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Archive for category Bigots Around the Globe

Opinion: Pete King Whipped Up Anti-Muslim Bigotry. Why Is Chuck Schumer Celebrating Him?

Opinion: Pete King Whipped Up Anti-Muslim Bigotry. Why Is Chuck Schumer Celebrating Him?

The Long Island Republican will leave a legacy of division and demonization. Schumer is wrong to celebrate it.

Alex Brandon / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rep. Pete King, then-chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, during one of his 2011 hearings on Islamist extremism in the United States.

It took a quarter of a century, but Rep. Pete King, a Long Island Republican, is finally retiring. King built a durable following among the Fox News coterie thanks in part to his unflinching efforts to demonize Muslims, racial justice activists, critics of torture, and victims of police violence.

King’s legacy of division makes it all the more inexplicable that Sen. Chuck Schumer — a fellow New Yorker who’s well versed in King’s abuses — would spend Monday morning praising King as standing “head and shoulders above everyone else.”

“He’s been principled and never let others push him away from his principles,” Schumer added. Given that King’s principles included slandering almost any community that didn’t look like him, it’s reasonable to ask what the leader of the Senate Democrats was thinking when he decided to celebrate King’s extremism.

Let’s take a look at a few of the “principles” King held so dearly.

To most Americans, King is best known as the representative who saw Muslim threats around every corner. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, he became a staunch advocate for expanding the national security and surveillance state into the unaccountable behemoth we know today.

King has urged police to focus on Muslim communities for potential terrorist activity. He whined that there were too many mosques in the country. And he didn’t stop there. In 2011, he led a series of hugely wasteful, McCarthy-esque trials popularly known as the “radicalization hearings.” Those congressional sideshows became fountains of anti-Muslim disinformation, where King made the risible claim that “80% of the mosques in this country are controlled by radical imams.”

The hearings never produced an iota of evidence to support King’s claims.

Henny Ray Abrams / AP

A protester supports Rep. Pete King’s congressional hearings on the role of Muslims in homegrown terrorism in New York, March 2011.

There is nothing praiseworthy in King’s tireless effort to establish himself as the United States’ leading anti-Muslim fearmonger. Schumer should explain what, precisely, he found to admire in any of King’s hatred.

Not content with only marginalizing American Muslims, King has also shown contempt for those protesting police brutality. After a New York police officer killed Eric Garner with a prohibited chokehold in 2014, King took to the media to blame not the officer but Garner’s obesity. His statement was so outrageous that even fellow Republicans criticized it.

And it wasn’t just the Garner case. Just last year, King questioned the patriotism of NFL players who chose to kneel for the national anthem, comparing their kneeling to a Nazi salute. In a tweet criticizing the New York Jets, King claimed systemic police violence was a “false narrative” created by liberal elites to sow racial distrust between communities of color and white Americans.

None of this is new information to Schumer, whose own tenure in politics overlaps every single one of King’s racist and anti-Muslim outbursts. Such divisive, hateful rhetoric runs in opposition to the culture of inclusivity and tolerance that Democrats aim to strengthen.

King’s tenure in Congress was not a noble one. His repeated attempts to strip health care from millions of Americans should not be celebrated as “sticking to principles.” It should be viewed as it is — a nakedly partisan act against the wishes of King’s own voters. Not that you’d know: King’s social media profiles censored criticism of his votes to kill Obamacare.

There is always the possibility Schumer was merely being civil. After all, politicians tend to speak well of their departing colleagues no matter how odious their records. But this is a perfect example of how the veneer of political civility minimizes the true damage caused by extremists like King. It is certainly not a courtesy King ever extended to the communities he terrorized with bogus hearings and incendiary attacks.

It is tragic that a politician whose career focused so completely on sowing distrust and enmity between fellow Americans can still be described as a fairly “moderate” Republican. By enabling King’s antics, Republicans allowed their party to swing to its current extremes. Democrats, and especially Democratic leaders like Schumer, should have no part in legitimizing this Republican march into madness.

