I am shocked by the tweets. http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-lot-of-people-are-very-upset-that-an-indian-american-woman?s=mobile Actually I am speechless or more appropriately I have no words to say to those who call a fellow American Al Qaeda just because she happens to be brown. The anger expressed is deplorable and the ignorance is astounding. In my country those who use a phone or a computer to tweet certainly know an American and a Canadian belong to two different nations. Calling an Indian as Arab is stupid. Seriously, something is wrong in the American education system. By the way Indians suffer way more worst in the hands of Al Qaeda than the Americans do.
Please flesh out the concept/controversy/idea/debate up for consideration in this thread. Threads that amount to "Hey look at this over here on the web" are not within forum policy.
Wow. The people who wrote those tweets are idiots. It's very refreshing to see someone who isn't white win Miss America. Also, if hunting and having tattoos are what it takes to be American, then I'm not American at all.
Ha! This means I'm half American. I've done the first thing, not the second. I've literally just heard about all this through a grape-vine I've been wrapped into. All I can say is: these people who are complaining, are these people absolutely insane? I mean, what other thing can be said about it other than WTF?
Sorry. Actually I am speechless or more appropriately I have no words to say to those who call a fellow American Al Qaeda just because she happens to be brown. The anger expressed is deplorable and the ignorance is astounding. In my country those who use a phone or a computer to tweet certainly know an American and a Canadian belong to two different nations. Calling an Indian as Arab is stupid. Seriously, something is wrong in the American education system. By the way Indians suffer way more worst in the hands of Al Qaeda than the Americans do. (This is for the benefit of those who might be thinking in the lines of those twitters and of course not directed @Wreybies )
In America small children have cellphones with which to tweet and, as was discussed in another thread recently, computers have come to be considered a necessity, not a luxury. These are not items that are in the hands of only the educated class.
The ability to post anonymous tweets and blog replies has sparked a rather ugly phenomena revealing feelings that in the past were more hidden, either because people rarely spout this ignorance outside of their social circles, or because we see a concentration of them in one place when a lightbulb event draws the insects in. It should be of little surprise there are ignorant racists out there. They've always been there, just less visible. No less sad and disgusting mind you.
@Wreybies... But I and all of my friends knew about Arab, European, African, American by the time we were about 12-13 years old. So many people cannot be stupid by their own doing.
It's not about stupidity, Killbill. It's about insularism. Remember that America is geographically huge and demographically disparate. There are large swaths of America that are as separated from the reality of the rest of the world as they are from the surface of the moon. I understand the gobsmacked feeling you are having. I grew up in a very different way from that of those of whom we speak. I had the luck of being shown the whole world and learning that there are as many ways of being a Human Being as there are Human Beings being. But the insular nature of large parts of American society makes for this kind of seeming ignorance. It's not all of us, not by a long shot, but these parts of our culture undeniably exist.
Outrageous and disgusting, but sadly, not all that surprising. You see this all the time -- especially at rallies for a certain segment of the political spectrum.
Let me just put out there that 1.) I live in a mainly Indian-American neighborhood and most are Hindu. 2.) Not all Muslims are terrorists. Yeah, my history teacher drove down to one of those places to visit relatives once. He told us that people had guns strapped to their lawnmowers. I believe him.
As disgusting as it is, racism and stupidity are not uniquely American problems. I am sad to say that in every place I lived, and I lived all over, there are idiots who think along these lines. Unfortunately, instead of spouting abuse in the privacy of their own homes, and wouldn't dare say it in public, now they get to write it down and publish anonymously for the whole world to see. We just need to readjust to all this, since technology changed things quite a bit.
That's right, we may as well accept this as the new norm. Perhaps the silver lining is that backlash will result in some of that insularity being chipped away. I don't expect rapid change, it's oft said you have to wait for the old to die off, they won't change, but the young is where to look for big social strides. Coming out of the woodwork also means exposure, even if not individually. The idiots will see how ignorant they are seen by the rest of us. Previously they lived in echo chambers with their pea brains being reinforced rather than exposed, and they will likely choose to discount or simply not look at the mainstream reactions to their beliefs. But their kids may benefit from the holes in the the echo chamber, even if the pea brains do not.
My son found a funny comment on his Facebook page, "Can we please dispense with the racism when we objectify women."
Ironic that a beauty pageant winner does nothing but spout off about 'diversity'. Tell that to the ugly women.
