Mr. John Legend Applies The Smack Down

Ol' Rupe is the recipient:

Dear Editor:

I'm trying to understand what possible motivation you may have had for publishing that vile cartoon depicting the shooting of the chimpanzee that went crazy. I guess you thought it would be funny to suggest that whomever was responsible for writing the Economic Recovery legislation must have the intelligence and judgment of a deranged, violent chimpanzee, and should be shot to protect the larger community. Really?

Did it occur to you that this suggestion would imply a connection between President Barack Obama and the deranged chimpanzee? Did it occur to you that our president has been receiving death threats since early in his candidacy? Did it occur to you that blacks have historically been compared to various apes as a way of racist insult and mockery? Did you intend to invoke these painful themes when you printed the cartoon?

If that's not what you intended, then it was stupid and willfully ignorant of you not to connect these easily connectable dots. If it is what you intended, then you obviously wanted to be grossly provocative, racist and offensive to the sensibilities of most reasonable Americans. Either way, you should not have printed this cartoon, and the fact that you did is truly reprehensible. I can't imagine what possible justification you have for this. I've read your lame statement in response to the outrage you provoked. Shame on you for dodging the real issue and then using the letter as an opportunity to attack the Rev. Sharpton. This is not about Sharpton. It's about the cartoon being blatantly racist and offensive.

I believe in freedom of speech, and you have every right to print what you want. But freedom of speech still comes with responsibilities and consequences. You are responsible for printing this cartoon, and I hope you experience some real consequences for it. I'm personally boycotting your paper and won't do any interviews with any of your reporters, and I encourage all of my colleagues in the entertainment business to do so as well. I implore your advertisers to seriously reconsider their business relationships with you as well.

You should print an apology in your paper acknowledging that this cartoon was ignorant, offensive and racist and should not have been printed.

I'm well aware of our country's history of racism and violence, but I truly believe we are better than this filth. As we attempt to rise above our difficult past and look toward a better future, we don't need the New York Post to resurrect the images of Jim Crow to deride the new administration and put black folks in our place. Please feel free to criticize and honestly evaluate our new president, but do so without the incendiary images and rhetoric.

Sincerely,

John Legend

He's not just musically talented and easy on the eyes, ladies and gentlemen, he's damn eloquent too.

-AF

Hate Rears Its Ugly Head: Anti-Semite Edition

I've mentioned previously that I cannot stand nor understand bigotry in any form. It's so goddamn irrational. While I was searching for Andrew Wyeth obits for the post below, I stumbled across the most deeply disturbing, naked anti-Semitism.

-AF

Apology Rejected

Ex DOJ voting rights chief John Tanner has a lot to learn about making apologies.

-AF

**Update: "Supposed Apology" Is "Even Funnier."

Rick Warren's Church Scrubs Anti-Gay Rhetoric From Website

Think Progess has the deets.

-AF

I'll Never Understand Bigotry, Pt. 1

I've mentioned elsewhere I do not understand bigotry. I never have. I don't think I ever will.

Borne of ignorance and nurtured by environment, bigotry grows beyond it's inherent ugliness. It's cowardice. It's irrational. It drives man to commit the most unspeakably evil acts. It's completely pointless.

Yet bigotry seems innate to humanity. Perhaps bigotry is something we were hard-wired for prior to walking upright as a mechanism to defend our turf and its resources against strangers' encroachment. Millions of years later it seems to serve that self-same purpose.

The Nation's Katrina's Hidden Race War is one crucial read -- a powerful story of racism, opportunism, murder and institutional apathy. Check this particularly chilling passage:

"It was great! It was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it." A native of Chicago, Janak also boasts of becoming a true Southerner, saying, "I am no longer a Yankee. I earned my wings." A white woman standing next to him adds, "He understands the N-word now." In this neighborhood, she continues, "we take care of our own."

Janak, who says he'd been armed with two .38s and a shotgun, brags about keeping the bloody shirt worn by a shooting victim as a trophy. When "looters" showed up in the neighborhood, "they left full of buckshot," he brags, adding, "You know what? Algiers Point is not a pussy community."

