Kristen Ess Schurr
September 24, 2011.
Muslim students' arrest for interrupting the Israeli ambassador's speech in California shows discrimination at work.
At most, these students are guilty of displaying a lack of courtesy by interrupting Oren, but one could very simply argue that the brutal occupation of Palestine, the ethnic cleansing of Bedouins within Israeli boundaries and the major attacks on Lebanon are the discourtesies, not the voicing of opposition to these policies and to those who promote them.
Prosecuting the Irvine 11 has reeked of the anti-Arab, Islamophobic, anti-Palestine and pro-Israeli stance that we are more and more forced to accept as the status-quo, as the US moves further away from what might be considered a democracy.
The United States already spends billions of dollars annually to support the Israeli occupation and is also spending well into the six figures to prosecute these students who spoke against it. This is a "selective and discriminatory" investigation and prosecution of Muslim students - because it was an Israeli official speaking, and because it was Muslims who protested.
Enough. The Orange County District Attorney is selectively prosecuting the students for political reasons and singling them out, based on their faith.
On the very same day that the trial opened against these Muslim students for speaking out against the Israeli ambassador's lies, two non-Muslim women disrupted the speech of former US Vice President Dick Cheney - also in Orange County. Those women were not arrested or prosecuted. Several months before that, three non-Muslim women disrupted the speech of former US President George W Bush - also in Orange County. They were not arrested or prosecuted.
Read the rest here.
Comment: If you spend enough time in the US you realize that its democracy is a qualified one. They even have a black president who chastises black folk for being whiners (the historical implication being that blacks are shifty and lazy) when they question their place and condition.
And he does so to endear himself to the white electorate who will have to be given a strong reason to vote his delusional black ass into office for another four years.
Obama knows that he has to distance himself from being seen as a black president. So he has to blame black folk for their conditions just like every other white president has done.
Blaming black people (creating bogey men and women) is an electoral ploy that pays benefits. So is propping up Israel (to do different would bring the wrath of AIPAC down and that would be certain death for Obomber).
What do you think Obama's chance of re-election would be if he went out and told white Americans that they are losing their jobs because they not good enough or not working hard enough?
What if he added that whites should stop whining about the economy and "pull themselves up by their bootstraps"?
He would be toast. He won't, of course. If Obama is anything he is a skilled kisser of white ass. He does not exist unless he is made relevant by whiteness.
Muslim Americans who think they can exercise their right to freedom of speech under the same constitution that originally defined black life as one-fifth of a white life need to rethink their place in the crumbling empire.
What the Irvine 11 case once again illustrates is that the US is not set-up to unconditionally extend its democracy to all who live there.
Black and brown life is always suspect. Forever.
If you doubt me then go talk to some Indians on any reservation anywhere in occupied America and ask them why there are so few of them left.
Onward!
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