Paper to Readers: Sorry for Portraying Muslims as Human

A former columnist of the Press Herald wrote a great response to the editor’s apology. You can find it here: http://meatraffle.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/journalism-fail-why-the-portland-press-heralds-apology-for-covering-ramadan-is-wrong/

It’s a shame. As a student studying journalism in Maine right now, it ails me to see this happen to the state’s biggest newspaper. I’m feeling more inclined than ever not to seek a job opportunity with them.

Well, I was born in Dearborn, Michigan. One of my best friends in high school was Muslim. My cousin converted to Islam after she got married a couple of years ago. Other than some Muslim women wearing the hijab (including my cousin Sarah) and most of them being Arabic they’re not different from your “average” American.

My grandmother feels the same way about Muslims as I do. After all, she has lived in Dearborn for years and now has family who are in the religion. Yet, she is against the Islamic Center near Ground Zero.

It just goes to show that not all people in the debate share the extreme viewpoints that are displayed in the media.

“This is a depressing statement about the state of dialogue in America. Nine years after 9/11, there is now a widespread belief that, for one religious group of law-abiding Americans, the boundaries of acceptable behavior are narrower than for everyone else. Yes, you have the right to worship. But it would be decent of you to do it somewhere else. Or on another day. Or in such a way that the rest of us don’t have to know about it.”

I’ve read this column quite a bit. Normally I don’t wade into the discussion. James, I utterly respect how you write, your perspective, your candor. This particular section struck me as key.

Nevertheless, your rhetoric does cause me to wonder a bit, about things on all sides of the multi-cracked religious divide. For instance, as a Christian, I know many other Christians who are still upset about what they term as the “removal of prayer from school.” For a while, many Christians have felt that “the boundaries of acceptable behavior” have become quite a bit narrower for them. We can worship and speak about God, but not in public schools. I even know of a case in a high school where I grew up where a music teacher was fired for utilizing certain Christian hymns in a concert, which offended students of other faiths. And, mind you, this was a public concert at a public school, and the songs weren’t even being used as “worship.” Nevertheless, I know that many Christians feel as if we have to cower and speak lightly on our toes lest we offend anyone in our pluralist society. Not all Christians feel this (obviously) but many do. And many do speak lightly, respect greatly and are even in civil and productive dialogue with people of other faiths and of no faith.

Now, of course, in the case of the New York Muslim Community Center and this particular news article, things are quite different. And the outcry against muslims is becoming ridiculous. But what I wrote above makes it all the more upsetting to me (as a Christian) that particular Christians are making a fuss about restricting others beliefs.

What I wonder is where the appropriate line falls? Where does representing my faith become offensive and worthy of reproach (praying in school)? Where does protecting the beliefs of others become losing the beautiful distinctiveness and beauty of my own beliefs? How much do we have to bend for each other before all of our systems of belief break?

These are not easy questions. I deal with them every day. I and many other steadfast Christians DO think consciously about how we act toward those of disparate beliefs. What bothers me is that the Christians who are getting press today are those who are threatening to burn Qu’rans or those who are flailing signs about in protest to a Community Center. What about the thousands of Christians who have gone down to Louisiana under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church USA to rebuild? What about how they were there before the government got there and have stayed long after most people forgot (http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/pda)? What about the faithful and thoughtful representatives of the Christian faith who responded with open arms to the daring Muslim professors who sent out a document called “A Common Word” that tried to find a peaceful ground for discussion between Muslims, Christians and Jews (http://www.acommonword.com)? Is there room in the press for uplifting stories about people of all faiths?

Silly url system: here are the websites, since the links don’t seem to work:

http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/pda/

http://acommonword.com/

It is impossible to hate the idea of a peaceful mosque, unless one feels that the entire Muslim world is to blame for the actions of one small group.

I want to take 9/11 as an occasion to think about the terrible loss of nine years ago. But instead, all of my energy is being taken refuting the bigotry of people who cannot — or who refuse to — distinguish between the terms “Muslim” and “terrorist.”

They call themselves “patriots” — but all they’re doing is stealing from me the opportunity to grieve.

I’m Hindu.

I went to school in Indonesia (country with the largest muslim population) and at school I sang Christian hymns.

Drawing arbitrary lines of what should and should not be acceptable in school is ludicrous. As children these artificial divides remain and when they grow older these children will only feel comfortable in situations where the artificial divide exists. This is a terrible state for a society to be in.

