Today has seen me fully involved in one of my favourite types of battle, with a couple of women I don’t actually know backing me up. It all started with a comment on a friend’s Facebook page about his other half coming to the aid of a pregnant woman when several white men attacked an Indian man on a train because he ‘looked like a terrorist,’ which read:
I wonder if you would still hold such admirable libertarian views towards Muslims, if you had be injured in a blast by a suicide bomber. True, the Indian man may have been Hindu, but now people are afraid and irrational.
Of course, this set my heckles up. For a start you don’t have to be liberal to understand that not all Muslims are responsible for IS or whichever so called Islamic group are currently claiming responsibility for whatever attack, and secondly, this narrow minded sort of codswallop is part of the reason terrorist groups are able to recruit so easily. People feel dejected and rejected from the society in which they live, bullied, harassed, beaten, for being who they are, for practising their religion, and for being of a different skin colour.
This delightful person, who by the way, is everything you would expect them to be, white, cisgendered, male, conservative, those wonderful qualities that tend to mean he has a privileged pole up his backside about any opinion that is not his own. We’ve spent the better part of today trying to persuade him that he’s in the wrong and open up his opinions, but it’s been far from successful. And interestingly, when we’ve tried to discuss his potential views on other things he’s remained quiet and not dared talk about his view on my being disabled, or the LGBT community, or those of us who claim benefits. I think we might scare him a little.
His comments have included things like:
And it’s not Muslim men who are raping underaged white girls on an industrial scale in Northern mill towns and it’s not Muslims who are suicide bombing our concerts and it’s not Muslim men driving cars into parliament. Not Muslims… I’m a liberal now, will u like me now in my denial of the facts. Please like me.
If it wasn’t all so scarily representative of the white conservative middle classes in the Western world, then it would be laughable. As long as they are right and everyone else is wrong, that’s all that matters to them. Of course the conspiracy level crap that’s spewed out of the mouths of these people is beyond ridiculous. And that he resorted to calling me a cunt was laughable. Yes I have used the world in it’s fullness because I have something to say on using a woman’s genitals when attacking someone, especially someone who has those genitals, but anyone in general. Actually several things.
- A vagina, or ‘cunt’ as you call it is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s where every human being who was ever birthed without the need for a C-section came out of.
- A vagina often takes a real pounding during sex and is probably a lot less vulnerable than testicles. At least it’s on the inside of our bodies and less likely to hurt with a minor knee raise.
- The amount of pleasure we can get from our vaginas is pretty epic. Yes I’m gonna say it, because it’s true.
- Also, as a lesbian, I can honestly say, ‘cunts’ are usually deep and warm, they are extremely enjoyable places to be.
Each time he tried to tell us we were living in our own little world, we had ways to come back at him. We pointed out that rapes weren’t just committed by Muslims. We pointed out that more terrorist attacks are committed by non-Muslims than by Muslims. We gave him facts, we explained that we are choosing not to live our lives in fear of biological attack but to embrace our neighbours to ensure that more youths aren’t taken in by the likes of IS. But did he listen? Of course not. The sad reality is, he is one of those whose minds are too stubborn to be changed. But not once did he manage to send us away feeling like we had been victimised, because we chose to stand tall and use knowledge over bullshit.
If you’re entering a battle of wits and knowledge against me, or against anyone who knows their shit, come armed. Bring facts, bring concrete proof, don’t just spout off individual incidents, I proved I could do the same. I spouted off an equal number of incidents to counter his ‘Muslim attacks’ ones, without even having to look them up. Could he prove his chemical warfare thoughts? No more than I could prove it won’t happen. But could I explain why I choose to embrace people from all walks of life? A hell of a lot better than he could justify seeing ‘jihad’ everywhere. I don’t think he actually understands the term jihad either. He sees it as a terrorist word, rather than giving it its true meaning. According to the Islamic Supreme Council:
- In a religious sense, as described by the Quran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (s), “jihad” has many meanings. It can refer to internal as well as external efforts to be a good Muslims or believer, as well as working to inform people about the faith of Islam.
In the wake of the Manchester bombing, more and more people like the one on my friend’s page are commenting and making their bigoted, right-wing opinions known. As for the rest of us, all we can do is combat them with love. Continue to embrace our human brothers and sisters of all races, religions, and nationalities, work together to make the world a better place; and when these class one arseholes raise their heads, use logic and compassion to answer them. Anger will only fuel their hatred. It may take time, but eventually, we might just make it through to all of them by setting an example.
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