I grew up about 30 miles outside Philly, and even when I was a kid there were many, many residents who would live their entire lives without going into the city once. Not once ever. They couldn’t see a reason to. It’s just like you say, they avoided anything unfamiliar. So when you have a historic media revolution that brings the unfamiliar to them—let’s say, in the form of beheading videos, among other things—they tend to overreact and are willing to believe pretty much anything.
Or Israel? What Bibi is doing in Israel is the worst example of what a people can do to insure their own demise. It won’t be Iran that does them in. It will be the rest of the world which is sick of watching hundreds of Palestinian-born Israeli citizens made refugees to make way for new Jewish settlements. Still can’t believe that grifter highjacked the Free Speech march in Paris to recruit new immigrants.
Now you know the origin of all those Reich-wing emails we get from crazy Larry down in the root cellar. Re-read the story and change “Muslims” to “blacks” and “non-Muslims” to “White” and all of a sudden it sounds so familiar.
Daniel Pipes. Sheeesh.
Shortly after 9/11 I got an email from a Reich-winger describing all the evil Muslims had done in Denmark; areas into which you don’t go, and a world of crime statistics all pointing at the “Mooselims” destroying this European state and it’s culture. The author of that hate-filled screed: Daniel Pipes.
But some of the stats looked freaky so I started to dig.
Hard to believe that, just like the FBI, Denmark actually tracks crimes and reports on them. Digging deeper into their data, I found crimes by “the Mooselims” were LESS than native Danes in all categories. Pipes made it up.
Then I researched Pipes himself and found him to be a congenital liar/hater who is more interested in the state of Israel the the United States.
And being a congenital liar/hater, that made Pipes the perfect candidate for our Worst. President. EVAR!™ who nominated him to the board of directors of the “U.S. Institute of Peace”. (This is why satire doesn’t have a chance any more. Too many “pros” out there.)
There was a of of bitching when Drinkie McAwol made that pick so he got around it with - a recess appointment! And you know how the Reich-wing loves those! Wait! Whut!
Hand it to Facebook, occasionally a phrase will crop up in a post which triggers their listing “other sites of interest” which are often completely outside your own ken. Sometimes, following one, you find a whole alternate universe. So recently I followed one that mentioned jihadi camps, “no go” places in the US. If you google them, ALL you find is right-wing propaganda, but there seems to be no fact check or snopes rebuttal of the claim. This, for instance, from “Mad world News”:
There are over 22 confirmed terrorist Jihad camps in the United States belonging to Jamaat ul-Fuqra, a Pakastan Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda related branch.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra is in Wikipedia. But I have no luck googling it otherwise except in far-right publications. I assume it’s not “REAL” but why is it not covered at all??
Jindal has always been an example of “the next big thing that never happened”. This is mereely a case in point–he gets a talking point out there just as its getting debunked.
In white America, we refer to “no-go zones” as gated communities.
FAcTS don’t ChanGE the NARRative tHAt toWNs lIKE BirMingham are SO MUSLIMY they are No-GO zones FOr non-MUslims. IN FACt, DexYS Midnight RUNNers, BlaCK SaBBAth, and the FINE YOUng Cannibals AREN’t actUALLy from BIRMINGHAM but from close by NottingHAM whICH is A go-zone for NOn-musliMS!11!1!one!11!!!
‘No-Go Zones’ ? great term … almost as if it was coined by some crafty marketing agency …what a neatly packaged piece of rancid raw bigotry … but really it is nothing new - just a tag to pin on locations to scare people and fuel the fires of hatred.
Basically it is the old ‘don’t go to xxxx it is filled with ‘them’ and ‘they’ will kill you as soon as they see you’
Places in the US that, over the years, have been hyperbolically stigmatized by this kind of labeling - predominately based on race- Harlem, Watts, Gary, Indiana, Detroit, Compton, CA Newark & Camden, NJ and much more
There are also places in the US that, over the years, have been viewed as simply dangerous for ‘outsiders’- … numerous backwoods enclaves in West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Nevada … and on & on …
The special insidious twist that Bobby J. adds is the idea that all of this is organized, codified , and part of an evil plot.
Frightened bigots are frightened. Story at 11.
I’ve been to Birmingham. Struggling to maintain 2nd city status (which, in the UK, is not much of a status).
Over the past 10 years it has recovered from industrial blight, IRA bombs and some nightmarish 70s architecture to become a reasonably pleasant place, all be it with continuing but not unique problems.
Like Bradford (another city with a fairly high level of Asian people), it has superb curry. Indeed, it invented the Chicken Tikka Marsala.
You haven’t tasted Indian food until you have eaten in those 2 cities - and, yes, us white people are allowed in.
“I can’t go to that place because they are there,” is of a piece with all sorts of GOP thinking. It’s the same rationale that goes, “This Black President is divisive because he insists on being Black, which I hate.”
Yeah, I had cousins that lived 10 minutes from the George Washington Bridge who were horrified at the idea of going into Manhattan for fun. Granted, it was the late '70s when NYC was at its nadir, but it still wasn’t the war zone they imagined it to be.
Austin Dave’s No Go Zones:
° Walmart (There is not one thing in a walmart I want or need.)
° The Body Shop (The smell gives me a headache)
° Williams Sonoma (It’s just food, people!)
° Michael’s (the craft store–shoot me)
° JoAnne’s Fabrics (I feel like I’m on Mars.)
° Franchise haircut places (Barbershops are endangered! save them!)
° Restaurant chains owned by celebrities (Why would I want to eat what Toby Keith Feeds me?)
° Arkansas (If you have legs, why would you stay here?)
Nazir-Ali characterized the broadcasting of the Muslim call to prayer as
an attempt to “impose” an Islamic calendar on certain areas.
The church bells that ring the hours (of prayer) in every single village in his country, on the other hand, are just a picturesque reminder of christian solidarity…
You have to be intensely privileged to interpret “other people get more than zero” as “other people are taking all our stuff away.”
What is that old saying that “a lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on?” What is the purpose of Jindal going to London to spread a lie to a conservative think tank other than his entering the echo zone?
You wanna see a “N0 G0” zone? Walk into any gun store in America with your 0bama T-shirt on.
Just SSDD for the GOP:
(1) Tell a lie.
(2) If caught, tell the lie more loudly and repeatedly on your propaganda outlet, FUX News.
(3) If challenged again, issue a no-apology apology.
Standard operating procedure for the Rightie Political Cesspools.
Alex Jones: “All this means is that Muslim terrorists have infiltrated FOX News!!! Wake up sheeople!!!”
Don’t laugh…He could issue that very statement any moment! ~snicker!~
BTW…FOX News IS a recognized NO GO ZONE for anyone with more than a few active brain cells.
I think “inner cities” has become a meaningless descriptor as our urban centers are experiencing gentrification and renewal and many of the undesirables have been chased out. True though, there are some neighborhoods that are no-go zones. In DC where I live there are parts of Anacostia that I would never go into.for a not unrealistic fear that I would be subjected to unfounded hostility.
BTW…Has FUX News apologized for THIS little piece of complete bullsh*t they pushed forward just the other day?
(“19 Active Jihadist Paramilitary Training Camps in the United States”)