“We can worship and speak about God, but not in public schools.”

If you’re a student, you still can. It’s only teachers, faculty, and staff who can’t lead prayers. And I think that’s not “arbitrary” at all. Such prayer would lead to even more alienation of individuals who aren’t religious and even “opting out” may provide an impetus for favoritism and bullying. I know I was bullied if I let my absence of faith be known; I was thankful I didn’t have to unless it was of my own volition after it became clear to me the consequences of my beliefs. And I was pretty ok with other students wearing crosses and praying over meals, if that was what they believed in.

But that’s what “school prayer” is. And representing it as something that inhibits anything else, such as student prayer/worship, is disingenuous.

I’ve seen a few articles and mentions of positive reactions from people of all faiths in support of the Cordoba Center. But I think when a significant majority of people think differently, that’s going to be what leads [for better or worse].

“There is now one group of Americans whose peaceful religious observance cannot be noted by decent people, unless it is “balanced” by the mention of a vile crime committed in 2001 by people, with a perverted idea of a religion by the same name, from the other side of the world.”

Fixed that for you.

Religions, or the lack of it, defines us. And their celebrations, or ‘Holy Day’ If for no other real reason than an excuse to have a great time more so. I for one have always been fascinated by the colors, vibrancy and humanitarian values reportations of such Holy Days displays.

Unfortunately, for a well established news agency such as The Portland Press Herald I find the editorial apology is, for no better word, stupid.

I admit I am not religious enough myself to be qualified to comment about the apology from that point of view but what i find inexplicably offensive is that The Portland Press Herald was apologizing for the HARD GOOD SOLID work of its own team. And that is just, as I said before, for no better word, stupid.

It saddens me to be a witness to this kind of stupidity, this cowering before intolerance. I am prepared for the bigotry and the hatred when reading commentaries and blogs. I figure that in the “old days” these people didn’t have a public forum for their opinions, except perhaps groups like the KKK, today they do, but for a newspaper to “apologize” for “daring” to put some Muslims in a positive light? Disgusting.

Will you balance your above article by noting your outrage about how intimidated the american publishing and broadcasting industry has been by threats arising from practitioners of a particular religion?

For your reference: http://www.slate.com/id/2225504/
Yale Surrenders: Why did Yale University Press remove images of Mohammed from a book about the Danish cartoons? By Christopher Hitchens

Also note: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/books/13book.html Yale Press Bans Images of Muhammad in New Book By PATRICIA COHEN

(2) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/arts/television/23park.html ‘South Park’ Episode Altered After Muslim Group’s Warning By DAVE ITZKOFF

Key point: In a statement, Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone wrote: “In the 14 years we’ve been doing ‘South Park’ we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central, and they made a determination to alter the episode.”
The episode was to end with a speech “about intimidation and fear,” Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone wrote, adding, “It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too.”

The message from various recent instances of self censorship is clear: Be afraid, be very afraid of above practitioners.

regards

“Nine years after 9/11, there is now a widespread belief that, for one religious group of law-abiding Americans, the boundaries of acceptable behavior are narrower than for everyone else. Yes, you have the right to worship. But it would be decent of you to do it somewhere else.”

This is a classic case of social norms and mores. Society draws its lines in the sand, however misguided, by the deviance by the actions of one or two people of the extremist groups.

We do it with Christians as well. Now they are out of the spotlight–even with the Catholic church molesting little boys and accepting resignations while a woman aborts a child to save a woman’s life and gets excommunicated. We have a new “threat” to keeping our society the “same”. Soon, there will be another target.

Its all a cycle–our little lines drawn in the sand that no one crosses or else they will get the evil eye. Being ostracized is horrible–Just ask Hester Prynne.

My invisible unprovable god can whip your invisible unprovable god and we will meet you and your god at the bike racks after school and prove it.

History repeats itself. We did this to the German and Japanese Americans during the World Wars and now we are doing it again with the Islamic community. Fear drives the masses and unfortunately we have public officials that like to use that to their advantage. They like to skew and change current facts and history to suit their personal agenda’s. Until we can learn about a group for ourselves and judge cultural groups on their overall merits rather than by a few infamous minority then we will never truly be the power that this nation can be and we will always be the “stupid” American’s that we are seen as.

When prominent so-called ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders come out and publicly denounce terrorism, terrorists, and start taking steps to rid the world of such barbarians, then we can have a meaningful dialog.