Katrina left Janak's exclusive almost entirely white New Orleans neighborhood of Algiers Point pretty much unscathed. Due to its intact ferry terminal and central location, the National Guard dubbed Algiers Point an "official evacuation site." Federal agencies dropped flood victims there to be herded onto buses to Texas. Unbeknownst to them, African-Americans who headed to the Point on foot risked being treated as "looters."

Some of the gunmen prowling Algiers Point were out to wage a race war, says one woman whose uncle and two cousins joined the cause. A former New Orleanian, this source spoke to me anonymously because she fears her relatives could be prosecuted for their crimes. "My uncle was very excited that it was a free-for-all--white against black--that he could participate in," says the woman. "For him, the opportunity to hunt black people was a joy."

"They didn't want any of the 'ghetto niggers' coming over" from the east side of the river, she says, adding that her relatives viewed African-Americans who wandered into Algiers Point as "fair game." One of her cousins, a young man in his 20s, sent an e-mail to her and several other family members describing his adventures with the militia. He had attached a photo in which he posed next to an African-American man who'd been fatally shot. The tone of the e-mail, she says, was "gleeful"--her cousin was happy that "they were shooting niggers."

I found Katrina's Hidden Race War so disturbing, so sickening and so alien it took me at least 10 tries to read it through. (Stories like these test my weakened resolve to not turn away from suffering). What is absolutelyfuckingmindblowing is to date only three gunshot deaths during Katrina and its entire aftermath investigated by the police involve shootings by NOPD: The Danziger Bridge incident and Danny Brumfield.

I don't think I'll ever truly understand bigotry. Except in those rare cases marked by extenuating circumstances (i.e. self-defense, euthanasia), I am unable to make sense of murder. That something so stupid and irrational as bigotry can "drive" someone to murder is way beyond my capacity to understand.

-AF

They Said It. I Repeat It.

Via Raw Story:

"Just because I like pizza it doesn’t mean I should marry it. Biologically, I am predisposed to enjoy the immaculate melding of mozzarella cheese, red sauce and thick crust baked to tasty perfection.

"But that doesn’t mean I should enter into a lifelong commitment with Sicilian or plain, nor bed it down, nor bring children into the world and have them have to explain to their classmates why their mom’s crust is not a crisp as it once was.

"Does any child deserve to have their friends tossing Monday 2 for 1 coupons in his face? Not in my world they don’t. Yet, to say that I am against pizza-eaters or gays is absurd. Our Saddleback Church offer more weight-watchers meetings to overeaters than any other evangelical megachurch on the west coast."

-Pastor Rick Warren
on NBC's Dateline

Unbelievable. A completely lacking of respect. I'm guessing he thinks his ill-advised analogy to explain his anti-gay marriage stance is funny.

I'm not laughing.

-AF

It's Not Just The "Gays" That Are Pissed About Rick Warren

LA Times: Obama's choice of Rick Warren to lead prayer dismays Hollywood liberals. I'm still waiting for the media to recognize plenty of people who are not gay and don't work Hollywood that are livid over this.

-AF

Rick Warren In Action

The Billerico Project has the fascinating details of how Rick Warren initially agreed to and then did everything he could to try to get out of a meeting with gay parents in That Weird Hug from Rick Warren." It's clear Rick Warren has no apparent interest in discourse or dialogue with the gay community. Warren had to be shamed into any form of "honoring" his commitment.

Hey, I'm all about spirituality of any kind. However, it makes me spit blood to see the hypocrisy of those who holler "Praise Jesus" and then divvy up their fellow human beings into groups that do and do not deserve respect, civil rights, Heaven...How is this Christian?

It's not. It can't be. It's a perversion of Jesus' teaching.

I know that my christening of these Evangelicals as "Jesus freaks" causes some to bristle. If Jesus came back today, he might find these folks freaks too.

-AF

I Was Just Thinking...

