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muslims are people--you know, regular folk---who share a religious preference. it is not a single ethnicity.
i find the way the press---particularly television--reinforces stereotypes relative to muslim folk to be disgusting, personally. the problem is that when the situation in the states is relatively calm, people are often very critical of these idiotic images, will even disavow them--but when things get difficult, when something happens that is connected to some vague "islamic fundamentalist"--who is always abstract---too many collapse back onto these stereotypes.
when this happens, the states can be a really really frightening place to be. i remember all too well the weeks following 911. even in philadelphia, it was really really horrible. the racism--not to mention the violence associated with it---made me ashamed to be american.
to my mind, the disposition toward collapsing onto stereotypes is itself a real problem. you see something similar to this too often in political debates, like some folk are practicing for a hectic period, like there is some perverse side of them that almost enjoys having somebody "definite" to hate.
i do not understand it.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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