The day these Imam’s and leaders of Muslim countries stand up and shout from the rooftops that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other such groups are terrorists and need to burn, I’ll change my tune.

Until then, they are complicit, tacitly giving approval, and unworthy of respect from any civilized person.

FYI: I’m an agnost. I’m not railing against Christians or Jews because this isn’t an article about them, it’s about Muslims.

“The day these Imam’s and leaders of Muslim countries stand up and shout from the rooftops that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other such groups are terrorists and need to burn, I’ll change my tune.”

So until these people put their lives and the lives of their families at great risk, you will continue to paint Muslims with a broad, condemning brush? That seems fair.

BTW, Imam Rauf has specifically condemned Hamas on CNN (“I condemn everyone and anyone who commits acts of terrorism. And Hamas has committed acts of terrorism.”). Unfortunately, the media doesn’t give much coverage to these types of statements or non-radical Muslims in general. Every day in this and other countries, more interfaith meetings and initiatives occur than anti-American, radical Islamist efforts, but you sure don’t see that in the news. That’s one big reason why this line of “reason” (“I’m going to continue to treat Muslims as a monolith that I hate until the moderates behave in exactly the way I demand”) is such crock.

And when newspapers feel they need to apologize for covering non-extremist Muslims without including equal coverage of extremist Muslims (despite the fact that the former obviously far outnumber the latter), it seems unlikely that the media will ever disseminate the information necessary to counter the beliefs and satisfy the demands of people like anonymoushero, who can contentedly continue to believe he’s being perfectly reasonable because moderate Muslims are unable to claim the spotlight so they must be the minority or even nonexistent.

Here you go:
http://www.muhajabah.com/otherscondemn.php

James, I’m so glad that you keep writing so strongly about the intersection of politics and the media.

Until recently, I was a (lefty) political-blog junkie, but I’ve been so astounded and appalled by the madness of the mosque controversy and by witnessing people like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin try to make political hay out of hate that I’ve had to pull away. I’m finding that I just don’t have the emotional wherewithal these days to read about yet another nadir in what’s been a year of dangerous political insanity.

I can’t believe I just had to delete my beloved New Republic from my bookmarks after Marty Peretz spoke from whatever passes for his heart. (Goodbye, Two Jonathans and TNR’s fantastic book reviews—I’ll miss you!) The always-clear-eyed Talking Points Memo and The Daily Show and Colbert Report are still bright spots, but I’m enjoying even those less these days; it’s all just too much right now.

So I’m very grateful that (at the risk of paraphrasing Sarah Palin) you are not retreating and are continuing to write very necessary posts like this one. Thank you.

The best thing we can do with our religions is keep them out of the hands of our school administrators, keep them out of the hands of our politicians, keep them out of the hands of news editors and keep them out of the hands of people who hate anyone for any reason.

Those folks are too tied to the world to be teaching us their version of anything remotely spiritual.

To marchon2884, remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son. You’ve been with God the whole time, and everything He has is yours. Don’t worry about others stealing the spotlight ;)

Finally, remember the Beatitudes: “Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Ask yourself: are you being persecuted, or are you the persecutor?

“..of a day when a few Muslims committed a mass murder (whose victims included other Muslims)”

Without disagreeing with your overall point, what exactly are you implying with this silliness? A random sampling of 3000 New Yorkers will generally include some Muslims. But the attackers were targeting Americans. So the inclusion of Muslim victims makes the attack less pointed?

Great, another liberal journalist in the making. If you don’t see a problem with a newspaper prominently covering Ramadan but giving short shrift to memorial services for the deadliest foreign attack in USA history you are too anti-American to be an objective reporter here. May I suggest Iran?

Peaceful practice of their religion. How ironic coming the same week as reports surfaced of a cartoonist that had to go into hiding because she offended the practitioners of this peaceful religion. Or also this week the deaths in Afghanistan prompted by an almost Koran burning.

This is why fair minded people who have voted Dem most of their lives like myself are slowly but surely drifting rightwards. There is no balance in the media just this mindless ode to political correctness.

What is troubling to me is that there are journalists that think giving short shrift to 9/11 memorial coverage to highlight Ramadan in American newspapers is acceptable and even desirous. I think 21st century journalists need to go to the Hearst School of Journalistic Nationalism to balance out their current disdain for America. Maybe then will the media regain some legitimacy in American public life.

