As I sit here in the boredom that is suburbia, I decide to waste a few minutes of my time to address the ridiculousness that is Pam Gellar. For those of you who don’t know, Pam Gellar, teamed with the American Freedom Defense League (don’t let the name fool you) to run bus ads in San Francisco that read, “In the war between the civilized man and the savage support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
I highly doubt that Pam Gellar has any sort of legitimacy, but I still think the issue needs to be addressed. Words are powerful and I will use my words (powerless or not) to address them. Racist rhetoric like that used by Pam Gellar, is the same style of hatred used to justify slavery or to slander Jews during the mongering for the Holocaust. Pam Gellar, and the likes of her, are not controversial figures or even Right Wing for that matter, they are just plain bigoted racists.
I remember during my senior year of college, Ann Coulter was invited to my university to speak. I did not mind that she was invited to speak on campus, I also did not mind that she was bombarded with targeted questions, boos, and protests. I believe in free speech, I also believe in confronting hate speech. We cannot pretend that all speech exists on the same platform. When more power is with those who promote hate, it is our full duty to exercise any power that we have to make ourselves heard (that does not include storming US embassies). Our words are powerful, we should reclaim them.
I speak from the perspective of a Muslim American. For those Americans who have such deep rooted hatred of Muslims, I wonder, what Muslims have they met? Am I your savage neighbor? They say hate comes from ignorance, and I don’t know where else it could come from. Today I watched a documentary about the Ku Klux Klan. It was not long ago that this country had segregated schooling systems, and ‘nigger’ was said in confidence. Our country needs to heal itself. Can we please, stop letting bigotry tear our nation?
Okay, I’ve wasted a good ten minutes, but not before having a photo shoot. Enjoy my savage pictures.
marwasami 