Saturday 23 October 2010 — This is 14 years old. Be careful.
NPR fired Juan Williams because he said this:
I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.
When I read this, I see a classic example of bigotry. Juan saw a person who was different from him, chose the most unfamiliar aspect of that person, decided it was the defining characteristic of that person, and then used that characteristic to group him into a negative stereotype. Can anyone explain to me how that isn’t bigotry?
Juan defends himself against the bigot label by pointing out that he has written books about the civil rights movement. Isn’t this just an updated version of “some of my best friends are black?”
Bigotry isn’t a binary attribute, where either you are a bigot or you aren’t. Juan may be the most open, loving, welcoming, tolerant person there is. He can also be a bigot when it comes to Muslims. Just because he writes books about the civil rights movement doesn’t mean he isn’t unfairly pre-judging Muslims. He can do both at once, it’s now apparent that he does.
The most telling part of his quote is “they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims.” No, they aren’t. Juan Williams is identifying them first and foremost as Muslims. They might also have been American citizens, or doctors, or fathers, or football fans, or Rotary club members, or even 9/11 survivors. There are many things that they are, and they weren’t given a chance to identify themselves. Because they were wearing Muslim garb, Juan Williams decided they were first and foremost Muslim, and that Muslim equated with dangerous.
And the ultimate irony in this is that the Muslims who have actually been dangerous on planes weren’t wearing Muslim garb. In all likelihood, the people Juan encountered were the least likely to be dangerous, because if they were planning to cause trouble, they wouldn’t want to stand out.
I don’t know if NPR should have fired Juan Williams. It sounds like NPR might have overreacted because of the Fox News connection.
Others are jumping on this story as an example of how we are bending over backwards to accommodate fundamentalism, but that’s nonsense: simply being a Muslim is not fundamentalism, and assuming all Muslims are dangerous is not a rational response to the radical Islamic threat.
Others are saying that Juan Williams simply expressed what many are feeling. That may be true, I’m sure many people these days are wary of people that “look Muslim.” But it’s still bigotry, and isn’t right. It’s a reaction we need to resist.
Comments
You say that the statement 'they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims' is untrue and I partly agree with this, but only to the point that I would say that it would only need the removal of 'first and foremost' in order to become an accurate observation.
The addition of 'first and foremost' is probably due to an (inaccurate) assumption on Mr. Williams' part that by wearing religious garb, one wishes to be identified with the relevant religion over and above any other judgement. I'm not sure this is true; in fact, I'm not sure many religious people would admit it was their primary motivation for wearing such clothing, regardless of whether or not they were in fact happy for such assumptions to be made.
There is a second assumption made by Mr. Williams, which you also point out: 'and that Muslim equated with dangerous.'
So Mr. Williams makes assumptions about people based on their appearance and, perhaps, on stereotype.
But bigotry is defined as intolerance of people from other groups - and intolerance is defined as either a lack of respect or unwillingness to endure.
From the quote you have given and the linked article, it doesn't appear that Mr. Williams lacks respect for, or shows an unwillingness to endure, Muslims. In fact, the article also points out:
"Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh"
So he is against stereotyping of people based on what others sharing their religion have done. If he involuntarily fails somewhat in this regard, to the point where he makes incorrect assumptions and feels nervous, does this make him intolerant?
Sure, he wasn't jumping up and down with a sign reading, "Kill all the Muslims," but he wasn't helping the cause of tolerance either. His may be a subtler bigotry, but it can be more insidious for its milder trappings.
I'm not saying Juan Williams is a bad person. It's natural for people to make snap judgments, to classify based on surface characteristics where deeper information isn't available. It's a survival instinct. But that doesn't make it right. We strive all the time to rise above our instincts in order to live together peacefully in society. This is another example of that.
By relating his personal judgements/assumptions and fears, of course he could be pointing these out in order to persuade viewers of the programme that they should emulate his (for want of a better word) failings. but his entreaty not to follow his example (where he asks people not to judge all members of a religion based on the act of extremists) surely stands as evidence against this? As you say, we should strive to rise above our instincts. Based on what Mr. Williams said (and I have no more information on him than that given in the linked article), I think he was trying to get that very point across.
