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ISLAMOPHOBERTY

My country tis of thee, sweet land of Islamophoberty, of thee I see. Let freedom ring.
Islamophobia is not just about religion. It's about people who are of color and a whole set of presuppositions about these people. Is it too late, will racist and bigoted white folks ever allow them to assimilate or, will they force them to choose sides?
It was President Bush who addressed the nation right after the terrorist attack on the Trade Centre that said, “like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks, and so were Muslims all across the world.”
“Both Americans, our Muslim friends and citizens, tax-paying citizens, and Muslim in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens. These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith, and it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that.”
“The face of terrorist is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don't represent peace, they represent evil and war.
When we think of Islam, we think of a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. Billions of people find comfort and solace and peace. And that's made brothers and sisters out of every race, out of every race.”
“America counts millions of Muslims amongst our citizens, and Muslims make an incredibly valuable contribution to our country.
The Muslims are doctors, lawyers, law professors, members of the military, entrepreneurs, shopkeepers, moms and dads, and they need to be treated with respect.
In our anger and emotion, our fellow Americans must treat each other with respect. Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear covering must not be intimidated in America. That's not the America I know; that's not the America I value.”



That having been said, Bush in his first campaign, did win 78% of the Muslim vote in 2000, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. That number dropped off sharply in 2004, following the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, even though the Bush administration tried to appease American Muslims by making a distinction between terrorists and the rest of the Muslim community.
As reported by ABC News, Muslims, who have already turned overwhelmingly to Democrats in recent elections, are likely to turn away further. Republican Muslims say the debate will alienate their constituency if it continues to brew.
"One of the strengths in the United States has been separation of church and state," said Saghir "Saggy" Tahir, a Pakistani-American Republican who has served in the New Hampshire House of Representatives for nearly a decade. " I do believe there will be an adverse effect of dragging the religion into the politics."
Tahir, who is the only Pakistani-American not born in the United States to be elected to a state assembly as a Republican, said it will be difficult for him to build up support for the GOP in his constituency and state if the issue continues to drag on.
"I have talked to a lot of people... They are Republicans but they don't like anybody to come to the religious part of it and that definitely alienates them, and these are those businesses that have helped elect Republicans even though they were Democrats," Tahir told ABC News.
Muhammad Ali Hasan, a film director and commentator who ran twice for office in Colorado on the Republican ticket and founded Muslims for Bush, said attacks by the GOP on the Islamic center are an "assault" on minorities.
"This is not the party of Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush," Hasan, who considers himself a lifelong Republican, told ABC News. "W. Bush condoned that Islam was a religion of peace. Ronald Reagan was someone who supported amnesty (for illegal immigrants). Both men supported opportunities for minorities, for Muslims, for Latinos."
Ted Olson, who served as solicitor general under President Bush and whose first wife died in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, today expressed his support for the Islamic center.
"I think probably the president was right about this. I do believe that people of all religions have a right to build edifices or structures or places of religious study where the community allows them to do it under the zoning laws and that sort of thing," Olson told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell. "I don't think it should be a political issue."
But, then there are those on the far right like the American Family Association: who say, No More Mosques, Period.
Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association's unofficial spokesman and the group's director of issues analysis, writes some rather incendiary stuff.
In a post Fischer wrote, this time calling on the government to prohibit mosques from being built anywhere in the United States, period.
“Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.”
Newt Gingrich, a primary candidate for the 2012 presidential election said: “The folks who want to build this mosque, who are really radical Islamists, who want to triumphfully prove they can build a mosque next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists. Those folks don’t have any interest in reaching out to the community. They’re trying to make a case about supremacy… This happens all the time in America. Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.”

Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham - legendary Christian minister, is no stranger to controversy in relation to Islam. Franklin Graham has repeatedly spoken out against Islam, disparaging the religion, and infuriating Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
In 2002, Graham said terrorism is part of “mainstream” Islam and claimed the Quran, Islam’s revealed text, “preaches violence.”
In 2001, Graham stood by remarks he made about Islam at the dedication of a chapel in North Carolina. At that event, he said: "We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us. The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God, and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."
In October, 2002, in Solapar, India, what started as a protest against the Reverend Jerry Falwell turned into a deadly riot that killed eight and injured 90. The evangelist had called Muhammad -- the founder of Islam -- a terrorist. Critics say Falwell's remarks create hate and fear.
Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster, describes Muhammad as an absolute wild-eyed fanatic -- "a killer."
Limbaugh: "Imam Hussein Obama" is probably the "best anti-American president the country's ever had"
There was also a very horrific Islamophobic incident which took place in New York City home to (600,000 Muslims).
As reported by Amy Goodman in an article entitled: Mosque-Issippi Burning. In part, Amy writes, Salman Hamdani died on Sept. 11, 2001. The 23-year-old research assistant at Rockefeller University had a degree in biochemistry. He was also a trained emergency medical technician and a cadet with the New York Police Department. But he never made it to work that day. Hamdani, a Muslim-American, was among that day's first responders. He raced to Ground Zero to save others. His selfless act cost him his life.
Hamdani was later praised by President George W. Bush as a hero and mentioned by name in the USA Patriot Act. But that was not how he was portrayed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

In October, his parents went to Mecca to pray for their son. While they were away, the New York Post and other media outlets portrayed Hamdani as a possible terrorist on the run. "MISSING-OR HIDING? MYSTERY OF THE NYPD CADET FROM PAKISTAN" screamed the Post headline. The sensational article noted that someone fitting Hamdani's description had been seen near the Midtown Tunnel a full month after 9/11. His family was interrogated. Hamdani's Internet use and politics were investigated.
His parents, Talat and Saleem Hamdani, had been frantically searching the hospitals, the lists of the dead and the injured. "There were patients who had lost their memory," his mother, Talat, said. "We hoped he would be one of them, we would be able to identify him."
The ominous reports on Hamdani were typical of the increasing, overt bigotry against Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans and people of South Asian heritage. Talat, who worked as a teacher, told me how children in her extended family had to Anglicize their names to avoid discrimination:
"They were in second grade ... Armeen became Amy, and one became Mickey and the other one became Mikey and the fourth one became Adam. And we asked them, ‘Why did you change your names?' And they said ‘because we don't want to be called terrorists in the school.' "
On March 20, 2002, the Hamdanis received word that Salman's DNA had been found at Ground Zero, and thus he was officially a victim of the attacks. At his funeral, held at the Islamic Community Center at East 96th St. in Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Rep. Gary Ackerman all spoke.
There is another hole that needs to be filled, namely, the absence of people in the U.S. in leadership positions in every walk of life, of every political stripe, speaking out for freedom of religion and against racism. As the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Hate breeds violence. Marginalizing an entire population, an entire religion, is not good for our country. It endangers Muslims within America, and provokes animosity toward America around the world.
When I asked Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which is a partner in the proposed community center, if she feared for herself, for her children or for Muslims in New York, she replied, "I'm afraid for my country."

It’s so ironic because all one hears from the racist and bigots is that Islamic and Muslim terrorist are attacking America but, what about, the American terrorist who attack American Muslims? Case in point:
A Florida doctor arrested after police found more than 15 homemade explosive devices in his home drafted a detailed plan to blow up a Muslim educational center, investigators said Friday.
A search of Robert J. Goldstein's residence also turned up a list of about 50 Islamic worship centers in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area and other locations in Florida, according to a court papers.
And, then there was an unknown perpetrator who planted an explosive device that exploded on May 12,2010 around 9:30 p.m. behind the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida in Jacksonville, at least 60 people were inside the mosque for evening prayers when the pipe bomb detonated.

"Planting a pipe bomb outside a house of worship is nothing less than an act or terror, and should be treated as such," said MPAC President Salam Al-Marayati. "An attack against a place of worship is a crime that touches all of our lives. Such deep religious bigotry and hate toward Florida's Muslim population should be condemned as universally as other recent attacks on religious sites."
It is just a fact that racist will always most likely remain in this society, and for those who believed in the myth that Burrack Hussein Obama would bring about racial harmony in America by being elected to the highest office in the land, is just that, a myth.
Instead of racial harmony, what has unfortunately occurred in this country, is that the right-wing Republicans, Tea Party, Birthers, Oathers, and other Fox News psychos have all come out of the wood work and have turned the office of the president into some type of foreign radical embassy and President Obama into a negative black Muslim plague or virus that has never been seen before, which has now emerged to contaminate and infect the freedoms, wealth, and mobility status of white people. These American patriots continuously attempt to create an image that the black plague infecting America is tied into the systems of Socialism, Marxism, and Communism with a Muslim, take over and circumvention of America’s Constitution.

