Muslims speak out against NPR’s political correctness

Muslims speak out against NPR’s political correctness
By Caroline May - 10/21/2010 | Updated: 4:26 AM 10/22/2010

While a Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), was instrumental in getting National Public Radio (NPR) to fire Juan Williams, some Muslims are speaking out against succumbing to the censorship of political correctness.

Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, took issue with those who wrap themselves in feel-good sensitivity, while denying the fact that the majority of terrorists are Muslim.

Indeed, the threat is real enough even for Fatah, a liberal Muslim, who looks at women in burkas with skepticism. “I am scared when I see women in burkas, how do I know what is behind that?” Fatah said, noting that many Muslims share his concerns.

“We are victims of these guys. A number of suicide bombers who have attacked have killed people [while] wearing the burka,” Fatah said. “This is the truth, we should be speaking the truth rather than what people expect us to say. ”

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told The Daily Caller that though Williams could have been more tactful, his ouster is symptomatic of the problems Americans continue to face when discussing Islam.

“As much as the way he said it was poorly chosen, the era we find ourselves — of political correctness — we are not able to address what this fear is,” Jasser said. “Anybody that starts talking about this fear gets shut down.”

Fatah agreed, saying that he did not believe that anything Williams’ said was terrible enough to lose his job. “I think it is another expression of political correctness. I didn’t find anything that he said that he deserved to be fired,” he told TheDC.

According to Jasser, the fact that the vast majority of national security threats emanate from the Muslim world makes Williams’ fear reasonable. Without open discussion, however, those concerns will never be conquered.

“I think that ultimately what we find when many thought leaders try to talk about it, [they say] ‘well there are some common elements to those who threaten national security,’ and the only one so far they have been able to nail down is that they come from some form of Islamic theology,’” Jasser said. “And because we have not become skilled in discussing theo-political threats, you’re having a lot of these little skirmishes happening.”

Jasser stressed that he was not defending Williams’ comments, but that the need for discourse trumped compromising to hypersensitivity.

“I think it is very sad that Juan got fired. But I am not surprised because they have probably been looking for an opportunity to fire him because of all his exposure on Fox, while he is also working at NPR,” he said.

“So I think they probably exploited the opportunity. I personally don’t think what he said rises to the level of being fired,” Jasser concluded, noting that an apology would suffice Stephen Schwartz, executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, echoed Fatah and Jasser. Schwartz told TheDC that he and his organization opposed NPR’s reaction to Williams’ comments.

“Mr. Williams is basically an opinion journalist and he offered an opinion based on an undeniable reality: American Muslims have so far failed in our duty to prevent negative perceptions among our non-Muslim neighbors, and many, unfortunately, have taken the existing concerns among non-Muslims as a challenge to assert Muslim identity more aggressively, through forms of dress as well as speech that are often extravagant and excessive,” Schwartz wrote in an e-mail to TheDC.

“Mr. Williams spoke to this reality in an understated, candid way. He did not express hatred or incite violence against Muslims. He should not have been dismissed.”

 

That's a pretty well thought out piece. How did you manage to find it, bugscoe?

 

I am more concerned about a nicely dressed Muslim with pressed khakis and no body hair.
Would other Muslims be afraid if they saw that?

 

good point.

 

And so the moral of the story is, Be vewwy, vewwy afwaid.

 

Yes, PC orthodoxy is a debilitating and parasitic virus which the West has contracted. Let's hope we find the antibodies...

 

Here is an even better one. Perhaps you'll learn something if you're able to put your whip down for a moment.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=209015

 

The entire episode is bizarre and seems to confirm the idea that they were looking for an excuse to fire him. It is ironic that an intolerant liberal like Williams, who regularly criticizes conservatives, Tea Partiers and republicans in far harsher terms, got canned for violating left-wing PC orthodoxy. It is acceptable to say hateful things about conservatives, but admitting a private fear about muslims is ground for termination.

The other irony is he was clearly making an unstated analogy to Jesse Jackson's comment that he was fearful if he was being followed by young black men at night on a deserted street. I guess the difference was that Jackson doesn't have a day job at Fox News.

The mainstream media has turned on Williams with a vengeance. There was a long piece in the nY Times defending the firing and making reference to other supposed transgressions, including saying Michelle Obama reminded him of Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress. Apparently criticism of either obama is strictly forbidden at NPR. Clearly the point of publicizing that incident was to try to undermine black anger over a bunch of rich white liberals pissing on a proud black man.