A TV show portraying real Muslim-American families who are proud members of America's melting pot. Sounds like a pretty good idea, right? Showing both Muslims AND America in general that we CAN all get along. Seems to me that is about as American as we can get.
However right wing America won't stand for tolerance and acceptance of differences. They are boycotting companies advertising on the show and Lowes, for one, caved to their racist, anti-American demands.
From BBC News:
Home improvement retailer Lowe's is facing criticism after removing advertising from a reality TV show showcasing American Muslims.
The company pulled ads from All-American Muslim after complaints from the Florida Family Association.
The cable TV show portrays the lives of five families in Dearborn, Michigan, a city known for its Muslim and Arab population.
Lowe's issued an apology, but did not say it would re-advertise on the show.
The North Carolina-based company said in a statement it apologised for having "managed to make some people very unhappy".
"It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective," the firm said...
Wait...a "hotly contested debate?????" What debate? Whether racism or tolerance is better? Whether Muslims should be treated like people? Exactly what side is Lowes coming down on here?
And who are the intolerant assholes who Lowe's caved to? From the same article:
In a statement on its website, the Florida Family Association called All-American Muslim "propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda's clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values".
The association asked members to send emails to companies that ran advertisements during the show.
So somehow showing happy, religious American families is somehow a clear and present danger to traditional values? If so I say fuck your traditional values and it is about time we got some new ones!
I remember when 9/11 happened here in NYC. While idiots elsewhere were attacking Sikhs because they wore turbans so MUST be Muslims, in my neighborhood (as the ash of the twin towers fell on us) the local Muslim run restaurant was packed because people wanted to show their UNITY! My Muslim co-worker, who was also an EMT, rushed down to ground zero to help.
I mean I personally find right wing Christian zealots far more of a clear and present danger here in the United States.
Let me see, there was that incident here on a NYC subway where some 10 Christian idiots started beating up four Jews for saying "Happy Hanukkah" in response to "Merry Christmas." You know who stood up for that Jewish man? A Muslim man, Hassan Askari from Bangladesh. Mr. Askari wrote me after I wrote about that incident saying he didn't consider himself a hero, he was just doing the right thing. Well, that is more than I can say for those 10 Christians. So what kind of "clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values" is Mr. Askari? To me I'd say those 10 Christian idiots were the "clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values."
Then there was the Delaware Pogrom where Christians drove out two families from their town because those two families objected to Christian teachings in the local public school. One of those families was Jewish, the other Muslim. Who was the "clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values" here? Hint: it was NOT THE MUSLIM.
There was a slew of anti-Semitic events here in Brooklyn recently and though I don't think it is clear whether or not they were done by Christians, certainly some in the past were. The Florida "Families" Association really thinks regular Muslim families on TV is more of a danger to American than, say, the Westboro Baptist Church (who I tend to refer to as the "Intolerant Dickheads"). I think a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church would disagree.
Now certainly most Christians are fine and not anti-Semitic. And that is kind of the point. I don't blame all Christians for the Westboro Baptist Intolerant Dickheads. But right wing fanatics blame all Muslims for the handful of Muslim extremists while doing nothing or outright supporting Christian extremists. To me the Florida Fanatics Association is more a danger to me than the Muslim-American families portrayed in a reality channel show on TLC.
Goddamn it, I'm a nonreligious, borderline Atheist, pro-Israel Jew. But I cannot understand this disgusting intolerance and pathetic terror many right wing Christians have towards Muslims. And while very few companies pull their ads because of often violent anti-Semitism or anti-gay or anti-black rhetoric rhetoric on Fox News, they will pull their ads from a perfectly harmless (if I suspect boring to me) show showing Muslim-American families as real people?
If this is American values then God help America.
A couple of prominent Democrats are doing the right thing though. From the same BBC article:
Keith Ellison, one of only two Muslim congressmen, said withdrawing the advertisements was "disappointing".
"The success of All-American Muslim shows how ready the country is to learn about Muslims as Americans," he said in a statement.
"This probably makes hate-mongers uncomfortable - as they should be," Mr Ellison, a Democrat who site in the House of Representatives for a Minnesota district...
Ted Lieu, a Democratic state senator from California, said he was considering calling for a boycott of Lowe's, a pledge already made by Twitter users using the hashtag #boycottlowes.
"The show is about what it's like to be a Muslim in America, and it touches on the discrimination they sometimes face. And that kind of discrimination is exactly what's happening here with Lowe's," Mr Lieu said.
Yeah I know Democrats can be weak. But things like this remind me of why I have always been and will always be a Democrat. Tolerance is a core value in the Democratic Party even if not all Democrats live up to that core value and the party as a whole can be weak on expressing it. But it is usually Democrats who come out publicly and say these things.