Hate crime

roof-017_3348353c — There really isn’t a pretty side to the idea of white supremacy.

Following the most recent shootings and police brutality in America, I asked a grade 11 student to write a letter to the American people. What they produced shocked me.

Dear America,

It would appear that your history and circumstance has played a pivotal role in your birth as a nation. Paradoxically, two of these circumstances are now responsible in what might undermine the states from ever becoming united. Guns and racism are two pathological illnesses your nation was born with, the two scary issues that ‘the land of the brave’ seem too afraid to deal with.

It is somewhat ironic that as your first black president’s administration is in the autumn of its office, America appears more racially divided than at any other time in recent history. Many of us thought that the election of Barrack Obama would mean that you had finally reached Martin Luther King’s ‘promised land’. In recent years it has become obvious that this was a false dawn, today you are as far from that ‘promised land’ as you have perhaps ever been.

Why is it that racism is only talked about following the police shooting an unarmed black youth, or police brutality against black, bikini clad teenage girls, or when a white supremacist executes 9 black people in a church? Surely none of those actions have a place in ‘the land of the free’. And that’s part of the problem, it’s all this ‘land of the free, and home of the brave,’ the huge effort you go to to convince yourselves that you have created a Utopia. What kind of sick minded people pledge their allegiance to a flag? It’s nothing more than a symbolic yoke used to control the nation’s citizens, an arbitrarily colored piece of cloth, I would rather pledge allegiance to my toilet paper, after all it has a far more functional purpose and I know which one I couldn’t live without. The incessant patriotic pageantry has misled you into thinking that somehow you are the moral compass setting a course for the rest of the world. Sadly the rest of the world can see right through it and sees you for the wayward child you are. It’s time that you wake up and acknowledge that this country that you sing about, pledge allegiance to, doesn’t, and indeed has never existed. As George Carlin once said ‘it’s called the American Dream because you’ve got to be asleep to believe it’. You have to ask yourself why any country requires so many institutionalized methods of reinforcing patriotism, if the country is so great people will acknowledge it as being so without the need for all this mindless, systematic pageantry.

Put away the bunting for a while and turn off the ball game, have the courage to face up to your responsibilities. Start tackling the issues that as a nation you have ignored for far too long. Look yourself in the mirror and recognize that America’s most dangerous enemy isn’t Islamic extremism, ebola or even Russians, but yourselves. It’s always easy to put the blame onto someone else’s shoulders, but your society is the problem, it’s your mess and only you can clean it up.

People around the world are at a loss to explain your disparate responses to when foreigners kill Americans compared to when Americans kill each other. America has justified the torture and rendition of foreigners for the reason of protecting Americans whilst being only too happy to provide its citizens with the weapons to openly slaughter one another on a daily basis. One can only wonder, how as a country you would have reacted had the gunman been a follower of ISIS. But, because he is a white supremacist your response is markedly more restrained, more measured, you can’t find anyone to invade on this one. The fact is America far prefers its citizens to kill one another than to allow foreigners to do it and your constitution’s second amendment facilitates this. You have to ask yourselves some tough questions, you have to question some of the historical factors that gave birth to your nation, and to be strong enough to acknowledge some of them just might have been wrong. One thing you must be certain of though, now is not the time for ticker tape parades, apple pie, bunting and songs.

Yours sincerely

A Korean student

chapelSUM_3195329c — The lives of three, bright, young people cut savagely short by one ‘red neck’ moron. Are our societies on the verge of collapse under the weight of their own ignorance?

This week my students were to film short movie projects, they’d done their storyboards, scripts and walked through their single shot films. They were well prepared and excited to produce a piece of work other than the standard written essay. The day before the first group were scheduled to film I was informed by an administrator that a parent had complained as the school had not been blessed by Buddhist monks. Having lived in Thailand for over 10 years I wasn’t surprised by this, at the same time I had no idea what relevance the failure of monks to give their blessing had on our project, but it was immediately clear to me that arguing with such a warped and perverse sense of logic would be futile, so I canceled the project and replaced it with a routine essay “Which is More Important: Freedom of speech and expression or Respecting Individual Beliefs”. Surprised to say the students were less than thrilled by this development, I told them that I had decided to respect the beliefs of an individual, when in truth I just couldn’t entertain the notion of partaking in a pseudo-theological discussion with a native about ghosts, perhaps that’s my failings as a teacher, but I can’t see the point in appealing to common sense where there is so clearly none to be appealed to.

It took a couple of days for the disappointment ebb out of the class and quickly they were asking questions “if we respect their belief not to make our movies shouldn’t they respect our wish to make a movie?” A simple yet brilliant question to which I responded with the nebulous “sometimes you’ve just got to take the high moral ground”.
For the next few days students wrestled with this question, most of them realizing that in all practicality a democratic society is like a drunken clown treading a fine line whilst simultaneously juggling the hand grenade of free speech and the chainsaw of individual liberty.

We looked at the Charlie Hebdo shootings and considered the innocence of the cartoonists in light of their frequent provocation. We considered whether 20 Parisiennes would still be alive today had the law detailed in the European Union Framework Decision for Combating Racism and Xenophobia (2007) had been enforced, which explicitly states:

Publicly inciting to violence or hatred , even by dissemination or distribution of tracts, pictures or other material, directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.

We questioned why was Charlie Hebdo allowed to repeatedly since 2006 print material inciting racial hatred, one of my students believed that had the cartoons been in any way anti-Semitic then they would have been shut down far sooner if ever printed at all.

We were in the midst of pondering such questions when a new story emerged, 3 young Muslim Americans had been killed and the story was not reported until Twitter uses shamed the media for their non coverage of the story. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan criticized President Obama for his silence on the issue. With the world aware that there had been little media coverage and the president not offering comment one could understand the frustration and anger that must have been developing throughout Muslim communities. President Erdogan stated:

“If you stay silent when faced with an incident like this, and don’t make a statement, the world will stay silent towards you”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31449973

As an ally in the fight against ISIS President Obama was woken from his slumber to declare with an instantly forgettable speech, that this was a tragedy that has no place in a civilized society blah, blah, blah.

Obama had to work on his 'lay ups' and 'three pointers' before he could be drawn in to passing comment on the Chapel Hill murders. — Obama had to work on his ‘lay ups’ and ‘three pointers’ before he could be drawn in to passing comment on the Chapel Hill murders.

The fact is the damage had already been done, what with the no mainstream news network covering the story and the President appearing to be too busy shooting hoops, moderate Muslims were quickly finding out just where they are ranked amongst the concerns of the west. If bombing Iraqi and Afghan children into becoming terrorists for since the turn of the centurys wasn’t bad enough, then a triple homicide of three Muslims going unnoticed in America is likely to provide food for though to your more moderate followers of Islam.

I am left thinking whether this is all by design, are we witnessing the unveiling of the true agendaa of western media, a device being used to stir up hatred against Musilms. When you couple this event with the recently released movie ‘American Sniper’. It reminds me of a joke I must have first heard just after 9/11.

The Saudi Ambassador to the UN has just finished giving a speech, and walks out into the lobby where he meets President Bush. They shake hands and as they walk the Saudi says, “You know, I have just one question about what I have seen in America.” President Bush says “Well your Excellency, anything I can do to help you, I will do.” The Saudi whispers “My son watches this show ‘Star Trek’ and in it there are
Russians, and Blacks, and Asians, but never any Arabs. He is very upset. He doesn’t understand why there are never any Arabs in Star Trek.” President Bush laughs and leans toward the Saudi, and whispers back, “It’s because it takes place in the future….”

To think I would ever include Fox News, but Geraldo identifies the doule standards inherent in the media.