Lee is at it again.

Lee is at it again.

Lee is an outspoken liberal here in Seattle who insists that there is no reason for mistrust between the American majority and our Islamic population.

The current example is an essay he has written about a woman who became concerned when she saw what appeared to be a Middle Eastern guy sitting in a juvenile court building in Seattle. The poor lady became suspicious of the fellow's behavior, of why he was "counting" folks in the room and what he was doing with his cell phone. She relates that she could not get the Court guard to pay attention but did find a King County cop who was sympathetic (though he did not do anything).

Lee sees this as a kind of racism and disses the lady's excess concern. Goldy jumps into the thread

"Oh. My. God.

Imagine if she was packing heat… it would be open season on bearded men carrying cell phones."

Yeh, imagine if she was packing heat. Imagine if our society gets to that degraded state where people are ready to be vigilantes. That is scary. However, it is as scary to imagine a US where events like those that are frequent in Europe, esp France, occur regularly. Why shouldn't we be vigilant, even suspicious. Some profiling is inevitable.

How afraid should she be? Lee and Goldy are right, the Bushies have traded shamelessly on 9/11. If things were as bad as this lady fears, we would read of American blood shed by terrorists every week instead on once or twice a year.

Still, the relatively low incidence of current problems level of behavior does not justify a benign denial that there are real problems. Wahabe influence in the American mosque is still huge. The numbers of American Muslims who find murder-suicide acceptable is very real and very frightening. The extremes of Islam .. the NOI included, practice and teach racism that is abhorrent.

But jeez guys, how about some balance. So this lady is frightened. Isn't your reaction to her itself an over reaction? Where is the evidence of wide spread discrimination against the Muslims?

BTW. The image is of a Palestinian I met in Aarhus. I was struck by the guy's face and asked if I could photograph him as part of my series on smokers. During the small talk as I made images, I learned the guy was very antisemitic. I asked him to tell me more. Eventually I revealed my own identity and wished for peace between uor peoples. We parted politely open to each other on this Danish street.

I wonder hwta Lee feels about Rushdie and Ali, are there fears of Muslim Fatwas excessive?


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