Rod Blagojevich looks like he dropped out of a '90s amateur Hungarian porno movie.

He wouldn't have to change his first name either.

The moments before his inauguration is awfully early in his presidency for Barack Obama to be pandering to Jesus freaks who wanna deny GLBT civil rights.

You'd think our first African-American President would not be completely tone deaf on this one.

I still miss Joe Strummer terribly but worse so this month.

Likewise John Lennon.

"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"? - Best. Christmas song. Ever.

Rahm Emmanuel is a badass.

John Stewart too -- ask Huckabee.

George Tenet is most decidely not.

What's with the Bush Administration's mad flurry to screw us all some more before he's kicked out the door? Hasn't he fucked us enough already?

The Red Sox really don't need Mark Teixiera next year.

The seven following years following that are another story altogether.

Dunno how I feel about Bill Clinton's donor list. If this is the way any of the money we've thrown at Blackwater winds up doing some good, it ain't all a bad thing.

The mainstream media is so fucked for thinking that Pastor Rick Warren is offensive solely to "gay groups."

Color million of us straight folks offended as well.

I always liked Coldplay better back when they were called Radiohead. Not so much now.

Now that we've learned Chrysler execs will still get paid while the plants shut down, I'd really like to see breakouts of total salaries for Chrysler's white collar workers versus the same for Chrysler's rank and file.

For tens of thousands of people across the Northeast to still be without power after more than a week is completely unacceptable.

At least our Republican Congress folks are predictable.

Elvis Costello has become mellow, even playful, as he's aged.

Dick Cheney has not.

Can we legalize pot already? Now that would boost the economy.

Go Franken go!

Rachel Maddow is on fire.

George Bush's recent address to the War College was downright strange and patently false. Why change now George, right?

-AF
**12/19/08: Updated with additional links where appropriate.

Still Hate Rears Its Ugly Head

I really, really, really wish I hadn't seen this. Crooks&Liars has the skinny on all the racist shit that went down at Baptist Baylor University yesterday. I hope you're proud of yourselves.

You can take the Baptist out of Waco, but apparently you can't take the Waco out of these Baptists.

-AF

More Racist Right Wing Drivel

McCain voted against MLK day in 1983. His home state of Arizona has a bad MLK Day history
-AF

She Fired Her Because Jesus & Pat Robertson Told Her To

Looks like Monica Goodling singled out DOJ lawyer over "lesbian rumors." TPM tells the tale.

-AF

I Threw A Brick Through A Window

M-W.com:

racism

Main Entry: rac·ism

Function: noun
Date: 1933

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

I stirred up a shit storm of controversy over at Shakespeare's Sister. It's nice to know I haven't lost my touch.

Jeff Fecke wrote a post addressing the Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle: Yes, this is a Racist Country, and Saying So is Not Racist. I credit Jeff for having the courage to address any question regarding such an emotionally volatile issue as "race relations." The trouble started when I dared to take exception to Jeff's contention that

"nobody with any decency would think that problematic racism was directed at white people."

I had the unbridled nerve to suggest all racism was troublesome:

Despite growing up in a wicked white town bordering Boston's black neighborhoods, I'm a decent, reasonably street-smart white guy. I later lived in Jersey City from 1990-2003. The occasional racism directed at me and/or my wife was all too problematic.

There was the 30 African-American youths reaching for rocks after my car broke down on Mattapan's Morton St. in 1980. Followed by the half-dozen black teenagers surrounding me and abusing my date at Downtown Crossing circa 1986. And who could forget '92's bottle throwing Latinos (JC's Wayne St)?

Bigotry is bigotry, folks, however it rears it's ugly head. Nothing brings that message home like having it directed at us privileged white folk. Oh the irony! For I've long fought against bigotry amongst us whiteys first using my fists, later my voice and now my pen.

