Maybe I’m over thinking, but…

This whole “Burn A Qur’an Day” thing has seriously disturbed me. I am afraid. There it is. I’m afraid. And I don’t mean, ‘Ah! …Oh, that’s my shadow’ afraid; I’m talking ‘days after 9/11’ afraid.

We are living in a time where one small group of people, a congregation of 50 overzealous Christians or a rag-tag group of a few hundred overzealous Muslims can demand the attention of the most powerful nations in the world. In this world of instant communication and information, the stupidity of one person can set off a chain reaction that could lead to the deaths of a couple of people in a car bombing, a couple-hundred people in an airplane or even a couple-thousand people in a building. I hate to think that some nut-job can and would hold our national security and the safety of our troops hostage to make a statement against a place of worship. This man endangered the United States and its mission abroad in order to undermine the rights of other Americans. Yet he thinks he is saving the US from falling prey to Sharia Law. Is that not mind-boggling?

My point is that these are scary times. The US of A is hardly putting its best foot forward regarding relations with Muslims in America and abroad. With the hate crimes against Muslims, the appalling poll numbers indicative of our collective opinion of Islam and the wildly incoherent protests against mosques anywhere in the US, it looks like our reputation abroad may be shot to hell as far as Muslims are concerned.

I am in NO way saying that these are the opinions and/or practices of all Americans. I’m just saying that that’s the way we allow ourselves to be portrayed and we are shooting ourselves in the face in more ways than one.

Protesting places of worship (that are not breaking any laws) should not happen in the US of A. It seriously goes against everything we believe in. The right to peacefully practice a religion is a constitutional right in the US; as far as I’m concerned, it ought to be a universal one. It puts Americans against Americans; we just don’t need that.

Putting forth this image of the US as inhospitable—even hostile—to Muslims only does us harm. It gives the terrorists fuel for their propaganda. It drives anti-American sentiment abroad in nations like Afghanistan and Pakistan where we desperately need the support of the people.

I am scared for the future. With the debate about Park51/Cordoba House/’The Ground Zero Mosque’ and the growing anti-Islam sentiment, I fear the direction in which this country is going and the reaction we will receive from abroad.

God bless America. Please. We really need it.

FINALLY!!!

Ever since I was a child, I have had to listen to that shrew Dr. Laura with my mother. She likes that bitchy/'honest' advice, whatever that is. But I have finally convinced my mother that Dr. Laura is a lousy person to listen to. It's a sobering victory, though, since Dr. Laura is 'through with radio' now (http://bit.ly/9IIloU).

The funny thing is that, unlike much of the mainstream, I am more concerned with her comments as opposed to her use of a racial slur. I don't think using the n-word makes a person a racist, but some of the other things she said filled in the blanks and made me comfortable calling her a racist.

Let's chop this up, shall we:

• 'I saw your people doing it on the talking box' is NEVER a good reason to do anything. I still can't believe she seriously thought it was okay to swear at that woman because she saw black people saying the n-word on HBO!
• Obama has absolutely nothing to do with anyone's marriage but his own. Why did Dr. Laura bring up the 2008 election when a woman is asking about her marriage? Hmmm...
• Being offended after you've been cussed at does not mean you are hypersensitive or you don't have a sense of humor. There was nothing humorous about what Dr. Laura was saying. That's why she had to apologize.
• Repeating a racial slur to a person of that particular race does not make them less offended. When you perceive that you have offended someone, you stop. Dr. Laura's parents raised a bully.
• Black-think is 'distressing and distrubing', eh? 'It's all about power'? I do not understand how black-think or (possibly?) black power have anything to do with that woman's marriage. How is 'please make your friends stop calling me names' trying to fight the establishment?

Dr. Laura apologized for using the n-word (http://huff.to/d2TPJo), but she did not apologize for taking a disgustingly prejudiced and offensive stance against a woman who was asking for her advice. As someone who has been forced to listen to this horrid woman for years, I can reasonably assert that, had this woman not mentioned that she was a black woman in an interracial marriage, the good doctor would have told her to stick it to her husband and give him an ultimatum. What Dr. Laura did instead was attack a woman who was already humbling herself by asking for her help. THEN she had the gall to tell the woman that she should not be married to her husband despite the fact that, from what the caller said, the problem was with people outside of her marriage.

I have never been a fan of Dr. Laura, but this time she seriously went out of her way to attack a woman. That was truly and blatantly racist.

For the entire conversation between Dr. Laura and her confused victim, http://bit.ly/arGYmn. I never knew why anyone would call that woman anyways...

I didn't know I hated my country...

So I was on Twitter like I am for about 40-50% of my time. And I get in a conversation with this European woman who lived in Belgium but now lives in the States. The topic of discussion is US healthcare reform. Because I will not be swayed on my stance on healthcare, she tries to convince me that the US is a better country than any European country. To this I respond that I do not consider the US to be better than any country, only richer. I say that because, as an American, I think there are problems in many facets of our society, our politics, etc. The same is true of all other countries. Thus, I don't think any COUNTRY is better than another.

When I tell the woman that she romanticizes the US and makes it into an almost ideal nation (which it most definitely is not), she gets upset with me. She accuses me of thinking like anti-Americans in Europe. To which my response was

I'm not anti-American. I love my country and want to see it improve constantly.

Despite what I say about how I feel about my nation she has decided that

It is sad to see how young Americans have been taught to hate their country so much.

She said this because I claimed that the US had done some not-so-nice things during the Cold War. Anyone who sat through a US history class would know that the US is not blameless in foreign policy. They have staged coups in various nations (Vietnam, Chile, etc.). There have been assassination plots for unfavorable heads of state. Like every government, the US's has it's dark side. I'm not justifying it, but I refuse to ignore it. I love my country but I will not look past it's flaws and it's contradictions because, as a young woman, I want to IMPROVE this great nation because it's mine.