Of course, I knew Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism (really, those two concepts are inseparable and feed each other) were very prevalent in American society going back a long time, with it really ratcheting up after 9/11. But ever since the Zionist entity’s terrorist pager attack last month, the sheer depth, pervasiveness, and how it’s just out there in the open and considered perfectly acceptable has genuinely surprised me. It seems to have started with that attack and subsequent events have only reinforced it.
White Americans just seem to delight whenever they think the Arab/Islamic “terrorists” are attacked. They do not care about who the “terrorists” actually are or how many people suffer. It’s not worth interrogating what the “terrorists” are fighting for or who was harmed because to the white folks, the Muslim/Arab people don’t matter. They’ve been dehumanized to the point where their lives are considered worthless.
To give an example, there is a person in my life who I’m about to cut out (should have a long time ago) who texted me something to the effect of “that pager thing was crazy, but looks like they got a lot of terrorists”. I tried to keep my cool and explain how normal people like doctors and ambulance drivers were hurt and killed too, because lots of people use those pagers. Dude literally just used a shrug emoji in response, because I guess those people aren’t worth giving a care about.
Everything I’ve seen especially in recent weeks really shows how bad it is. Brown people in Western Asia don’t matter because they have a different religion and they are “prone to violence” and they aren’t as “developed” as us. I feel like this is really where the support for Israel comes from. Not from ideas of Israel fulfilling apocalyptic prophesy, but just because white Americans can turn on the TV and see people in Israel who look like them, who have a religion that is semi-compatible with theirs, and who live in a society that seems to be very “Western” fighting off the “savage Islamists”. It plays into their already primed-for-racism-and-chauvinism” brains.
While I don’t think American media is the source of racism and Islamophobia, I do think the last 20+ years of movies, shows, and games has really fueled the fire. I think (hope?) in the future people will look back on this period of “corn-fed white bearded operators killing all the Muslim terrorists” media in the way we look at minstrel shows now.
it’s visible even with leftists
Agreed. Honestly many western ““leftists”” and ““progressives”” suck ass, even quite a few POC ones.
Don’t remind me, sometimes I’d prefer if western leftists would forget we existed rather than try to help us and speak for us.
people on this site have been banned for criticizing users who called Hamas and Hezbollah “fascists”
western leftists love calling every single arab or muslim group or leader “fascist” and then hiding behind that, pretending they are progressive. This chauvinism isn’t a bannable offense, but getting “hostile” in response to these racist shitheads is.
For example, look up the user ProxyTheAwesome in the mod log. Banned for mocking western chauvinists who called Hezbollah fascist a couple days before October 7th. Now that user is more pro-axis of resistance after being bullied by people like PTA, but that doesn’t change that the mods chose to ban the principled person and protect the chauvinist. Many such cases
Serious blinders on with those whites. Proxy was being pretty patient and explaining material conditions outside the US. But Americans just couldn’t shut the fuck up and listen for a few seconds.