It's undeniable that "white" racism has far more of a negative impact on all other ethnic groups. But we ignore any bigotry festering on the other side of the avenue at our peril. Until we take a systemic approach, our progress will continue to be painfully slow. #

For the most part, this didn't go over so well. My decency was checked, examined and found wanting. Here's a sample response:

AF, what you're describing is not racism, it's hostility and hatred. White people in American can be subject to racial hatred, but not to racism.* Racism is systemic, and it's the reason behind the outrageously disproportionate incarceration of black Americans, the poverty gap, the education gap, the media's treatment of black people in public life, the horrible mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina.

I'm not saying this to pick nits. I really think it's an important distinction because I hear too many people using words like "reverse racism" or acting like a group of black kids stealing cars is on the same level, as redlining neighborhoods.
Sniper | 03.15.08 - 5:28 pm | #
*(my emphasis added)

I personally hate the term "reverse racism" too. Now I have a clue as to why. I'm white and my past few harassers were not. My experiences were "not racism" but "hostility and hatred." I'm still sorta confused. Me:

How is violent "hostility" directed towards me and mine based solely on the color of our skin not racism? Look, if you sit down with me over your fave beverage for a half-hour and still want to throw rock and bottles at me, I can accept that. But I cannot and will not let guilt over shit I've never done to any other person prevent me from tilting the mirror in back in other direction when their acts and words demand it.

Where does this brand of "hostility" end and racism begin? Because if what I've described as racism isn't racism, it might as well be. Perception has a tragic habit of becoming a self-fulfilling reality. Upon encountering such "hostility", the bigot finds his irrational hatred justified. A vicious cycle continues not unabated but rather accelerated spreading poison across generations, class, color and creed. #

Aw, now why did I go and say that? That was just plain hateful. Looks like a job for Condescension (Wo)Man!

@Anacher Forester: If you haven't done a lot of anti-racist work, you might not believe that racism =/= prejudice.

After decades now of progressive discussion and struggle, it's clear (I think) that racism needs an institutional and power component along side skin or ethnic prejudice.

This doesn't make your experiences less painful,natch. But should keep you from a facile comparison.
rrp | 03.15.08 - 6:13 pm | #

OK. Let me get this straight. It's institutions and power that define racism not the actions of individual people. Huh? I musta been stoned the day we went over that in civics class. Also, I'm socially unaware, stupid and facile. Thankfully my capacity to feel pain raises me to a level somewhere above an amoeba. What's that? I'm a specist? Fuck! And I thought after treatment I was doing so well.

Before I bailed from this CircularLogicapalooza '08, I gave it one more shot. Maybe a combination of clarity, brevity and compassion will work. More me:

Shorter version:

1. Racism is defined as prejudice against someone based solely on their race.

2. Racism is Racism regardless of the races involved.

3. No one race has a monopoly on racists or an immunity to racism.

4. All bigotry begets more bigotry regardless of race.

I'm not claiming that racism against nice white fellas is any way proportional to your average garden variety racism. I've had it laughably easy. But it is a small symptom of a very big disease. To call it otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

As for my experiences with the aforementioned "hostility", they left me far more saddened than angered and far more motivated than despairing. The anger I still carry with me to this day is directed at that which created and continues to feed this hatred. #

Well that didn't work. Most of the crowd couldn't seem to get past the "fact" that Caucasians can only be racist and not the victims of racism. Something or other to due to our historically white patriarchal society blah blah blah. Smacks of prejudice, dunnit? As one rational commenter brought up, what about the Nation of Islam? Aren't they racist or or are they "just" anti-Semitic? Funny how no one countered that point.

You can check out the rest of the comments here and the original post here.

Lookit. As I said from jump "It's undeniable that "white" racism has far more of a negative impact on all other ethnic groups." But just as not all honkeys are racist, not all racists are honkeys. For us to make any sustainable progress to healing "racial hostility" in this country, we need to examine all of the conditions and attitudes that sustain and foster racial prejudices. Not just the ones harbored by any one specific group.

The best way to address racism is to bring people together in a manner that allows all to see that that we're not so different after all. Until we all stop hurling brickbats, verbal or otherwise, at each other solely on the basis of skin color, we can't begin to do this properly .

