basis.
So what got me riled up today? Well, check out this note that I received from an acquaintance:
IN CASE YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS.
READ CAREFULLY………..
This is so “Unbelievable”….In Houston, TexasHarwin Central Mall: The very first store that you come to when you walk from the lobby of the building into the shopping area had this sign posted on their door. The shop is run by Muslims .Feel free to share this with others.In case you are not able to read the sign below, it says:“We will be closed on Friday, September 11, 2009 to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Ali “Imam Ali flew one of the planes into the twin towers.Nice huh?Try telling me we’re not in a Religious war !THIS HAS NOT BEEN AROUND…. SO MAKE SURE IT DOES!
We shall now try to count the instances of ignorance found in this little note.
1. The instructions say to read carefully. Perhaps the original author should have done so as well. A five second search in Snopes.com actually reveals the truth behind this perceived act of evil.
2. This is so unbelievable? Probably because it is not true. Here is the truth.
3. No where in the sign does it refer to the events of 9/11.
4. “Imam Ali” did not fly one of the planes into the World Trade Center. Imam is of course a clerical title, not a name. And Imam Ali is a very special person in Islamic history, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad. It was Imam Ali that is credited as founding the Sunni branch of Islam, as Ali fought with followers of Abu Bakr over the succession of the Prophet Muhammad.
5. Regarding the religious war comment, I am assuming for a moment that this original note was created by someone who professes to be a Christian. If I recall correctly, one of the important messages of Jesus of Nazareth was “judge not lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). While I do not think the moral of the story is to avoid all judgment (after all, if someone breaks one of the Commandments, doesn’t that imply and invite some form of judgment?), I think we can easily suggest that one should probably not cast judgment when one doesn’t have a freaking clue about the actual facts. Had my acquaintance in this case bothered to do ANY research, he would have found that these store owners were being good Muslims in closing their shop in honor of Imam Ali, and were in fact horrified to learn of the reaction to the sign, particularly given that the same sign had been posted each year.
6. This has not been around? This happened last September and is still making the idiot e-mail rounds… I think it’s gone around plenty.
Oh, the pancake bunny is a non-sequitur… an inside joke from the e-mail stream that served to shift what might become an uncomfortable moment into a simply mindless one. But truth be told I am up for the uncomfortable one – I am up for the confronting of ignorance that leads to the reinforcement of inaccurate stereotypes. As Neil Peart wrote,
Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand…
This post in entitled Volume I for a reason – in the spirit of making OLV a place that promotes social justice and equality, I think it is time that we band together to apply the antiseptic of truth to bigoted propaganda. Thus, when people decide to send you e-mails that are built upon stereotypes and prejudice, take a moment to do the research and find the real truth, and send it along to us here at OLV. We’ll be very glad to see what you can turn up.
Oh, and we’re still seeking additional contributors/writers.
One Response to “Confronting Wingnuttery, Volume I”
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One has to wonder how difficult it would be to trace the actual origin of the email in question to peel back the layers of this onion. Would we discover at the core an act of an individual person’s ignorance or some malicious plot to inflame people that was perpetrated on an organizational level?
If simple ignorance motivated the emailed hatchet job, because that individual believes the information they wanted to communicate with others, then the only course of defense is to call out the facts and educate the person about their misperception. We will not get into the causes, or possible prevention, of such ignorance but must acknowledge that we cannot defeat one man’s ignorance until it shows itself.
If this racially charged email was in fact offered into the Internet by an organization that knowingly disseminated inflammatory material to incite a certain reaction, or damage the image of a certain section of a shared community, then it is our duty as members of that shared community to uncover the organization and investigate the motives behind the misinformation.
Unlike individual stupidity, organizational propoganda has a more sinister purpose and must be exposed.
In my humble opinion, any group that will deliberately increase the tensions by rubbing salt in the 9/11 wound probably does not have an end goal that is in the best interests of our shared community. Who amongst us has the ability to trace the origins of the email?
In the land of the blind… the one-eyed man is King.