Hypocrisy and Intolerance, American Style

You Got The Power, Inc.
Program Outline
8 Sept 2010

Topic of discussion: Hypocrisy and Intolerance, American Style

• Last week we discussed Glen Beck and follower's efforts to co-opt Dr. King's “Dream” and the civil rights movement

• Glen Beck went so far as to compare himself to Dr. King and Rosa Parks!

  • Beck listeners do not hide their hate and mistrust of government and they think of civil rights as “special rights”, yet, Beck tells them:

    • “We will reclaim the civil rights movement”

    • “We are going to be peaceful, but we are not getting up from the counter”

    • “We are not going to sit in the back of the bus”

    • “We are gonna link arms and we are gonna stand together for the truth”

    • We will take that movement, because we were the people that did it in the first place!”

    • “Who is the “we” Glen Beck is talking about?”

• Who is the “we” protesting the building of mosque near the 9-11 site?

  • Why are the same protester silent about the sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs in proximity of their sacred 9-11 site?

  • Are these protesters aware of or care about the fact that Muslims died on 9/11 too or that Muslims fought in Iraq/Afghanistan and died for our Country

  • Islam has nothing to do with terror, just as the KKK with Christianity

  • Why is intolerance of religious freedoms still acceptable today in America?

  • Imam Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Freedom Society said:

    • “We're not new to this. This is the same toxic soup of hatred and bigotry, just served in a different bowl”

    • “An entire industry has developed which profits from fostering the Islamophobic climate in America today”

• Who is the “we” who wants to burn Korans?

  • Rev. Terry Jones, the head of the Dove World Outreach Church in Gainesville, Fla., plans to burn copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, on September 11

  • Oddly, Jones who is planning the radical act of burning copies of the Koran claims he is only sending a very clear message to radical Islam

  • Members of the Coalition of African American Muslims urge the rejection of anti-Islam hatred and religious intolerance

  • Jones' planned book-burning has already ignited angry protests in Afghanistan, where hundreds chanted “Death to America”

  • The Dove World Outreach congregation has also posted an “Islam is of the devil” sign in front of the church

  • Religious leaders of all denominations have condemned the plan by the Dove World Outreach center in Gainesville, Florida

  • Yet, there are those who defend Jones' planned book-burning stating “the First Amendment protects everybody, and you can't say that we're going to apply the First Amendment to only those cases where we are in agreement”

  • Mosques and Islamic centers in different parts of the country have been vandalized and a site for a center in Tennessee was torched

  • In August, a cab driver who is a Muslim U.S. Citizen of more than 25 years was stabbed by a member of a global peace organization

  • Is there really a First Amendment right to perpetuate hate crimes?

  • Islamic scholar Imam Zaid Shakir of the Zaytuna Institute said, “History has shown us that when people start burning books, it's not a great leap for them to begin burning people”

• Who is the “we” seeking reparations from BP Oil spill?

  • Under US pressure, BP has set up a fund of $20bn to compensate victims of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

  • Since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that sent hundreds of millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico:

    • BP has paid out $2.5 million to Alabama governments to satisfy claims for lost tax revenue and expenses related to the spill

    • Real estate brokers and bankers are also asking to be compensated for:

      • lost sales

      • loss of rental income and

      • some say, declines in property values brought on by the Gulf oil

  • Isn't it odd that we can understand the need to compensate for losses related to the Gulf Oil spill but we can't understand the need for uncompensated labor performed over several centuries

• Who is the “we” asking President Obama to save the middle-class?

  • Facebook has a page for White students who claim they can't get scholarships because they are middle class white students, the page description reads:

    • Not black, hispanic or Native American?

    • Have no outstanding musical or athletic skills?

    • Not dirt floor poor, but not wealthy enough to pay your way through school without flinching?

    • Can't get a scholarship to save your life?

    • We all know what it's like

  • Political pundits claim they know what middle class America wants:

    • They want their retirement savings back so they don't have to work until they drop

    • They want a bank account that makes more than one percent interest

    • They want to know if their kids study, and if they save and sacrifice, that their lives will be better

    • They want their kids to get good jobs, and they want to hold onto their own jobs

    • Middle-class Americans feel despair and feel they are not safe from economic ruin

  • As recent report states:

    • “The real estate and foreclosure crisis has stripped African-American families of more wealth than any single event in history”

    • “Black borrowers are expected to lose between $71 billion and $92 billion”

    • The Economic Policy Institute’s forthcoming “The State of Working America” analyzed the recession-driven drop in wealth. As of December 2009, median white wealth dipped 34 percent, to $94,600; median black wealth dropped 77 percent, to $2,100

    • Blacks only recently began to close the home ownership gap with whites, and thus accumulate wealth — progress that now is being erased

• While these issues have their own particular and unique distinctions, they cannot be separated from the rising violence against African Americans and Latinos, or the increasingly inflammatory rhetoric and exclusionary politics driving the national debate on immigration