In the article that I have read it states that a man by the name of Juan Williams made a lot of discriminating comments about Muslims on the TV series The O'Reilly Factor on Fox news. some of his remarks where "I mean, look, Bill, in not a bigot. You know the kinds of books I've written on the Civil Rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I've gotta tell you, when i see people in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried, I get nervous." In a previous interview on the same show he got in trouble with NPR the company he works with for making rude comments about Michell Obama, but this wasn't enough to get him fired. after the interview on Bill O'Reilly he was fired from NPR by Ellen Weiss (Senior Vice President) of NPR and Juan said to Ellen when he was fired that " I said, you mean i don't get a chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, Person-to-Person, Have a conversation? I've been here for more than 10 years." Ellie Weiss responded "Theres nothing you can do that will change my mind." in the interview Williams stated that whenever a Muslim gets on a plane people get nervous because of 9/11 they think that they will blow buildings and planes up. My personal opinion on this is that i think Juan should have kept things to himself and not say them in the public, I also think that everyone one has a little Muslim phobia in them if not then well that's fantastic. Also discrimination has increased ALOT because of 9/11 now everyone stereotypes them as crazy goons running through the streets with towels on there head with an AK-47 screaming Allah. That's obviously not the truth because if people where like that then well it would be easy to distinguish who's a Muslim extremist and who's not. I think that if America was more accepting and such then we wouldn't have issues like this of course I'm not saying that we aren't accepting but if you look at the videos that a few people posted on here its clear as daylight that people are not accepting of Muslims but who can blame them we where attacked by them they flew airplanes into our buildings killed tons of people but if you alienate them will that solve anything? There is clearly not a solution to solve this and if there is I cant think of one.
I totally agree with what you said on how you think that everyone has at least some form of "Muslim-phobia" or basically xenophobia. Like Juan said, if I myself got on a plane and saw a few Muslims that looked a bit sketchy, then I'd probably be a little scared. But you never know if they are terrorists, or just your average person. I also agree that everyone does stereotype people too much and that the problem is just getting worse every day.
ReplyDeleteDan,This is an EXCELLENT post!!! Nice job summarizing the article and analyzing the behaviors exhibited. In addition, you did a great job responding comprehensively to the questions in the prompt.
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