The only silver lining of King’s tenure is that a Democrat could win his Long Island seat and begin the long process of repairing the damage King wrought. Schumer can start by apologizing to those communities revictimized by his thoughtless praise of King’s poisonous legacy.


Max Burns is a Democratic strategist, political commentator, and former director of communications for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights,an international nonprofit organization.

Reference-Courtesy = BUZZFEED

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Donald Trump’s horrifying words about Muslims By Dean Obeidallah

Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM’s weekly program “The Dean Obeidallah Show,” a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of the politics blog The Dean’s Report. Follow him on Twitter: @TheDeansreport. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN)Donald Trump’s words on Thursday detailing the revolting measures he’s open to imposing on Muslim-Americans literally sent a shudder down my spine.

A non-Muslim friend of mine tweeted: “This literally made me cry.”

Another tweeted: “I Will Stand Up For Muslim Citizens Because I Want Help When The GOP Come For ME.”

Dean Obeidallah
 
 

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BIGOTRY OF JAPANESE, THE ISLAM HATERS: Islamic Nations Must Avoid Business with Japanese

Have Pakistanis ever wonder, why Japan does not invest in Pakistan? Have Pakistanis ever wondered why Japanese

 

Is it true? Being forwarded as received On Sunday, May 5, 2013 Rosey Lane writes:

Have you ever read in the newspaper that a political leader or a prime minister from an Islamic nation has visited Japan?

Have you ever come across news that the Ayatollah of Iran or The King of Saudi Arabia or even a Saudi Prince has visited Japan?

Japan is a country keeping Islam at bay. Japan has put strict restrictions on Islam and ALL Muslims.

The reasons are:

1) Japan is the only nation that does not give citizenship to Muslims.

2) In Japan permanent residency is not given to Muslims.

3) There is a strong ban on the propagation of Islam in Japan.

4) In the University of Japan, Arabic or any Islamic language is not taught.

5) One cannot import a ‘Koran’ published in the Arabic language.

6) According to data published by the Japanese government, it has given temporary residency to only 2 lakhs, Muslims, who must follow the Japanese Law of the Land? These Muslims should speak Japanese and carry their religious rituals in their homes.

7) Japan is the only country in the world that has a negligible number of embassies in Islamic countries.

8) Japanese people are not attracted to Islam at all.9) Muslims residing in Japan are the employees of foreign companies.

10) Even today, visas are not granted to Muslim doctors, engineers or managers sent by foreign companies.

11) In the majority of companies it is stated in their regulations that no Muslims should apply for a job.

12) The Japanese government is of the opinion that Muslims are fundamentalist and even in the era of globalization they are not willing to change their Muslim laws.

13) Muslims cannot even think about renting a house in Japan. 14) If anyone comes to know that his neighbor is a Muslim then the whole neighborhood stays alert.

15) No one can start an Islamic cell or Arabic ‘Madrasa’ in Japan. There is no Sharia law in Japan.

16) If a Japanese woman marries a Muslim then she is considered an outcast forever.

17) According to Mr. Kumiko Yagi, Professor of Arab/Islamic Studies at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, “There is a mind frame in Japan that Islam is a very narrow minded religion and one should stay away from it.”

 

The Reporter
 

Tokyo, Japan

This comment on internet sums it all.
Mar 28, 2009
 

 

 

 

Japanese like to act like they are better than everybody else, but come off as low class snobs.
A Japanese will be cleaning the toilets at McDonalds, but think they are better than any other nationality or even a rich gaijin Banker. How stupid.
The country is full of idiot prejudice, as noted by UN inspectors.
Japanes guys control idiot Japanese females by telling them bad stories about foreigners/gaijin. They blame all crime, rape, and any problems on the gaijin/foreigner, when the main problems come from the Japanese themselves. The Japanese guys do this to hide the shame of no muscle and small d-cks. Idiot Japanese females believe it. Then the Japanese guys do whater to the foolish women.
You will never see a bigger snob than the average flat and short legs having Japanese woman, wishing they were White. They will even dye the hair of an all Japanese child to brown to look more White.
You will never see something dumber than a Japanese pretending to be Black, dancing to Black music, trying to talk Black, but are prejudice against Blacks.
Do yourself a favor and avoid Japan. For business, it is better to go to Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Singapore.

