us vs. them and institutionalized racism

Critics are decrying a recent move in the heart of New York (ground zero) to construct a mosque that they suggest would display insensitivity towards the victims of the September 11th attacks. Outraged over tolerance of a religious practice that is far too intolerant.

Conservative talk show hosts have gone as far as to encourage viewers to "blow it up" and "bomb" it assuming construction on it begins. A teaparty spokesman condemns giving muslims a place to pray to their "monkey god" "5 times a day" in a location that would desecrate the victims of 9-11.

The FBI reports that hate crimes against arab americans have increased nearly 1500% since 9-11. Last month, wafting under the lurid smells of oil in the gulf, nearly 60 muslims were underattack when a pipebomb went off inside of a mosque in Jacksonville. Where was the outrage then? You can only imagine the the lampooning of outrageous epithets if the attacker were Muslim, and that's for one reason: racism against Muslims has become internally politicized.

Joe stack flying his plane into an IRS building got some shrugged shoulders and a "musta' been a bad day". Coulda' happened to anyone, right? An Arab American is crowned Miss USA and FoxNews channels start dripping with idiotic drivel and outrage over why the white contestant didn't win. I had no idea beauty peagants could put a damper on the "things that our black president did today" segment Fox normally has on repeat.

Anyway, the idea is that Islam is "taking over" America. The organization that storms the anti-Islam movement on ground zero is SIOA...an acronym for Stop Islamization of America. See how that works???

Anti-muslim sentiments are nothing new in this millenium. From the onset of 2001 it was "us vs. them". America has villified muslims, many of whom are our neighbors.

Are people so blinded by their own racism and miseducation to know that the Americans who are and were victims of 9-11 include Arab Americans? Yes, Arab Americans were even apart of the rescue and salvage teams as well. In fact, the most recent time square bombing attempt was foiled by an Arab American.

Belgium and France have both enforced laws banning burqas and niqabs. Will it be when anti-mosque zones are not enough that New Yorkers start lobbying against burqas worn on ground zero premises? At what point do we begin marginalizing persons who are practicing the freedoms every single one of us enjoys? I believe we've already passed that point.

institutional discrimination and misinformation.