"The Innocence of White People"

Originally posted by Sergeant Stiletto
I thought this was such a poignant perspective, a good reminder that the world is a complicated place. That even people we know casually might have radically different world views than us. That world events aren't always seen through the antiseptic and convenient lens of mainstream media.

I'm not looking to troll or to argue, only to broaden people's minds.

www.vice.com...

When asked to explain Muslim rage, I have an answer, but I already know the response to my answer. A defender of “Western civilization” will tell me, “Yeah, but we aren’t violent. They’re the ones who kill people over religion.” If numbers matter, however, the mythology of “America” kills many, many more people today than any myth of “Islam.” To sustain a pseudo-secular military cult, we have produced a nation of cheerleaders for blood and murder. We speak of the cult’s heroic work as “sacrifice” and say that it’s all for a divine cause of “freedom.”

That’s what we send out there, at them. This is not simply a world in which one side has a sense of humor and the other does not, or one side is “modern” and “enlightened” while the other side needs to catch up. The modern, enlightened side is burning people alive. Innocence is simply the playground bully calling your mother a slut after already breaking your jaw, and then wondering why you can’t take a joke...

...The reason for my silence on 9/11 is that I am not only Muslim. I am also American. I am also white. I am male and heterosexual. However, I am not asked, as an American, to reflect on the yearly anniversary of our atomic bombs falling upon Japan, or our countless military interventions throughout the world.

He's not wrong.

This in NO WAY justifies terrorism or violence in the ME, but certainly it should frame it, give it context.

By the end of this year there will likely be over 500 murders in Chicago. Where's the outrage?

Where's the outrage for banker's that have plundered and decimated this country?

Where's the outrage for arsenic in our rice?

Where's the outrage for genetically engineered corn that gives us tumors?

Where's the outrage for wanton police brutality in our streets?

Where's the outrage for a broken education system that robs generations of U.S. school children?

Where's the outrage for our own broken and corrupt political system - indeed our very own dictators and thugs?

It's okay for systemic dysfunction to handicap our own citizens or for corporations to exploit us for money but God forbid a foreign culture such as Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran reject our way of life and basically signal to us three ways to Sunday for 30 plus years that they do - they must be insane and plowed under - assimilated, with righteous indignation and huge corporate profits. THEY are the barbarians, the hordes...

WTF!!!???

It just all seems so screwed.

We are selective with our indignation. We are in denial about our own culpability both in the Middle East and here. We are hypocrites.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an apologist but I do have compassion and sympathy. If anything, I'm an isolationist. For humanity's sake, let's just let them be. I don't care about any of it any more. Not Oil. Not Israel. Not the so-called War on Terror.

Let's just live and let live. Let's look at ourselves. Let's BE the change....

(I had such a hard time trying to figure out where to put this so, my apologies if it's in the wrong place...)

edit on 9/21/2012 by Sergeant Stiletto because: (no reason given)

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edit on Sat Sep 22 2012 by DontTreadOnMe because: (no reason given)

Oh he's so wrong it's not even remotely debatable. The number of people slaughtered under the Islamic flag covers all of Eastern Europe (where do you think the word "slave" came from?.... Ask the people of the "slavic" nations). Islam has slaughtered and enslaved millions. Only Stalin and Mao can compete on the stage of global slaughter, closely followed by Hitler. Facts and history have an annoying habit of just popping up, don't they?

I just offer that you read this: www.amazon.com...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348626502&sr=8-1&keywords=the+legacy+of+jihad

Then come back and tell me how evil the west is.

reply to post by Sergeant Stiletto


Your OP gripped me and I was cruz'in right with ya there for a sec thinking is this really gonna go some where ?
You ended it with apple pie in the sky. Right back to and dumped off in reality's lap again. Thrown asunder, kicked to the curb. Damn ....