This gratuitous racial slur, “towelhead”, comes from a supposedly moderate/ liberal blog.
The people who have sold us a generational “cultural conflict” against the towelheads start prattling about “racism.”
The author then foams at the mouth about the effontery of UAE thinking they can use their money to “buy the west.” Oh dear, the great big UAE is threatening the poor, defenseless USA, what will we do? This sounds like a paranoid John Bircher looking for commies under his bed. Someone needs a reality check.
Make that two reality checks. First, for fearing the awesomely powerful UAE will envelop America in their protoplamsic terrorist capitalist goo or whatever it is he’s shrieking about. Second, for not even dimly realizing the US has been doing this sort of thing to other countries for decades. I guess exploitation of foreign markets is allowable only if the home team is doing it.
Along somewhat parallel lines, I’ve been in an argument today with liberal (and generally very good) blogger Suburban Guerrilla here. Why? Because she quotes without comment another blogger, who throws out a casual reference to “Ken Mehlman(Ace of the Ambiguously Gay Duo).”
Racist, sexist, or homophobic comments like these are unfortunately all too common in the liberal blogosphere (and I hardly mean to single out Suburban Guerrilla, who I don’t think would ever say something like that in her own direct posts). And it’s something that must be fought, vigorously, just as vigorously if not moreso than if it were right-wingers throwing out the same words.
The blog entry in question was a feeble attempt by a weak writer to be ironic and humorous. The writer was clearly trying to use the Samuel Huntington argument in a way that he/she/it hoped poked fun at the nature of the argument. Admittedly, it failed miserably because the writer didn’t have the skill to carry it off, and shows the dangers of such an approach as being misinterpreted. Rewrite the first line as “After using the Huntington thesis of “war of civilizations” to revile Muslims and terrify the American public about their intrinsic evil, the scaremongers now sanctimoniously accuse all persons concerned about the ports deal as ‘racists.’ To quote Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird,” what unmitigated temerity!” If it had been written that way, presumably no one here would have had difficulties with the statement? Yet that’s clearly what the author intended, although hardly what the unfortunate wording accomplished.
But it also shows the dangers of a knee-jerk response to perceived racist words. Criticize it as bad and sloppy writing; the author has no viable defense to such charges. Point out how it could be misinterpreted, or is neither funny nor ironic as intended. But to accuse the author of something that the author clearly does NOT believe? I don’t get it.
“Towelheads” is a racist slur. Previous posts on that blog lead me to believe they weren’t being ironic at all. Even if they were, it’s not their word to use, even in feeble jest.