 

The funny part is that the fake loving Western Countries & Ideology. Instead, they are building to get even for World War II, being a monolithic society, they hide their not only Anti-Muslim, but Anti-Christian, Anti-Semitism. Anti-Black Racism.

 

merican teacher in Japan under fire for lessons on Japan’s history of discrimination

By Max Fisher, Published: February 22 at 6:00 amE-mail the writer

Miki Dezaki in his Okinawa classroom. He says very few students raised their hands at first. (Screenshot from YouTube by Washington Post)

Miki Dezaki, who first arrived in Japan on a teacher exchange program in 2007, wanted to learn about the nation that his parents had once called home. He taught English, explored the country and affectionately chronicled his cross-cultural adventures on social media, most recently on YouTube, where he gained a small following for videos like “Hitchhiking Okinawa” and the truly cringe-worthy “What Americans think of Japan.” One of them, on the experience of being gay in Japan, attracted 75,000 views and dozens of thoughtful comments.

Dezaki didn’t think the reaction to his latest video was going to be any different, but he was wrong. “If I should have anticipated something, I should have anticipated the netouyu,” he told me, referring to the informal army of young, hyper-nationalist Japanese Web users who tend to descend on any article — or person — they perceive as critical of Japan.

But before the netouyu put Dezaki in their crosshairs, sending him death threats and hounding his employers, previous employers and even the local politicians who oversee his employers, there was just a teacher and his students.

Dezaki began his final lesson with a 1970 TV documentary, Eye of the Storm, often taught in American schools for its bracingly honest exploration of how good-hearted people — in this case, young children participating in an experiment — can turn to racism. After the video ended, he asked his students to raise their hands if they thought racism existed in Japan. Almost none did. They all thought of it as a uniquely American problem.

Gently, Dezaki showed his students that, yes, there is also racism in Japan. He carefully avoided the most extreme and controversial cases — for example, Japan’s wartime enslavement of Korean and other Asian women for sex, which the country today doesn’t fully acknowledge — pointing instead to such slang terms as “bakachon camera.” The phrase, which translates as “idiot Korean camera,” is meant to refer to disposable cameras so easy to use that even an idiot or a Korean could do it.

He really got his students’ attention when he talked about discrimination between Japanese groups. People from Okinawa, where Dezaki happened to be teaching, are sometimes looked down upon by other Japanese, he pointed out, and in the past have been treated as second-class citizens. Isn’t that discrimination?

“The reaction was so positive,” he recalled. For many of them, the class was a sort of an a-ha moment. “These kids have heard the stories of their parents being discriminated against by the mainland Japanese. They know this stuff. But the funny thing is that they weren’t making the connection that that was discrimination.” From there, it was easier for the students to accept that other popular Japanese attitudes about race or class might be discriminatory.

The vice principal of the school said he wished more Japanese students could hear the lesson. Dezaki didn’t get a single complaint. No one accused him of being an enemy of Japan.

That changed a week ago. Dezaki had recorded his July classes and, last Thursday, posted a six-minute video in which he narrated an abbreviated version of the lesson. It opens with a disclaimer that would prove both prescient and, for his critics, vastly insufficient. “I know there’s a lot of racism in America, and I’m not saying that America is better than Japan or anything like that,” he says. Here’s the video:

Also on Thursday, Dezaki posted the video, titled “Racism in Japan,” to the popular link-sharing site Reddit under its Japan-focused subsection, where he often comments. By this Saturday, the netouyu had discovered the video.

