Last updated on 2012.04.09
Bigotry check, everyone! The following "joke" has been circulating on various conservative fora. Madison City Commissioner Nick Abraham posted it on his Facebook wall yesterday.
This morning the Muslim Brotherhood warned the United States that if United States meddling in Egypt continued they intend to cut off America's supply of 7-11 and Motel 6 managers.
If this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be next, followed by Dell, AT&T and AOL customer service reps .
Finally, if all else fails, they have threatened not to send us any more presidents either.
I hate publishing trash like this. I hate publishing the fact that Commissioner Abraham published it. Commissioner Abraham is the only commissioner we have who is willing to stick his neck out and try to hold the LAIC accountable. Heck, Nick also does good work for my folks and my neighbors and me at the F&M.
But good work doesn't excuse bigotry.
Commissioner Abraham's telling of this "joke" is unacceptable for multiple reasons:
- Commissioner Abraham is a public official. He serves people of many faiths, many races. He needs to uphold the trust of all residents that they can count on fair treatment in dealing with city government. Telling "jokes" like this undermines that trust.
- The bigotry expressed in this "joke" tells workers, investors, and entrepreneurs who might want to bring their businesses and families and money here that we don't welcome them if they aren't just like us. Madison can't afford to make any group feel like their money isn't welcome.
- The people of Egypt have distinguished themselves this winter with a peaceful revolution. Christians and Muslims worked together to overthrow a dictator and make democracy possible. (And what have you crossed off your to-do lately?) We should be celebrating this affirmation of peace and democracy, not telling "jokes" that reinforce stereotypes and alienate members of our own community.
- President Obama is a Christian. There is more public evidence that Barack Hussein Obama is a Christian than there is for the piety of any person in Madison. Telling this "joke" propagates both the lie that the President is not Christian and the un-American bigotry that would tell Muslim or Buddhist or atheist kids, "You can't grow up to be President. You're not real Americans."
Commissioner Abraham has taken some due criticism on his Facebook page for this inappropriate "joke." He has apologized for his words, both online and in person, face to face, to me. On charges of racism, the commissioner does note that 50 or so Native Americans came to stay with his family when he was growing up (no word on how many were Muslim.)
Alas, Commissioner Abraham has also received messages of support from my fellow Americans, statements of bigotry that I find more alarming that the commissioner's ill-considered "joke." Among the lumps of coal:
- People need to lighten up and get their sense of humor back and stop being so serious all the time..........! [Sorry, I'm serious about opposing bigotry all the time.]
- its fine to be racist i am i just dont do anything about it [No! No no no!]
- if they knew how to speek english and payed taxes then i dont care [exactly as written]
- This hypersensitivity encourages more derision than it prevents. [good vocab, at least!]
...and from there, things mostly devolve into insulting the people who complain, calling them p.c. sissies, and telling them to leave America.
I want the big "Welcome to Madison" sign on Main Street to apply to everyone, not just folks who look and pray like the majority. Our civic leaders must embody that welcoming spirit, for moral and practical reasons. More so than many other places, Madison needs to be about the American ideal of telling people to come here, not telling them to leave.
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Update 2011.02.25 11:10 CST: One defender of bigotry submits this Fox News story on the arrest of a Saudi Arabian student and accused terrorist in Texas to prove... well, I'm not sure what it proves. That bigotry is funny? That you can't trust dudes named Khalid? Then WaPo's Adam Serwer discusses how Fox News reinforces the "self-sustaining, self-perpetuating alternate reality" that cushions the worldview of bigots.
I've had several careers...broadcasting, driving, sales....driving included getting a chauffeurs license in
Chicago as I was also doing voice-over and narration....and then later being a Rapid City taxi driver. I'm offended because I know something your ill-informed Commissioner doesn't. When I was applying for a chauffeur's license in Chicago it entitled me to also drive taxi. I couldn't get a taxi driver's with one company because I didn't know the city as well as they wanted me to know it. Fair enough. As a limo chauffeur I had the comfort of having the dispatcher for a small limo company on the other end of a cell phone and radio.
