Most Americans had not lived with…vulnerability until 9/11, says Mathew Schmalz, a religion professor at Holy Cross University in Massachusetts who once lived in Karachi, Pakistan.
“We had this sense of specialness and invulnerability that 9/11 shattered,” he says. “Given that a large section of the world’s population deals with random violence every day, one of the outcomes of 9/11 should be a greater feeling of solidarity with people who live in cities like Karachi in which violence is a part of everyday life.”
Recognizing that vulnerability, though, is difficult for some Americans because of how they see their country, Schmalz and others say.
[blockquote]More Americans know about Islam than ever before, but that hasn’t stopped the post-9/11 Muslim backlash.
. . .
Kammer says Graham and Robertson helped fuel the rise of “Christo-Americanism,” a distorted form of Christianity that blends nationalism, conservative paranoia and Christian rhetoric.[/blockquote]
What contempt for America.
[blockquote]”One of the sobering lessons of the decade since 9/11 is that religious prejudice is not always rooted in raw ignorance,” says Thomas Kidd, author of “American Christians and Islam.”[/blockquote]
Well, then it’s not prejudice, if it’s informed, then, is it? It’s “post-judice,” which is often called, “analysis with a rational basis in fact.”
I cancelled my cable when I found out that Comcast, which owns MSNBC, hired the racist demagogue and murderer (Freddie’s Fashion Mart) Al Sharpton as a prime-time show host. I encourage everyone to stop putting money into the pockets of people that despise you, like CNN and cable companies.
Maybe Southerners have longer institutional memories. We know what it is like to be invaded and have your cities blown up and burned. Maybe 9/11 is unique from a northern liberal perspective.
[i]Given that a large section of the world’s population deals with random violence every day, one of the outcomes of 9/11 should be a greater feeling of solidarity with people who live in cities like Karachi in which violence is a part of everyday life[/i]
Why? I much prefer to identify with folks who get up off the ground when sucker-punched and fight back.
We don’t deal with random violence in this country everyday? Sure we do, which is why a lot of us cherish the 2nd Amendment to the Constitutuion of the United States when it comes to defending self, familiy, and home.
Maybe people come here from Karachi to escape the victimhood of living in places like Karachi