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Now the US Is Suffering from “Structural Islamophobia”
You may recall that, back on May 30, lawyers Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis were arrested for allegedly tossing a Molotov cocktail into a police car during a “peaceful” protest in New York City. According to police, the two were picked up as they drove away from the scene. Evidence of the crime includes a photo of Rahman with cocktail in hand and face partially covered with a Palestinian keffiyeh.
According to a report from IPT (the Investigative Project on Terrorism), “Islamist, Arab American and Palestinian organizations” along with civil rights groups are defending the pair with claims that the charges against them are “motivated by racism and ‘structural Islamophobia.’”
The two lawyers’ defenders include: The Center for Constitutional Rights, The Justice for Muslims Collective, Linda Sarsour’s MPower Change (MPC), the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), Islamic Circle of North America Council for Social Justice (ICNA-CSJ), Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), and lawyers calling themselves the “Fordham Law Community,” and the “NYU Law Community.”
Believers Bail Out (BBO), a group established to “free Muslims who are incarcerated before trial,” stated:
We must understand how the prison industrial complex, anti-black racism, anti-Muslim racism are all inherent to a capitalist system. And we must learn how to dismantle these structures from the freedom fighters who came before us.
The incident and the angry defense of the cocktail bombers brings up some key questions:
- Why are so many lawyers supporting Rahman and Mattis?
- Is there a lawyer exemption in the law against torching cop cars?
- How are “the prison industrial complex, anti-black racism, and anti-Muslim racism” integral to the Capitalist system?
- Would the Capitalist system crumble without anti-Muslim racism and, if so, what are the mechanics of the collapse?
- Should the fact that Rhaman was using a Bud Light bottle weigh in her favor?
After living as long as I have, I have very limited sympathy for situations like that. I haven’t yet encountered a situation where a girl/woman – of any color – suddenly ends up in an abusive relationship without multiple glaring warning signs that they ignored, and went ahead and got married and/or had children.
I have actually driven women and their children to domestic shelters. But I only do it once. After that, they’re volunteers. (And I don’t need to be targeted by the abuser either.)
They are officers of the court. That makes them different just from the get-go.
That makes sense when sentencing rather than charging. No?
Well, it could arguably be a more serious charge for an officer of the court to do the same crime as a regular person. Such as when a regular person is charged with “assault” but a cop gets “assault under color of authority” or whatever.
To paraphrase an expression from Dr Johnny Fever of WKRP for one, “When the Islamists are out to get you, Islamophobia is just good thinking!”
I have Islamowariness.
I have a lot of warinesses, honestly.
Y’know maybe our structures wouldn’t be Islamophobic if Islamics would stop blowing up our structures.