That said, for all of the huffing by people, Williams was under contract and NPR was well within their rights to not renew for any reason, or even any non-reason. What I think is 10x more egregious is that NPR is asking their staff not to go to the Stewart/Colbert rally in their private capacities. That is beyond the pale to me. They are not going their and broadcasting to the world that they are an NPR employee, like
Williams was when he went on Fox.
And I agree with Ned here -- it's easy to think of parallel constructs... what if he had said that he felt the same way if he saw someone with a Christian cross going into a federal building, citing the McVeigh/Oklahoma City bombing? Or seeing someone with a Yarmulke on a cruise in the Mediterranean after the Israeli boarding of an aid ship to the Palestinians? If I see someone with a Yarmulke walking down the street, are they first and foremost IDing themselves by their religion, and not their their occupation (which, according to Rick Sanchez, is most likely running CNN :-) )?
So, this really should not be a controversy for the firing part -- for the statement parts, I think Williams is an idiot, and should be called out for such.
Juan should have been told that it might be good to apologize... but he should not have been fired...
Same goes for Juan's comment - he explicitly argues against extending anger over terrorism to Muslims as a whole in that interview, making the hypothetical comparison to profiling Christians because of Timothy Mcveigh. NPR fired him because NPR is a left news organization and Juan Williams is appearing on Fox.
Anyway, Greenwald has all the bases covered on this one: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/10/22/muslims/index.html
It's no big deal, to each his/her own and all. I come from a Muslim background, and I can tell you that the Mr. Williams' of this world wouldn't look twice at any of the men and women in my family who would also happily go unnoticed in any context.
At the same time, William really shouldn't be worried about this category who wear their beliefs (quite literally) on their sleeves. They are usually quiet harmless conformists or even a little bit culturally impoverished or not able to assimilate or peer-pressured into not assimilating into that great melting pot of 'westernized humanity'. Most probably they want to be left alone to live in peace and inculcate their family members into their particular belief structures (-:
In any case, one should be very careful about mistaking the few for the many and making hasty generalizations[1] about 1.5 billion so-called Muslims who are as varied a group as the next 1.5 billion sample of the human race.
[1] (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/hasty-generalization.html)
AK
But from what I can see of the event discussed, Williams was rather describing the emotion that involuntarily comes to him – a prejudice – and pointing out that this emotion, if common, is a problem.
Prejudice is unavoidable and potentially harmful, and I think that's what Williams is pointing out. Bigotry goes beyond prejudice, and is in effect an policy of acting on one's prejudice.
But Williams's position shows that he's *not* a bigot: he points out that Muslims as a group should not be judged for Muslim extremists, any more than Christians should be judged for Christian extremists.
It is indeed a sad comment on the political/media environment if someone can be fired merely for raising the topic of the problems caused by irrational emotion.
So Juan Williams is not a bigot, and that's not bigotry. It's prejudice, yes, but not bigotry. Don't buy into the typical US devolvment of words. ;-)
Sounds more like prejudice than bigotry
The comment from THE either is a funny and sarcastic comment on prejudice or a deranged rant from a lunatic - the bizarre capitalization seems to point to the second.
Take another group of people that also believes in the the same fundamental believe of the first group, but differ in that they are completely opposed to hurting anything nor anyone. they also wear purple shirts with a white stripe, the symbol of their fundamental believe. these are some of the nicest people in the world. this is group B. these people als0 have any profession, are of any race, any gender.
Now, you are going to some event where there are a lot of people that don't wear purple... hundreds. you see some people wearing purple shirts with a white stripe. you don't know them. you don't know if they are from group A, from group B, from another group you don't even know, or just happen to be wearing purple with a white stripe. you are in this event with your children, your wife/husband, loved ones who you care for and would do anything to protect or keep out of harms way.
Questions:
Do you feel comfortable and safe in this event?
Do you feel the same if you don't see any purple shirts with a white stripe?
and if you see only one person wearing a purple shirt?
and if you see hundreds wearing a purple shirts?
How do you feel if you constantly see that everyone that identifies themselves with group B, strongly and constantly publicly denounce the actions of group A and are pissed off that group A is using their fundamental believe as reasons to hurt people?
How do you feel if the group B lightly denounces actions of group A?
How do you feel if the group B hardly ever denounces actions of group A?
