People look far eastern, African, Indian, European, Native American, Middle Eastern etc. I have never heard that people look Christians, Mormons , Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus but I have heard that people look Muslims. In the Indian subcontinent, people having different faith look more or less the same. But unfortunately many Americans who know almost nothing about the world believe all brown people are Muslims and whoever wears a turban is a Muslim. Hateful people are obviously stupid.
Since the tragedy of 9/11, Sikhs have become the victims of hate crimes. They are mistaken for Muslims because of wearing turbans and beards. A few days ago a Bengali Hindu man living in New York was mistaken for Muslim by Erika Menendez, a Muslim-hater racist. She killed the man by pushing him onto the subway train tracks. She could have killed me if I were there. She could have killed all my South Asian brown-skinned Hindu , Christian , Jew , Parsi, Buddhist, Jain, Atheist friends and acquaintances because they all ‘look Muslims’.
Sunando Sen, the victim of hatred and racism was cremated in New York.
The New York mayor and others are now saying, Erika the killer is mad. Erika is not the first person who killed, some other mad guys also killed people using the same tricks. It looks like mad guys move around freely. But how come there is no supervision of mentally ill patients living outside institutions? If it is proved that Erika is mentally ill- it will not prove that all racists are mentally ill. Unfortunately most racists are not mentally ill. They are just terribly hateful bigots.
White people are good at making racists. Many of them hate Jews, Gypsies, Black and Brown people. Many of them now hate Muslims. Some blindly support and protect Muslims though. A very few people have the capacity to become neutral. Ordinary Muslims in New York are not responsible for the 9/11 like Hindus in Bangladesh are not responsible for the demolition of Babri Mosque in India or Pakistani Hindus are not responsible for the killing of Muslims in Gujarat or Jews in France are not responsible for the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Innocent people suffer for the crimes short-sighted and narrow-minded people commit. It is foolish to hate someone for his or her caste, color, gender and religion. It is impossible for me to accept the idea that people should be humiliated, assaulted and abused because they have a different faith, or speak a different language, or have a different culture. I believe that the diversity of our world’s many beliefs, languages, cultures and ethnicities is not a pretext for conflict, but is a treasure that enriches us all. Diversity is a treasure to be appreciated. We have various cultural patterns that make up our beautiful multicolored mosaic. (But, humans should not allow oppression in the name of religion or culture. Religion or culture should not be and must not be used against humanity.)
I wish haters turned into better humans.
I have quite a few Indian friends and I know a few Sikhs, and many of them appear baffled by the ease with which (mostly ignorant) Americans will just assume that some Brown person has to be a Muslim. I guess that when a person is so motivated by hate, they don’t bother really making sure they don’t take down others as ‘collateral damage.’ (Not that it’s less tragic when bigots hit the right targets, just it shows that as long as we have hateful bigots you never know who might be attacked just because they happen to look different.)
I also dislike the scapegoating of mentally ill persons, which seems obligatory when any violent attack is made. All said, in the US the ‘insanity defense’ works so seldom that you’d think it’s reasonable proof that mental illness isn’t a factor that often.
So true!
This is intolerable – people seem to live by stereotypes … but when this prejudice is ‘institutionalised’ – then its unacceptable…! See the web site ..respectsikhturbans.webs.com whihc aims to campaign against this institutionalised behavior at airport security checks… people are mistreated under the guise of ‘security’ – should we not stand up to this??
In 2002 I started using an auto repair shop run by Sikhs because I figured they could use the business. They were actually doing quite well because Mr. Galhotra was a major player in the local Interfaith Assistance Ministries and some local churches had been plugging their business. Even so, they did have a couple of incidents of vandalism.
As for the insanity defense, you must remember that most US law concerning this is based on theM’Naghten Case, a successful insanity defense used in the UK in 1843 that became a model for laws in much of the English-speaking world.
The M’Naghten Rules have some clear problems. I believe Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart was written as a criticism of the M’Naughten Rules. The narrator of that story would be considered sane by the rules, but Poe shows us he is clearly insane.
But back to the original topic. It’s horrible what Erika Menendez did. Can brown folks not feel safe standing close to the edge of the platform. And maybe Erika is a bit of a brown person. Hasn’t she considered she might be next?
We can’t have people just killing randomly out of cultural grudges.
All are stupid who believe in god.
=> “All are stupid who believe in god.”
That doesn’t mean they deserve to die. As an Atheist, you should know just how precious human life is. Because it is the only life we have and it ends with the death of the physical body. Once it’s over, it’s over for good and there’s no way to bring it back. Willfully destroying a life – for whatever reason – is therefore utterly unacceptable.
That doesn’t mean they deserve to die.
Nor does it mean they deserve to get a free pass if they kill someone.
Thank you
No. This is just flat-out wrong. Saying someone “is stupid” is just as othering as “is insane” or “is a monster”. There are many quite intelligent people of faith. I believe they are in error, as you obviously do, but given the many ways religious belief has been incorporated into the mere act of existence in much of the world, it is in some ways remarkable that so many do NOT believe. This attitude dismisses them, and takes the onus off of ourselves for reaching out and finding a way to convince them that they are wrong.
(Note: This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in stupid people; they do exist, and must be dealt with or worked around. But I refuse any definition of ‘stupid’ that includes 90+% of all human beings.)
It’s just as stupid as killing Muslims because they “look Muslim”.
Killing anyone without justification based on either an accurate or inaccurate perception of their belief system is pretty messed up.
Of course, we’re not that far removed from the days when black men were lynched for looking at white women.
Same irrational hatred. Different targets. I wonder if it’s not an evolutionary maladaptation of some sort.
Most of the white men are more racist than Asian Muslims.
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