-AF = Amoebas Forever!

Juan Cole's Vital Read

Damn. The biggest challenge I face in blogging is writing quickly while still meeting my standards. I have a habit of agonizing over every word. It's maddening and it makes me fall behind on my reading. That's my shitty excuse for not visiting Professor Juan Cole's blog more often.

Juan makes a crucial point today taking to task those seek to belittle and smear Barack Obama and question his "Americaness" on the basis of his name. Dig these excerpts from Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes:

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!

Prof. Cole continues...

Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the Republic. Fourteen of our 42 presidents have had Semitic names (see below). And, American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished...

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. It is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (ḇāreḵə ) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

Here is a list of how many times barak appears in each book of the Bible.

Yep, that evil scary word Barak appears in the bible 285 times. More Cole:

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel, The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.

Prof. Cole notes that John McCain's adopted daughter is from Bangladesh:

Since Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely possible that her birth father or grandfather was named Hussein. McCain certainly has Muslim relatives via adoption in his family. If Muslim relatives are a disqualification from high office in the United States, then McCain himself is in trouble. In fact, since Bridget is upset that George W. Bush doesn't like her "because she is black," and used her to stop the McCain campaign in South Carolina in 2000, you understand why McCain would be especially sensitive to race-baiting of Cunningham's sort. The question is how vigorously he will combat it; he hasn't been above Muslim-taunting in the campaign so far.

The Senator has already proved his willingness to subvert his principles as well as flat-out lie to bolster this his last, best shot at the Presidency. Facing a charismatic challenger McCain He'll protest just enough to give the perception that he is above this sort of thing and no more.

-AF

"Accuracy In Media" Turns Its Racist Sights On Obama

Via Crooks and Liars The Corner's Lisa Schiffren carries AIM's water. Obama **gasp** possibly knows somebody who may have once known somebody who accidentally brushed up against a Communist in 1952. Why is this true? "Cuz Barack Obama was born to a white mother and a black father in 1961. In those days, the only way that could have happened is if one or both parents were Jesus-hating-baby-eating-Communist-
Muslims from Antartica.

Ms. Schiffren has proof:

Obama and I are roughly the same age. I grew up in liberal circles in New York City — a place to which people who wished to rebel against their upbringings had gravitated for generations. And yet, all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.
***
Time for some investigative journalism about the Obama family’s background, now that his chances of being president have increased so much.

Schiffren kicks off her ham-fisted attempt at political assassination with this laughable opener:

Until I came across this article by Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, which I regard as factual — with all that that implies — the questions about Obama's background that should have come naturally never quite rose to the surface of my mind.

AIM's "Accuracy In Media" is about as accurate as Fox News is "Fair and Balanced." And anything they write Ms. Schiffren regards as "factual." That tells us all we need to know about Schriffren's biases. AIM is another group folks funded in part by Richard Mellon Scaife. AIM still claims Bill Clinton’s Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster was murdered. FYI Lisa, even uber-partisan Special Prosecutor Ken Starr ruled Foster's death a suicide.

-AF

**Check it: ASIAF fave blog The Edge of The American West's strikes back at the First Black Communist President meme.

CIA Torture Team Leader Hired For "Kite Runner" Kids' Flight

Last week the finale to my epic Saudi Law: Can't Punish Female Victims Too Harshly... series noted that Paramount Pictures whisked The Kite Runner's young actors out of Afghanistan.

The three boys and their families feared reprisals in response to the film's "culturally inflammatory" homosexual rape scene. A crew of 2o including a former CIA counterterrorism expert worked for months to pull this off. We now know the CIA agent's name.

The brilliant Majikthise has exclusive deets:

A retired CIA agent who lead the team that waterboarded terror suspect Abu Zubaydah went on to work as a security consultant for the film adaptation of The Kite Runner (2007).

Lobbyists for Viacom helped the producers of the film retain retired CIA agent and "countererrorism expert", John Kiriakou, according an Oct 4 article in the International Herald Tribune--before Kirkakou went public about his career as a torturer.