Does your comfort and feeling of security shift based on the uncertainty of knowing or not knowing other peoples intentions based on your perceived association?
just saying. when you and or the people you care for can be affected, its hard not to judge the situation. And that judgment comes many sources, be statistics, life experiences, friends, common sense, what you see, what you hear, what you know, how you perceive all these inputs, all put in a big mixer in our heads for us to make decisions. It helps to know the people, but practically we cannot know everyone thus we must use all these inputs to form our next action (or reaction)
Would you still consider him a bigot if they had been identifying themselves as Muslim? If instead of religious garb, they wore T-shirts that said "I'm Muslim", would Juan be wrong to consider them dangerous?
Though long, tony e's comment is worth the read. It would be one thing if the peaceful version of islam was the predominant one, or the more vocal one, or if it even strongly denounced Islamic extremists. But as it is, we're supposed to "tolerate" Islam as a whole because half of America is convinced that it is a peaceful religion. That's as naive as thinking that everyone in China eats the American version of Chinese food.
What you are calling the "predominant" Islam is simply the faction that gets the most press. There are plenty in the media that are more interested in whipping up anti-Islamic sentiment than they are in finding truth.
I'm not saying there aren't violent Muslims, there are, and lots of them. But to call them predominant is naive.
My issue with Islam isn't that it has radical extremists. Lots of religions have those. My issue is that when a Muslim keeps a girl from going to school, cuts someone's hand off, or kills a Christian or a Jew, he is not acting outside the bounds of his religion, but within them.
Islam has been around for almost 1500 years, is there an example of a peaceful, non-repressive society it has started or endorsed? With almost 2 billion adherents in the world today, examples should abound.
First, if we can agree that at least the American flavor of Islam is peaceful, then let's welcome American Islam, including its adherents that fly on planes. That's a few million people we can stop pre-judging.
Second, it's a very tricky business judging other peoples' religions. As other commenters on this thread can attest, Catholicism (as an example) is widely misunderstood, even criticized as repressive. I can find directives in the Christian bible that sound violent and repressive, but practitioners of the faith can help me understand how they are received and understood.
I'm not a fan of the repressive Muslim societies around the world. But that doesn't mean we should be in a war against Islam as a religion, and shun all of its practitioners. The way to fight extremists is to welcome moderates. Your path will simply add fuel to the fire.
Looking at your responses to Don, it appears to me that you are the bigot in this sense: you intolerantly dismiss any religion that teaches or promotes violence. It doesn't fit your worldview of what religion should be (peaceful) and so you automatically prejudge anyone who promotes violence via religion as an extremist who doesn't truly represent his religion. But the flaw in this view is that you make no room for a religion that actaully does promote violence.
Your quip about welcoming moderates is laughable -- a religious moderate by definition has no faith to begin with (because everything's negotiable).
I don't watch TV, listen to talk radio, or go to political rallies. I study the Bible on a regular basis, and I keep halfway informed on what is going on in the world via the big stories that make their way onto my feeds. I wouldn't consider myself heavily influenced by Big Media, at least not directly. So I did a little digging to see whence my position came.
I found a page where Islamic organizations denounced the 9/11 attacks. I found a few other examples of the "peaceful American Islam" religion. And I let it all simmer in my brain for a while.
'First, if we can agree that at least the American flavor of Islam is peaceful, then let's welcome American Islam, including its adherents that fly on planes.'
I was almost ready to agree with you on this. This morning however, two fairly recent stories popped into my head. The first was an interview with Penn and Teller where they give the reason for not taking on Islam on their show, Bullshit. The second was when South Park was self-censored by Comedy Central. I don't watch South Park and I've never seen Bullshit, but I'm aware that these are American citizens, writing to American audiences, utilizing their First Amendment rights guaranteed under the US constitution.
Yet they are fearful. Fearful. Where does that fear come from? Perhaps they naively (as you put it) believe that violent Islam is predominant. Perhaps they realistically believe that the "peaceful American Islam" exerts no control or influence over the repressive nature of the religion as a whole, even as it applies to domestic issues.
That may be true, but is irrelevant. Equally irrelevant is claims of Islam being violent. Islam is not a violent religion. Yes, there are violent groups within Islam, but so there is within all other religions. The Islamic violent groups are the predominant violent groups at the moment, just as communism was the predominant religion amongst violent groups before that, and in the 30's it was fascism and before that it was anarchist and communists (again) and before that it was christianity.