 

“I recently made a video about Racism in Japan, and am currently getting bombarded with some pretty harsh, irrational comments from Japanese people who think I am purposefully attacking Japan,” Dezaki wrote in a new post on Reddit’s Japan section, also known as r/Japan. The critics, he wrote, were “flood[ing] the comments section with confusion and spin.” But angry Web comments would turn out to be the least of his problems.

The netouyu make their home at a Web site called ni channeru, otherwise known as ni chan, 2chan or 2ch. Americans familiar with the bottommost depths of the Internet might know 2chan’s English-language spin-off, 4chan, which, like the original, is a message board famous for its crude discussions, graphic images (don’t open either on your work computer) and penchant for mischief that can sometimes cross into illegality.

Some 2chan users, perhaps curious about how their country is perceived abroad, will occasionally translate Reddit’s r/Japan posts into Japanese. When the “Racism in Japan” video made it onto 2chan, outraged users flocked to the comments section on YouTube to attempt to discredit the video. They attacked Dezaki as “anti-Japanese” and fumed at him for warping Japanese schoolchildren with “misinformation.”

Inevitably, at least one death threat appeared. Though it was presumably idle, like most threats made anonymously over the Web, it rattled him. Still, it’s no surprise that the netouyu’s initial campaign, like just about every effort to change a real-life debate by flooding some Web comments sections, went nowhere. So they escalated.

A few of the outraged Japanese found some personal information about Dezaki, starting with his until-then-secret real name and building up to contact information for his Japanese employers. Given Dezaki’s social media trail, it probably wasn’t hard. They proliferated the information using a file-sharing service called SkyDrive, urging fellow netouyu to take their fight off the message boards and into Dezaki’s personal life.

By Monday, superiors at the school in Japan were e-mailing him, saying they were bombarded with complaints. Though the video was based almost entirely on a lecture that they had once praised, they asked him to pull it down.

“Some Japanese guys found out which school I used to work at and now, I am being pressured to take down the ‘Racism in Japan’ video,” Dezaki posted on Reddit. “I’m not really sure what to do at this point. I don’t want to take down the video because I don’t believe I did anything wrong, and I don’t believe in giving into bullies who try to censor every taboo topic in Japan. What do you guys think?”

He decided to keep the video online, but placed a message over the first few sentences that, in English and Japanese, announce his refusal to take it down.

But the outrage continued to mount, both online and in the real world. At one point, Dezaki says he was contacted by an official in Okinawa’s board of education, who warned that a member of Japan’s legislature might raise it on the floor of the National Diet, Japan’s lower house of parliament. Apparently, the netouyu may have succeeded in elevating the issue from a YouTube comments field to regional and perhaps even national Japanese politics.

“I knew there were going to be some Japanese upset with me, but I didn’t expect this magnitude of a problem,” Dezaki said. “I didn’t expect them to call my board of education. That said, I wasn’t surprised, though. You know what I mean? They’re insane people.”

Nationalism is not unique to Japan, but it is strong there, tinged with the insecurity of a once-powerful nation on the decline and with the humiliation of defeat and American occupation at the end of World War II. Japan’s national constitution, which declares the country’s commitment to pacifism and thus implicitly maintains its reliance on the United States, was in some ways pressed on the country by the American military government that ruled it for several years. The Americans, rather than Japan’s own excesses, make an easy culprit for the country’s lowered global status.

That history is still raw in Japan, where nationalism and resentment of perceived American control often go hand-in-hand. Dezaki is an American, and his video seems to have hit on the belief among many nationalists that the Americans still condescend to, and ultimately seek to control, their country.

“I fell in love with Japan; I love Japan,” Dezaki says, explaining why he made the video in the first place. “And I want to see Japan become a better place. Because I do see these potential problems with racism and discrimination.” His students at Okinawa seemed to benefit from the lesson, but a number of others don’t seem ready to hear it.

 

Max Fisher
Max Fisher is the Post’s foreign affairs blogger. He has a master’s degree in security studies from Johns Hopkins University. 

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