This weekend, someone threw a bomb though the window of a mosque in a suburb of Minneapolis. It was an act of TERRORISM… One that the president of the United States of America didn’t feel the need to comment on. Though that’s pretty standard for the worst president this country has ever seen. In February of this year, when one of his deranged supporters killed six Muslim people in a Canadian mosque, he couldn’t seem to find the time to tweet… But when he hears about a Muslim man in Paris who slightly injured one person, he is scrambling for his phone within a couple hours.
When brown, Muslim men kill people in London, he calls for putting the Muslim ban back in place. When a white, Christian man carries out a deadly attack in London, the president has nothing to say… And he certainly doesn’t call for a travel ban for countries with high concentrations of white Christians. He doesn’t even make an ATTEMPT to cover up his bigoted hypocrisy. He revels in it. But what would you expect from the sort of person who–on the same day 49 people were murdered in a night club in Orlando–tweeted congratulations to himself, because the shooter was Muslim…
Turns out the shooter had no involvement with ISIS or radical extremists, but instead seems to have been dealing with self-hatred over his own closeted sexuality.
The bombing of the mosque in Minnesota proves once again that citizens of the United States of America are way more likely to be the victim of an act of terrorism committed AGAINST Muslims than they are to be the victim of an act of terrorism committed BY Muslims. The story of the bomb blast was picked up by Yahoo News. You can view the story RIGHT HERE. But the story of the bombing is not really where THE STORY is. There are always going to be awful, deranged, murderous individuals in the world–People who do horrific, cowardly things like throwing a bomb through the window of the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. The story I’m interested in is the REACTION to the bombing.
This is not the first time in our country’s history that terrorists have bombed the house of worship belonging to people with dark skin.
So a place of worship was bombed in an American city, and from our president? Silence… But not everyone was silent. Beneath the Yahoo News article discussing the bombing, hundreds of hate-filled bigots took to their keyboards and wrote some of the most disgusting shit you have ever seen. Sometimes, these sorts of overtly racist and xenophobic comments sections have a way of disappearing, so I took screen shots of them. On Yahoo, the comments with the most “Thumbs Up’s” are the comments at the top. I only took pictures of the top 30 comments. Now, before reading these, I want you to try something… I want you to consider what it must be like being a Muslim in America… Think about loving this country, with its freedoms and opportunities… Think about the silence of the people in positions of power when Muslim people–here, and around the world–are attacked… And then think about reading shit like this after a mosque here is bombed:
Those were the top ten. Then…
And finally, though there were hundreds more, 21-30…
If you’re wondering why I would submit you to an Internet Comments Section, here’s why: Because it matters who governs.
I am NOT trying to discourage you and make you lose faith and hope in humanity… That is what the garbage who wrote these comments wants. There are millions of people in this country who have been so filled up with a steady diet of lies and fear, that hatred is the only option available to them. These comments are a dose of reality. It would be easy to think that anyone who has the sense that they were born with can tell that Trump is literally one of the worst humans on the planet… But I want to remind you that the man who tweeted that self-congragulatory narcissistic obscenity after the Orlando Massacre went on to win the presidency. And I’d also like to remind you that both the House and the Senate are filled with a majority of republican cowards, bereft of integrity, who refuse to stand up to Trump’s intentional attacks on our government, our democracy, and our sense of decency. It would not surprise me at all if Trump won another term as president. And the first step to ensuring that doesn’t happen starts with the Mid-Term Elections.
Our liberal optimism–Our belief that people are “better than that”–has lulled us to sleep before… And we ended up with an actual orange dumpster fire–a Trumpster Fire– as the leader of the free world. And I understand that there are Alt-Right outrage machines who get ahold of stories, and then spam the comments sections with white supremacist, xenophobic hatred… But listen–One of two things is true: Either people really are this shitty, or there is a very organized network of people working very hard to sell the story that people really are this shitty. And that it’s not worth it. And that we should give up, and quit trying, and lose hope. Either way, we are in very big trouble…
And when I say we, I don’t just mean the “We” who understands that love actually IS better than hate, and we want to build a world that is Better… I mean ALL of us. Not just the Muslims who are being harassed. Not just the Press who are threatened and attacked. Not just the scientists and the educators and the progressives… ALL OF US. That includes the ones who have been deceived into thinking that an walking pile of selfishness like Trump cares one bit about their problems and well-being. Genocide doesn’t just happen… It happens in stages. Eight stages, to be exact. And right now, in this country, we are firmly in Stage 3, and knocking on the door of Stage 4 (Read THIS, for more info on the Stages of Genocide).
We’re in trouble when we elect awful people to lead us. We’re in trouble when an act of integrity in Congress seems like a refreshing surprise. We’re in trouble when men who brag about sexual assault and ridicule disabled reporters still get elected into office. We’re in trouble when the majority of people calling themselves “christians” can’t see the clear evidence that one of the most ANTI-JESUS men to ever coif a smarmy hairdo, an amoral, broken mess of a human being, has weaseled himself into a position of great power–WITH THEIR HELP! And we’re in trouble for the next election when people cheer on acts of barbarism and hatred like the one that took place at that Minnesota mosque.
While you’re praying, please pray for our country to come to its senses.
The bomb was meant to intimidate… To terrorize… To make Muslims feel unsafe and unwelcome. But the comments that are posted above are more of the same. They are verbal bombs… Designed to intimidate and terrorize make Muslims feel unsafe and unwelcome. And if you call yourself an American… If you call yourself a Christian… If you call yourself a decent human being… You have GOT to stand against it.
Thank you so much to my newest Patron, Michelle! I am so encouraged to have a group of people who values my writing [and this blog] enough that they help support me. If you want to feel the good feeling that comes when you support something you care about, you can BECOME A PATRON. Or, if you want, you can LEAVE A TIP or BOOST A PARTICULAR POST on PayPal. Otherwise, just share this post with the people in your lives. On Facebook… On Twitter… Wherever. Either way, I love you. Stay hopeful. Resist!
