Tannishblog

Thomas L Friedman of the NY Times wants Western Civilizations to “shine a spotlight” on hate speech wherever it occurs. He sites a London Islamic bookstore as evidence for such action.

What he fails to address is the rampant hatred occurring within our own culture. The kind of hidden hatred that elects demagogues and that fosters parochial views and archaic politics. Yes, I’m talking about America of the twenty-first century. I’m talking about the new American Century built upon the colonial era mentality of slave-owner privilege and puritanical suppression, of the sanctity of land ownership at gunpoint, and a winner-take-all approach to world politics. All are symptoms of a wider stance of self-and-other that breeds habits of dehumanization, hatred, greed, and lust for controlling others that has so marred the so-called “advance” of Western societies.

Mr. Friedman has a valid point. Let us shine a light of reason upon all haters and show the world how the poison of prejudice spreads: Indeed. But let us start in our own houses, before we look in another’s. Unless and until we clean up our own acts of racial profiling, bigotry, intolerance and unbalanced privilege, before we attempt to clean our neighbor’s home, or all we become are hypocrites.