Paramount Pictures is wholly owned by Viacom.

More on Kirkakou later.

AF

Saudi Law: Can't Punish Female Victims Too Harshly & Gay Sex Is OK If It's Rape By Married Men Also Raping A Woman, Pt. 3

The first two parts of this series, here and here, document the extent to which the Saudi Sharia courts' strict interpretation of Islamic Law is blatantly punitively sexist and prejudicial. Like other countries under strict Islamic rule, Saudi courts treat women as half-citizens at best. Shiite women in a Sunni court system fare far worse. In this case, the judicial outcome was a particularly egregious parody of justice.

While presenting their case against 5 Sunni Saudi men who viciously gang raped a Shiite woman, Prosecutors were not permitted an opportunity to prove their case in court. Sunni judges refused to allow video of the crime (recorded on one rapist's cell phone) to be entered as evidence. This woman was not allowed to testify against her attackers in court. For good measure these judges charged her with "fornication" and then denied her request to defend herself against that charge. Because Saudi law can't punish female victims of sex crimes too harshly, she was convicted. Her Sunni rapists were charged with and convicted of only the least serious of their multiple offenses: kidnapping.

It's the crime not cited that exposes the hypocrisy and duplicity at the heart of the Saudi legal system (and therefore the entire Saudi government). The court turned a blind eye to, what was by this court’s own strict Sharia interpretation, the rapists' most "serious" crime of all: gay sex. Yep, these 5 married Sunni men weren't satisfied with sadistically brutalizing a Shiite woman. They also repeatedly raped her male Shiite blackmailer.

This is remarkable. Homosexuals are widely persecuted throughout Muslim world. Moderate Muslims who refer to homosexuality as a "mental illness" seem comparatively charitable until they force their sons to seek "medical help." Former Guardian Middle East Editor (2000-2007) Brad Whitaker is author of Unspeakable Love. Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. His 2006 lecture "Sickness or Sin? Attitudes Towards Homosexuality in the Middle East" tells of a psychiatrist's attempt to "cure" a gay patient through aversion therapy:

The treatment involved showing pictures of men and women, and giving him electric shocks if he looked at the men.

This strategy was ultimately unsuccessful.

Even fictional depictions of homosexual acts can prove death defying. The NYT reports Paramount Pictures was compelled to delay the release of their big budget Kite Runner six weeks to ensure the safety of the child actors. The father of one of the boys feared as far back January that at the very least "people will come and arrest us and put us in jail." The Times spells it out:

They were feared to be vulnerable to reprisal because of the film’s depiction of a culturally inflammatory rape scene.

In the film as in the book one of the boys is bullied and raped by another boy. Homophobia is so endemic to Muslim culture that these young actors' lives were endangered by something that never happened!

Back in Saudi Arabia consensual gay sex is on the book as a capital crime. International protests have led the Saudis to recently publicize a few convicted gay citizens sentenced to lengthy prison terms in lieu of execution. Color me skeptical. The Saudi legal system is completely self-reporting making it impossible to determine how widespread this "leniency" is. Furthermore a US State Department report released earlier this year notes that organizers of a "gay beauty pageant" arrested over two years ago have yet to be sentenced. Their present fate is unknown.

In our highlighted case, 5 married Sunni men raped a Shiite man. It wasn't considered gay sex. It wasn't considered rape. It wasn't considered at all. Due to the Saudi court's selective application of justice, two capital crimes were utterly ignored. By virtue of it being a hate crime, this type of gay "sex" is tacitly approved. The monarchy's directive is unambiguous: Sunnis are free to commit unlimited sectarian violence against minority Shiites without fear of facing the most serious punishments. For members of Saudi Arabia's majority Sunni sect, membership clearly has its privileges.

My conclusion returns to my introduction and provides the title for this series. Saudi courts can't punish female victims too harshly. Gay sex is OK if as long as it's rape by married men also raping a woman.

I'm left struggling to comprehend how this society, which places righteousness and strict morality at the very foundation of their belief system, can consider itself just.