Plus I had some very good maps. As a taxi driver, one has to know the map in your head. One thing the person who hired taxi drivers for the Yellow Cab Company in Chicago told me was that most of the drivers that were hired were either masters or doctoral degree candidates at various Chicago area universities. And when I drove limo I heard any number of stories how taxi drivers used their "foreign" accents and the impression of Americans that they were uneducated to make more money....not by cheating people....but by a sympathy ploy....stories of large families, poverty, needing to support, etc., some of which were true. They rarely talked about their education or why they were working as drivers other than family needs, etc. The truth is that foreign taxi drivers in big cities may be better educated than the people they are driving....speaking two or more languages...having or working on multiple degrees, etc. Now, I had a degree and that was partly why I got through the door for the interview. But I lacked one thing foreign drivers had....friends who would take them around to learn the city.....so I take offense at the taxi driver portion of the "joke"....a poor joke. And I can tell you from personal experience, that while I've had some difficulty understanding Dell reps at times, they've helped me solve some very tricky problems I've had with Dell computers. And I've learned how to solve problems from them. Now why are "outsiders" getting the job? Simply because they are better applicants who are better trained and better prepared for the jobs at hand. Period.
And they are often willing to sacrifice long hours and difficult conditions to better themselves. Americans are now beginning to see the problems they themselves have created by failing to accept the new, failing to accept the different, failing to accept changes and challenges in a world society. The time has passed when we taught the world...the world is now beginning to teach us....and we'd better learn the lessons. Additionally, certain problems have arisen in our society from insular and provincial attitudes. They simply won't stand in a "new world order"....an order we are having less and less influence over.
Darn good points, Barry. I wonder: you mention "insular and provincial attitudes"... could that be related to this talk I hear about America being "exceptional"?
I want you to know that I came up with huge long answer to the question you posed to me and I realized that if I answered it with a lordly attitude like I knew what I was really talking about I'd commit the same action certain social leaders, groups and even the US itself commits every day by it acting as lord of the world. I finally decided my long answer was complete bull. So, to answer your question: yeah. Exceptional in the sense that it's outside the normative and superlative....which it isn't....and while it might have been after WWII for 15-25 years....won't ever see that time again. Nostalgia for the 1950s is leading many to think it's the same time when life was easy and everything came our way. The white boy syndrome. I'm white. I'm male. I'm American. I'm Christian. Gee, I ought to get everything I want. That's a prelude to social and societal destruction. And I should wipe out everything after the "yeah." But I won't since I'm so exceptional....like every other gay person in South Dakota the bullies in Pierre want to shut out of their special clubs and cabals.
Oh, by the way, when the big shots grant equality nobody gets it or has it...but when equality is the product of a fight then there's respect. There's a whole bunch of fighting left inside America. The better word than fighting might be maturing. Maybe in a couple a hundred years there will be a little more respect and a little more equality. Until then, it's all just lip service where many don't believe the words written in our founding and continuing documents of power. Many keep falling back on documents from the old world...rather than accepting the documents of the new world.
The joke also conflates Muslims and Hindus. Whoever came up with it doesn't know the difference between Egyptians and Indians. Guess they're all just swarthy fer'ners.
What's wrong with a good racist joke? We make Irish jokes all the time. People need to get a grip. I should be able to call you or your mother anything I want as long as I say it is a joke. Like in Texas you can say anything you want as long as you begin or end with "Bless his heart..." Example- "Bless her heart she can't help that she is big as a cow it is in her genes."
Bingo, Tim: it's not just anti-Muslim; it's straight racism.
Yep. Also, we're probably missing the subtle right-wing humor. Boiled down, the last part of the "joke" is this: "The president is BLACK!" HAHAHAHA!
That there is some darned fine satire--especially if instead of "black," you use the word that's actually in the would-be jokesters' thought bubbles.
Too bad facebook doesn't have a "dislike" button.
It doesn't hurt to remember that bad taste and bigotry knows no political boundaries, and liberals can be just as guilty of intolerance of differing views as conservatives (just google some of the stupid/heinous things our Vice President and Secretary of State have said in public).
Should Mr. Abraham have posted what he did? Probably not. I'll still fight, die, and do everything in my power to protect his right to shove his foot firmly into his mouth, though.
Agreed, Wayne. Note that at no point do I call on the state or even Facebook to block users from posting such comments. My remedy is based purely on neighborly scolding and efforts to educate people as to the multiple levels on which such words are harmful.