Tuesday 7 August 2012

the sikh killings spin is in !

The  usual spin is  kicking in.  White killers are always' lone wolves'.  Mentally unsound wolves, at that. Even if the lone wolves  insist they are  sane and part of a pack,  the killers are always loony loners.Unlike the  killers from other browner peoples who act as and are a part of evil nations.

The  whiter nations are not responsible for the doings of their 'lone wolves'.There will be no bombings. Not even selective drone inflicted deaths. Just denial and spin. The hard questions remain remain not asked - except by the brown "others' .

"Sikhs are not Muslims. The second argument, now clichéd, is to make the case that this is violence at the wrong address. Sikhs did nothing wrong, they are peace-loving and so on. It assumes that there are people who did do something wrong, are war-mongering and therefore deserve to be targeted. The liberal gesture of innocence has within it the sharp edge of Islamaphobia. It seems to suggest that Muslims are the ones who should bear this violence, since their ilk did the attacks on 9/11 and they are, all two billion of them, at war with the United States.  "

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/06/the-sense-of-white-supremacy/


The fear of the 'raghead' Muslim is not confined to  the extreme right either.  Even President Obama  fears being connected with anything muslim.  he will not wear a  turban that would make him look like the stereotypical muslim 'rag head'.  Even wearing green is taboo

.http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11935.html

Not even  obviously muslim looking supporters of his  will be allowed to be a part of the photographic construct of the President.

Two Muslim women at Barack Obama’s rally in Detroit on Monday were barred from sitting behind the podium by campaign volunteers seeking to prevent the women’s headscarves from appearing in photographs or on television with the candidate.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11168.html

"An American official is said to have explained at one of the pre-visit meetings that each day Obama has to remind the US that he should not be mistaken for a Muslim just because his middle name is Hussain."

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/no-headscarf-obama-may-skip-golden-temple-visit/699380/0.

It is the photographic construction  of identity   and the selling of an image that really interests me.  All those photo ops have to work to construct an  image  and not challenge the construction. But in doing that they are demonising the  already stereotyped  Muslim "Other" as the enemy.

Is it any wonder , then, that  brown ,apparently muslim "outsiders'  are attacked ? The fact that Sikhs have been in the US for a over a century does not matter. But even  then,  they were dark outsiders who would not be allowed to being their women with them  and they could only marry other dark women. Mexican women.

White racism was a reality then. It still is, And  it will continue to grow if the hard questions are not asked. Now.








1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Not a lone wolf according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which does amazing work tracking white supremacists and other haters in the US. Plus was the first to connect the dots between the shooter and the white supremacist movement: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/alleged-sikh-temple-shooter-former-member-of-skinhead-band

7 August 2012 at 17:06  

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