They use racism, bigotry, and phobia tactics, to target, stoke, instill, and trigger fears into their white right-wing followers and constituents by utilizing their racist T.V. like Fox and radio media programs as tools and avenues to get their subliminal and direct in your face, messages across. Case in point;
The Pew Research Center conducted a poll and reported in an article entitled, Obama’s Religious Beliefs, that:
The share of Americans who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim – which held steady at between 11% and 12% from early 2008 through early 2009 – has jumped to 18%. There also has been a steep decline in the number of people who identify Obama as a Christian – 34% today, down from 48% in March 2009 and 51% in October 2008. A plurality (43%) now say they do not know what Obama’s religion is, up from 34% in 2009.
The view that Obama is a Muslim is highest among his political opponents (31% of Republicans and 30% of those who disapprove of his job performance express this view). It is lower among his supporters (10% among both Democrats and those who approve of his job performance). The share of Republicans who say Obama is a Muslim has nearly doubled over the past year and a half – from 17% to 31%.
Currently, about as many Republicans believe Obama is a Muslim (31%) as believe he is a Christian (27%); a plurality of Republicans (39%) say they do not know Obama’s religion. In March 2009, far more Republicans said Obama was a Christian (47%) than a Muslim (17%).
The impression that Obama is a Muslim is also more widespread today among independents – 18% say this today, up from 10% in 2009. There has been virtually no change in the share of Democrats who say Obama is a Muslim (10% today, 7% in 2009). But even among Democrats, fewer than half (46%) now identify his religion as Christian, down from 55% last year.
There is also a wide racial divide in the perception that Obama is a Muslim. The number of whites who believe this rose from 11% to 21% since March 2009, while there has been virtually no change in blacks’ views on this question (7% say Obama is Muslim today, compared with 6% in 2009). But both blacks and whites are less likely today to say Obama is a Christian.
Among religious groups, a higher proportion of white evangelical Protestants say Obama is a Muslim than any other religious group surveyed; 29% hold this view today, up from 20% in 2009. But the share of people saying Obama is a Muslim has increased across all religious groups. Indeed, both white mainline Protestants and white Catholics are roughly twice as likely today as in 2009 to say the president is a Muslim. And significantly fewer people in nearly all religious groups say Obama is a Christian than did so in 2009.
That having been reported, I would ask the bigots, what if President Obama was a Muslim would America have voted for him or would he been viewed as the secrete terrorist attempting to take over America?
America increasingly has been viewed as waging a war against the Muslim world. That gets played internationally and reinforces the perception overseas that America wants to dominate the world with Christianity and Democracy, while dismissing all other religions and cultures.
It is very unfortunate that, the racist and bigoted politicians, media commentators, and pundits, have to a great extent, been very successful in spewing and injecting hate, resulting in the evil thoughts and acts of many weak minded white folks who are afraid and think of themselves as patriots that are becoming the potential victims of a black Muslim take-over of this country known to all, as America.

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No, my dear, guided-writer, Mr. Shepard. The Islamic Community Center (NOT a Mosque!), is not the real issue. The real issue is Islam is the apocalypse. KKKristianity and Jewdaism have had their goes at bringing civility and peace to the world, and they can't do it.

The Islamic Center will be all others around the U.S. and world. A place where our young, men of ANY Color and Muslim faith can join and show brotherly love, faith in Thee Almighty, and better prepare themselves to serve their God, family and community. Christianity and Judasim are jealous--evil never like Good to intervene.

An all-out wicked attack on Islam is in place to beat-back the inevitable. KKKristianity and Jewdaism allow too many ungodly devilnomics into play: warmongering, abusing the poor, abortions, gaydaism, and unfaithfulness ("freedom").

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It doesn't really matter if it is right or wrong to build the community center near Ground Zero. It would be unconstitutional to deny the right to Muslims to build the community center (as long as they have all the necessary permits, funding, etc). In my opinion, any religious community center (Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, etc) can be built regardless of its proximity to Ground Zero--just because an extremist group of people claiming they are Muslims committed terrorist acts does not mean we should blame all Muslims and deny them constitutional rights to which ALL US citizens are entitled (impeding the freedom to practice religion). Although I did not have anyone close to me who was killed on September 11 and do not know how I would feel about the community center in that regards, I only hope that I would not become a bigot but remain a supporter.

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