Brian.
His declarations about Americans was negatively stereotyped to the extreme. It was bigoted because it was a misrepresentation of most Americans who are innocent of his allegation, and particularly the Americans that the 5 year old would associate with.
I hardly ever feel like you and I are communicating. I spend much of my posts correcting your misrepresentations of me or of circumstances in the world. You don’t acknowledge your own errors but simply move on to some other contentious issue. And I can see that nothing has changed from one post to another. I also see how you relate to your nuke em all death culters with full empathy and encouragement, though you try to veil that part of your character. How's that going for you, are you getting any new members?
I have not taken the position you claim I have taken. There are no garden of Edens on this Earth and unlike you and that Sheik, I don’t try to demonize one culture in order to venerate another to obtain 'followers'. I do try to convince you that such stereotyping is a heinous injustice and can result in serious harm to humanity. Your position on this is another misrepresentation.
You:”You don't think that in the USA, kids are sexualized at a younger and younger age?”
False.
Sheik: ”…they want little kids to be sexualized, and they will make you want alcohol and drugs and to go do gang stuff.’
She was convinced they (Americans) would make her have sex, drink alcohol, do drugs and participate in gang activities. Easy problem to solve. She has been in a public school every since and can see for her self what the fabric of our culture is made of.
Me: I assured her that the Americans she knows and loves in America, and the Americans I know about, would be nice to her and protect her from the things she had been told about, and that this is what all Americans are ‘supposed to do’.
Of course, I am not ignorant I know about American culture, it is my culture. I, however, do not sexualize little kids. I do not personally know little kids who’ve been sexualized. I don’t experience the situation painted by that Sheik but I know about it.…He knows about evil in America and he has many ways to prove his point. He can simply report the facts, as you do.
Me: ”The extremist Sheik had portrayed our culture in a context that is a complete contradiction to the reality most of us experience; including, and in contrast, he portrays Islamic life style as a peaceful and beneficent experience. The people within his community are living a decent and relatively peaceful Islamic lifestyle while they are effected by his portrayal of ‘the other’."
If I were to stop the first one thousand American citizens at the nearest shopping mall, how many do you think would say they want kids having sex, drinking alcohol, doing drugs and getting involved in gang activity? I suspect it would be a small percentage and they would be considered deviants rather than representatives of the American mainstream.
The context the Sheik presented the culture in is a negative stereotype that can have no beneficial effect and can cause people who take his word for it to hate Americans, innocent Americans. I am certain you and he identify with each other completely and would have no problems agreeing that the mutual targets of your commentary ought to be annihilated. |