-AF
Si Fractus Fortus

Saudi Law: Can't Punish Female Victims Too Harshly & Gay Sex Is OK If It's Rape By Men Also Raping A Woman, Pt. 2

Before I return to the topic at hand, I want to make two points clear. Although organized religion does not work for me at all, I strongly believe in and very much admire genuine spirituality. I define "genuine" spirituality as that which places a powerful emphasis on tolerance, kindness, honesty, empathy, generosity and humility. I've read quite a bit on the subject. I have attended the services of many different faiths.

Islam sports a number of characteristics that impress me. The priority Islam places on fostering the community and the requisite discipline (perhaps best exemplified by the Salah or compulsory ritual daily prayers) are but two. Having lived for years in a Muslim-rich inner city neighborhood, I found Muslims to be excellent neighbors. I believe in my heart that most Muslims practice Islam is as a religion of peace. Unfortunately (and exactly analogous to fundamentalist Christianity), the fundamentalist form of Islam is a perversion of spirituality rife with intolerance and riddled with hypocrisy.

Few incidents have exposed this intolerance and hypocrisy more clearly than the case of an engaged to be married Shiite woman attacked, kidnapped and brutally gang raped by 5 Sunni men. This woman was thought to be "fair game" because they determined she had an "inappropriate" meeting with a man not related to her. (She has steadfastly maintained she was being blackmailed by this man. Her account best explains why she would ever take such a risk). Having deputized themselves in their own minds, these self-styled vigilantes appointed themselves judge and jury too. Her punishment was a fait accompli as was their role as her punishers.

These pigs later bragged about their heinous crimes confident her family would disown her. They expected her fiancé to break their engagement. They were certain they would escape prosecution because they were Sunni and their victims were Shiite. They depended on her shame and that of her family, at what they did to her, to end the story there. In fact, her brother did try to kill her. But it was her now-husband's response that was completely unanticipated. Upon learning of the atrocity committed upon his betrothed, her husband filed a complaint with the police. After an investigation, the case went to court.

The BBC makes clear the extent to which the burden of proof is skewed against women once a "sexual offense" reaches the Sharia legal system:

In Islamic law, both adultery and rape require four witnesses to be present at the "act". A woman's evidence is still only worth half of a man's, and in adultery cases she cannot be a witness at all.

It comes as no surprise that the Saudi rapists were not actually convicted of rape. They were convicted of the lesser charge of kidnapping supposedly because prosecutors could not prove rape. Per Human Rights Watch:

The judges reportedly ignored evidence from a mobile phone video in which the attackers recorded the assault.

Under Sharia law "unproved rape is fornication, punishable by stoning." Despite ample evidence to the contrary the married rapists also avoided being charged with "Zina" (adultery) which is also deemed "fornication." Evidently the Saudi courts give married Sunni men a free pass on "fornication" with a Shiite woman as long as that woman was in public and unaccompanied by a Sharia-required "guardian" i.e. a husband/male member of immediate family).

This is post is running longer far longer than expected. I'll wrap it up with Part 3 tomorrow.

AF
Si Fractus Fortis

Sully's Colorblindness

The Prospect's Dana Goldstein applies the wood to evil bigot William Saletan on Race & IQ. Saletan's written a series of columns on the subject. Race, Genes and Intelligence defends uber-biologist James Watson who last month claimed that Africans' "intelligence is the same as ours." Here he scribes the particularly self-serving Jewgenics.

It's not enough for unabashed Saletan admirer Sully to buy into Saletan's racial rhetoric. He does him one better:

I like the fact that asking these kinds of questions is also part of the Jewish inheritance.

Really? Did you also know that all Irish are drunks and those blacks are such wonderful dancers?

As an openly gay HIV-positive "journalist" of British descent, you'd think that Andrew Sullivan would be more sensitive to stereotypes, bigotry and the folly of sweeping generalizations. Instead he once again chooses to perpetuate them.

These two deserve each other.

AF

h/t Atrios