My last ten entries have garnered a grand total of one comment. The one just prior to that, on Borat, prompted three. So I might as well return to that topic, if indirectly.
While I think Borat was too much overkill to be effective, put ons can expose some rather disturbing tendencies in society.
Take this piece about a radio host who put on a hoax that offered to give people a Playstation 3 in exchange for handing over their babies for 24 hours to a complete stranger, no questions asked.
Some people recognized it for the gag it was and played along but other people were very serious.
As the host explained: The most memorable was the girl we had actually planned to make a deal with. She was 22, and she was going to give us her one-month-old baby for three nights. And we made it sound pretty harsh: She couldn't call to see how the baby was. We told her we didn't have a car seat and we'd be driving around a lot with the baby on our laps, and was that cool? And she was saying okay, all right, I guess so, to all of this. No problem. The amazing thing was that after we explained the gag, she said, "Does this mean i don't get the Playstation?".
One reader of the article quipped: Abstinence programs don't look quite so silly when you consider the target audience walking around out here.
Indeed.
But while 'babies for bling' is hardly a ringing endorsement of society, another hoax revealed much more virulent strain of thought in this country.
A radio host in Washington suggested that Muslims should be forced to wear a crescent-shaped tatoo or distinctive armband. If this sounds familiar, maybe you were paying attention in history class.
But far from rejecting this Nazi-esque proposal, many of his listeners praised him. One said this wasn't nearly enough.
Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans."
At the end, the host revealed his hoax and attacked listeners who agreed with him.
"I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he said, adding that such proposals are 'beyond disgusting.'
A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification.
Roughly a quarter of those polled said they would not want to live next door to a Muslim and a third thought that Muslims in the United States sympathized with al Qaeda....
I used to think such people were a tiny minority of the country who's volume was far more vocal than their numbers would suggest. Maybe this was just wishful thinking. If almost 4 out of every 10 Americans would support a policy identical to one that pre-saged the genocide of the Jews, then excuse me if I'm more than a bit uncomfortable.
I thought America was supported to be IN FAVOR of freedom and civilization.
Update: the hell faced by this college professor, who a jury refused to convict but was sent to prison anyways, shows that the perils faced by Muslims in America are more than bigoted public opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment