Have you been as depressed as I am about some of the reactions here on DU to the recent unrest in

[Douglas Carpenter]

the Middle East? Every bigot and racist seems to feel free to simply let lose. I have alerted on some post, I wrote Skinner and I posted a thread in Meta - but so far there doesn't seem to be any willingness to address the issue of anti-Muslim bigotry. Of course that is how it was here for a long, long time. But things seemed to have improved for awhile. It even seemed that those who clearly harbored bigoted attitudes were at least restraining themselves. Unfortunately, that self-restraint now appears to have expired.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to address this issue?

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Yr not alone, Douglas....

The sad thing is that these anti-Muslim outbursts are predictable, imo. Some of the same people are doing it as were right in the thick of it opposing the 'ground zero mosque', and the Swiss minaret. I don't expect anything else from them...

How this should be addressed is for admin to take a leaf out of MIRT's book and nuke the bigots. MIRT can only get the newbies (and this team is a great one where they don't put up with Islamophobia or any other bigotry), and it's up to admin to show DU that they won't tolerate bigotry and hatred against Muslims. If they don't, they're letting down those DUers I've seen who've taken a stand against the bigots...

[Douglas Carpenter]

2. as I mentioned I did write Skinner -actually twice

I didn't think it was appropriate to post the You tube video that is the subject of all this upheaval in the Video & Multimedia forum. But he wrote me back and indicated that he thought it was appropriate. I then wrote and asked for his intervention regarding all these outbursts of anti-Muslim hatred and bigotry. I hope he will intervene. I also posted something in Meta:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1240144022

If we are to take a stand against other forms of bigotry such as anti-Semitism - as I certainly believe we must all denounce - it is hard to make that case if there is no willingness to curb obvious bigotry and racism against Arab and Muslim people. I hope reason will prevail and a strong statement will come from Admin making it clear that racism and bigotry of any sort is not welcome - ever.

[Alameda]

3. Patience & compassion and then patience, compassion and empathy

compassion and empathy

[grantcart]

4. We should publish more articles that show Muslims doing normal Muslim things that

we are all familiar with.

I think it would be helpful to explain Muslim holidays like Ramadan that are widely misunderstood. Wish I had more time to do so.