If you look at the core of all these religions, Islam is the least violent of all (*). It takes some serious misinterpretation of the Quran to justify the current violence, while Christianity, Fascism and Communism all has the extermination of the people it sees as "evil" written into it's basic religion writings, and you instead need some serious misinterpretation to ignore that and call them peaceful.
So what's my point? Obviously there are a big stream of violent Islam in todays society. The point is that it's pointless to talk about "violent religions". Even Islam, which is very non-violent, can easily be turned into a rationalization for mass-murder.
It isn't religions that are violent, it's people, and organizations. And religion, thanks to it's dogmatic and reality-rejecting nature, can always be used to rationalize this violence. That few people currently are using Christianity to do this has nothing to do with the religion itself, but the societies in which that religion is predominant. The countries in which Islam is predominant are poor, undemocratic and violent countries. As a result, the violent groups in these countries will use Islam as an excuse for their violence, just as Christianity was used as an excuse for both small scale violence and executions and large scale wars and mass-murder for a thousand years in Europe.
Christianity turned peaceful when Christian societies turned peaceful. Islam will turn peaceful when Islamic countries turn peaceful. Obviously it would be best if people stopped adhering to any sort of religion, but that's not likely for the nearest 200 years. But religion is not a cause of society, but a reflection of it.
//Lennart
(*) That I point out that Islam is less violent than many other religions doesn't mean I like it. Islam also has as it's core an unquestioning obedience, something that is deeply evil. At the same time the old testament has things like the book of Job where Job finally ends up questioning god, after god (for a bet) makes him suffer.(**)
(**) And that should in itself be enough evidence for anyone that the old testament God is evil. But at least Job isn't condemned to hell for asking questions.
Grouping these three together is ridiculous. Fascism and Communism are merely political/social movements and are uniformly hostile to religious belief. Care to provide any evidence that Christ promoted extermination of people?
"It takes some serious misinterpretation of the Quran to justify the current violence..."
What's being misinterpreted? Surely you have some passages in mind? :-0
I didn't group these three together. I grouped *all* religions together, but mentioned only four of them. Yes, communism and fascism are all religions in all sensible definitions of the word. Have you read any communist theory? The similarity between Christian myths and the Marxist view of history is obvious if you would care to read about it.
If you ever have discussed with people who are communists or creationists or racists, you'll soon realize that they all think, discuss and react in exactly the same way. If you don't want to call that way of thinking "religion" then you don't have to, but I find that word to be the most exact and clarifying description I can think of. It is a dogmatic reality-rejecting way of thinking where you only accept facts if they already fit your narrow view of the world, and if they don't, you reject them as lies from satan/the capitalist oppressors/ZOG/Bush/Obama/Whatever you fancy.
This way of thinking is scarily common in the US on all sides of every fence you can find. That thinking is the main reason US politics are so mindbogglingly stupid. Don't fall prey to it. Think outside of the box, think for yourself and try to see things as they are, not as you want them to be.
"uniformly hostile to religious belief"
Yeah, most religions are hostile to other religions. ;) Only with the growth of science and rationality has some religions decided that the big enemy is science and tried to band together over religious borders. Since communism and fascism are new religions that have a hard time faking trustworthiness by age and history, they try to do so by false claims of being scientific. Scientology does the same. They are therefore not included in that cross-religious group hug, but don't be fooled by their lies, they are just as religious as any other religion.
"Care to provide any evidence that Christ promoted extermination of people?"
I didn't say Christ, (of whom we know very little of what his opinions on anything was) I said Christianity. And to prove my point there I only need to mention witch-burnings, the Spanish inquisition, the crusades and the medieval pogroms, all whom used Christianity and Christian writings as an excuse for violence.
"What's being misinterpreted? Surely you have some passages in mind?"
Yes, the passages from the Quran being misinterpreted are typically those who have to do with war. There are passages often quoted as promoting indiscriminate violence against infidels, however they are without exception quoted out of context.
Now most people understand this and they understand that believing one faith or the other has important consequences for how one views the world and acts in it. That should be common sense. Juan Williams was simply expressing this in common sense terms. That's not bigotry.
