I’ll be watching the Little League World Series over the next week (it’s on ESPN), which might be an odd place to look for perspective on all this. But here’s some: in 1955, sixty-two local Little Leagues in the state of South Carolina entered the tournament that leads to the Little League World Series. For the first time, one of them consisted of black players—the Cannon Street YMCA All Stars. None of the sixty-one other teams had a single black player, and every one of them refused to play Cannon Street. They wanted them out of the tournament. Instead, the Little League head office disqualified the sixty-one white teams.
Amy Davidson : The New Yorker writing in the context of the Burlington Coat Factory mosque. Read the rest of her story.
This is a good example to cite to people who feel that a judge overturning a law passed by referendum, one designed to deny rights to a minority segment of the population, is an affront to democracy.
The majority doesn’t always get it right.
This whole mosque situation is so depressing to me. The only thing that is getting me through it is watching Jon Stewart eviscerate everyone involved every night.
Jill, in 2005 I got annoyed at something Terry Gross said on “Fresh Air.” Imagine.
She was talking about a woman who had learned some words in Arabic because her boyfriend was a Muslim.
I wrote her this letter, but never received a response.
Terry, I speak a bit of Spanish. A Catholic taught it to me. I also know some words of Japanese. They were taught to me by a Buddhist I knew. And the German words I know I picked up from a Lutheran.
Does all that sound ridiculous? Isn’t it more accurate and more pertinent to say I learned from Mexican, Japanese and German individuals?
Doesn’t it make more sense to report that Kayla Williams, prior to learning Arabic language from as part of her military training had been taught some Arabic words by a previous boyfriend who was and Arab, instead of saying he was a Muslim? Was he a Muslim from Turkmenistan? Or possibly from The Philippines? Or maybe he was Malay? Since his ethnicity was not identified are we to conclude he was Arab? Or are we now assuming that all the worlds Muslims are Arabic speakers? All Muslims are Arabs and all Arabs are Muslims?
Can’t you see that this is a huge part of the problem with the way Americans view both Arabs and Muslims? The American press has always identified any Mid-eastern terrorists as “Islamic terrorists,” rather than as “Saudi Arabian terrorists” or “Lebanese Terrorists” or “Afghani terrorists.”
During World War II did we report on atrocities committed by Nazis as committed by Lutheran terrorists? Or even Protestant terrorists? How often did we hear about IRA activities described as perpetrated by Catholic terrorists? Were we referring to the Khmer Rouge as Buddhist terrorists? Or during WWII were the Japanese referred to as Shinto terrorists? Are the Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka referred to as Hindu terrorists?
Of course not. The American press reserves that distinction for “Islamic terrorists”, often failing to mention what nationality the terrorists are thought to be. Are we to believe that all of the Christian Arabs in the Middle East think everything is fine with American foreign policy and only the Muslims are taking exception to the way we do things?
Isn’t it time the press started giving the world’s Muslims a break and stop using their religion to characterize really evil people who have nothing to do with religion. Haven’t we poured more than enough gasoline on that fire?
On the plus side I just now taught myself how to use html to get the italics in my previous comment. I’m so proud of myself.