I’m curious where you get the idea that 9/11 coverage was given “short shrift.” It’s quite possible to provide ample and deserved coverage of 9/11 along with coverage of peaceful Muslims celebrating Ramadan. The two are not mutually exclusive. And, in fact, the newspaper’s apology describes its coverage of 9/11 observances as “extensive, far more so than the coverage of [the Ramadan] event.” This seems hard for some to understand, but it’s not a zero-sum game.

You can’t rant and rave about how moderate Muslims need to step up and then complain when such Muslims receive some coverage. Well, you can’t do so reasonably, anyway.

I have a minor point regarding an omission in your story which bothered a busy friend who didn’t click on any links. I believe you should have made it clear in the body of the article that the Portland Press Herald is published in Portland, ME. , not the west coast Portland.

Worried that the Muslim horde will attack the wrong locale?

A legitimate worry when dealing with the barbaric Islamic horde that should have been confined to their cess pool-like homelands and forbidden to leave and repelled, never allowed to enter the realms of civilized people with their far superior cultures.

The Muslim bacteria should have never been allowed to depart their “petri dishes.”

LOL, obbop! Excellent parody!

@Obbop
[Worried that the Muslim horde will attack the wrong locale?
A legitimate worry when dealing with the barbaric Islamic horde that should have been confined to their cess pool-like homelands and forbidden to leave and repelled, never allowed to enter the realms of civilized people with their far superior cultures.
The Muslim bacteria should have never been allowed to depart their "petri dishes."]

With these venomous and derogatory remarks for any religion you claim to be moderate and civilized. Remember that all ‘Hands’ are alike may that be Muslim, Christian or Jew and the fingers of every hand aren’t equal in size and so are the believers of any religion. If Christianity has Kristof then it has Obbop too.

You’re quoted in by Nicholas Kristof in today’s op-ed!! http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19kristof.html?ref=nicholasdkristof

So many people in our country are incredibly uneducated about Islam and Muslims. The hatred astounds me.

There are some people — including a rabbi, believe it or not — who are trying to make a difference and help people learn about world religions (including Islam).

The rabbi runs a center for spiritual inquiry called Quest (http://questcenter.us/) and, this fall, the center is offering two courses on Islam. One is an introduction to Islam. The other course, which is led by the rabbi, will focus on the causes of the current anti-Muslim rhetoric surrounding the proposal of a new Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan.

The course led by the rabbi, “TENETS AND TENSIONS: Differences and similarities among Christians, Muslims, and Jews” is night course that is open to the public.

If you live in New York City, the courses are great opportunities to learn more.

“When prominent so-called ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders come out and publicly denounce terrorism, terrorists, and start taking steps to rid the world of such barbarians, then we can have a meaningful dialog.”

Maybe they’re waiting for prominent so-called “moderate” Christian leaders to come out and publically denounce anti-Semites, homophobes, and bigots who cloak their actions in the name of “Christianity”. People like Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, for instance.

Or maybe they are trusting the rest of us to know that the actions of this select few terrorists are so insane that it should be a given that of COURSE we understand that there’s a moderate side to Islam. I mean, we all get it that Fred Phelps doesn’t represent all Christians, right? That’s SURELY why people don’t stand up against him, right?….

I have grown weary waiting for the day that people finally realize that there are zealots and terrorists amid ALL religions, and that it is the ZEALOTRY that is at fault, not the ideology that someone is being a zealot FOR.

“What is troubling to me is that there are journalists that think giving short shrift to 9/11 memorial coverage to highlight Ramadan in American newspapers is acceptable and even desirous.”

Speaking as a New Yorker who personally lived through 9/11 — I’d personally LOVE to see MUCH, MUCH less 9/11 memorial coverage as it is.

I can’t help but feeling that continuing to “observe the anniversary” to the extent that we do every year is keeping us all trapped in a sort of “victim mentality”. Do we encourage victims of rape to think long and hard about the attack every year on the anniversary of that attack? Do we encourage victims of house fires to lay wreaths on the site of their houses every year? No — we encourage them to move on with their lives. And yet, we as a nation continue to dwell on our own victimhood every year at this time.

From a personal perspective, also, I shun all coverage of the memorials every year — for the rest of you, it may be a “touching reminder,” but for me, it is serving to do nothing but re-awaken memories of the very worst day of my life, memories I really, REALLY wish the rest of you didn’t keep bringing up, thank you very much.