And don't forget context -- 9/11, shoe bomber, fruit of kaboom bomber, etc. Today is the first anniversary of the Fort Hood killings. The fact that the man yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he shot 13 dead means something.
The little we know about the religious beliefs of Yeshua ben Yosef, the man you call Jesus, indicates that he was some sort of Jewish fundamentalist. He seems to maybe have wanted to return to Mosaic law, and was likely of the opinion that the religious leadership of the time was fraudulent, and possibly he thought that he should have been the leader of Judaism.
The source of the Christian faith is people in the early Christian church, most prominently Paul, but also the authors of the gospels. The little hints that exist in the bible indicates (but in no way proves) that Pauls opinions and Jesus opinions likely didn't overlap very much.
Sorry to crush your myths like this. Whatever you think about Christianities message (most of what is in the new testament are good humanist messages, as far as religions go), the idea that Jesus is the source of them is not supported by the little evidence we have, and is generally highly unlikely.
"The fact that the man yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he shot 13 dead means something."
Yeah, it means he is Muslim. That's all it means. It says exactly nothing about Islam.
I'm sorry for radically waltzing in like a bull in a china shop with regards to this debate but: http://xkcd.com/386/
You would have some basis to distrust me if you actually saw that type of thing going on -- but how common is that? On the other hand, we do see individuals doing violence in the name of Islam all too often these days -- and they point to the Koran as their justification!
You know, bigotry implies intolerance and willful ignorance of information and evidence. I just don't see that in Juan Williams' statement.
@Lennart: So you deny that the historical Jesus is actually the source of Christian teachings? Outside of the Bible, where are you getting your information about Saint Paul? Oh wait, I get it - you mean you can believe what the Bible says when it supports your argument but when it doesn't, it's just a bunch of myths, right?
I claim you'll go with the Christians, because you understand that the violence is an anomaly, that just because a nut kills people in the name of Christianity doesn't mean that other Christians do that sort of thing, and so on.
At its root, the Christians are familiar to you, and similar to you, and the Muslims are not.
You describe bigotry as ignoring information and evidence. I think it is all too easy to see someone as different than yourself, and then ascribe all sorts of negative associations to that person and group them with their difference. When we see a terrorist who is a Muslim, we associate the terrorism with Islam (admittedly, partly because the terrorist himself does), and then associate all of Islam with terrorism.
In the case of a Christian terrorist, we understand much more about the implications of their Christianity, and can see all the complexity, and understand that one doesn't imply the other, no matter how much the poor deluded soul himself believes it. We have experience with non-terrorist Christians, and that tempers our reaction to his belief in the connection.
How much experience do we have with non-terrorist Muslims? I'll claim that anti-Muslim sentiment is counter-correlated with interactions with Muslims. For many Americans, the main thing they know about Muslims is that another one just blew something up. It's no wonder they associate Islam with terrorism.
Start here, Rich: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Jesus
We really know *very* little of what Jesus actual religious positions where. But we know Paul was in conflict with the Apostles, which doesn't really bode very well for the continuity between Jesus and Paul in these issues.
Christianity teachings grew out of the early Christian communities primarily in Rome and Greece. They have then later been reinterpreted and often turned on it's heads by prominent philosophers like St Augustine and Luther. The connection between what Jesus said and what the christian leaders of todays american church says is practically non-existant, just like the connection between Muhammad and bin Laden.
Maybe you'll see that someday.
@Ned - You say "I think it is all too easy to see someone as different than yourself, and then ascribe all sorts of negative associations to that person and group them with their difference. When we see a terrorist who is a Muslim, we associate the terrorism with Islam (admittedly, partly because the terrorist himself does), and then associate all of Islam with terrorism."
You assign that reaction to Juan Williams based on the quote you provided. But he didn't associate "all of Islam with terrorism". He said "But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." That's a perfectly reasonable reaction in the current context of Muslim terrorist attacks. And I don't think it impugns all Muslims or "all of Islam".
I can understand your point about feeling more comfortable around those with whom we're familiar -- that's human, not bigoted. It would be bigoted to *always* refuse to associate with someone unfamiliar because of their faith, race, etc.
Sure, it is therefore also a much more trustworthy source for information about Pauls life than Jesus life, but that was not what I said.
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