we shall never overcome

Ever since 9/11 and the Iraq War, the Amarillo Globe-Republican and other mainstream papers have tiptoed into once-forbidden waters. It began with an offhand reference, maybe a veiled comment in a letter to the editor.

But this summer, those waters have overflowed their banks and grown stormy and dangerous. This summer, significant portions of the mainstream press have absorbed, without apology and without comment, the language and character of savage racists and bigots from the fringes of Timothy McVeigh and the Reverend Richard Butler.

Rather than referring to "fundamentalist extremists" or "terrorists," these papers now routinely denigrate Islam itself and the Arab people. Those more exact terms became "Islamic Fundamentalists," then "Islamofascists," shortened to "Islamists" and now read simply as "Moslems." To justify the change Dianne West says, in a column reprinted recently in the AG-R:

I've tried out such terms in the past, but I've come to find them artificial and confusing, and maybe purposefully so, because in their imprecision I think they allow us all to give a wide berth to a great problem: the gross incompatibility of Islam -- the religious force that shrinks freedom even as it "moderately" enables or "extremistly" advances jihad -- with the West.

There it is. Islam is incompatible with our way of life. And with bigotry thus intellectually justified, the true fruits of hate will now soon follow. The more visceral, anti-intellectual sort of bigotry will naturally be more in keeping with the Bush era. Letters to the editor already push so very close to ugly racist slurs. You can imagine the letter-writers typing the words of hatred on their word processors, then highlighting and replacing the language with something just slightly less offensive. Give it a month or two, the editors smirk. Then you'll be able to use the words you really want to say.

Is it really that bad? Oh, yes, it is. Note that this cartoon- reprinted on the AG-R Opinion page- reads "Pied Piper of Islam," not "extremists" or "terrorists" or "Islamic Fundamentalists" or "Islamofascists" or "Islamists." Just "Islam," that's the problem, dressed in stereotypical robes and turbans. And look at the followers of Islam, with their buck teeth and simian characteristics.

Look familiar?

Only like every single racist stereotype since racist stereotypes began.

We were told in elementary school in the 70s that these problems had been solved, that racial and religious prejudice belonged to an ugly past of seperate drinking fountains and lynching. Never Again, we were told. We Had Overcome.

So thank you, Globe-Republican, for exposing the raw lie. Thanks for showing the ugly truth behind the American Dream. Thanks for cheating another generation of children out of a bright future in which all can participate.

SPACEDARK

P.S. John Kanelis edits the Opinion page.