Thread by @cricketcrocker

CW anti-Islam

Let’s examine shall we the intense anti-Islam sentiment embedded in this smug liberal statement.

https://twitter.com/baalat1/status/1037677068488716288

Encoding “violent totalitarianism using theology as an excuse” as trademarkedly a property of Islam is a pretty great example of the pervasive antipathy towards other belief systems, that I was talking about in my initial tweet.

The reply was especially disquieting because, well

Because first off the person was situating themself as an outgroup—as in “not one of those violent religious bigots”...

...while using an Islamic extremist group as the holotype example.

That’s so obviously bigoted along religious lines that I almost don’t know what to say

Let’s be clear: there are violent religious extremists in nearly every religion.

Islam is “known for” violent religious extremism because of racist anti-Islam propaganda in the countries that call themselves “the free world”.

So don’t act like that. Don’t be like “oh well the Right Wing is so bigotedly attached to their religious views that they’re almost as bad as Muslims”

What the heck.

I mean

Acting like that is exactly what I was talking about!

The USA is predicated on dehumanizing, genociding, enslaving people whose skin color & belief systems deviate from ‘white christian’

You might more accurately say that Osama bin Laden wanted an Islamic version of the USA.

Lordy. I’m not defending the Taliban. I’m not a Daesh sympathizer or operative.

And I’ve had it up to here with all this smug white liberal seculoChristian rhetoric that situates Other Religions as the exemplars of ideologically motivated violence.

Christians don’t need a special qualifier to denote their violence like it’s somehow a rare bird.

Christians literally came to this continent to kill or convert everyone on it.

This continent was NOT the only one where they did that.

“Oh but God is Love”

Don’t give me that. You think you’re the only religion that feels a strong connection to love?

You can’t claim love when you’ve spent two thousand years trying to coerce everyone else to do it your way.

And hello, just because you’re not a Christian or a practicing Christian doesn’t mean you’re immune to this pro-Christian bigotry. It is the cultural water in which many of us swim.

You can keep yourself from absorbing the toxic stuff, but only through constant effort.

I’m not a Muslim. I lived for years in a secular, majority-Muslim country. I’m not an expert on Islam.

But I’m very good at noticing patterns in language.

And that developing country I lived in? Waaaaaaaaaay more accepting of other ways of worshipping.

So get outta here.

If you liked this thread or learned from it, go find and follow some awesome Muslim thinkers and activists.

(@/MuslimIQ is not one of those, btw. He’s colonizing, women-harassing trash.)

I personally learn a lot from these people, though not all tweet explicitly about this thread’s topics

@MuslimMissWorld @mehmsy @omarelakkad @Lexialex @JAHRAGER @yousefcisco @WithinSyriaBlog

https://twitter.com/kecia_ali/status/1037686650732793857?s=21

I've said something that misrepresents Islam here that's on me, not on the people I recommended.

Although if you're not Muslim and you come @ me with a bunch of "actually you're wrong" and include a lot of derogation of Islam I'm going to assume you're clueless & hateful.

On the same note, if I recommend people who have been crappy along other axes, I'm not going to defend their actions.

People can change, but they don't always. Also, I'm not always aware of their full oeuvre.

Let me know if you see me recommend someone wince-ful, yeah?