Posted By Klutzy Shutterbug on October 6, 2010
Dictionary.com defines Xenophoia as the following:
xen·o·pho·bi·a
–noun
an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.
Wikipedia explains it a bit further:
Xenophobia is an irrational, deep-rooted fear of or antipathy towards foreigners.[1] It comes from the Greek words ξένος (xenos), meaning “stranger,” “foreigner” and φόβος (phobos), meaning “fear.”[2] Xenophobia can manifest itself in many ways involving the relations and perceptions of an ingroup towards an outgroup, including a fear of losing identity, suspicion of its activities, aggression, and desire to eliminate its presence to secure a presumed purity.[3] Xenophobia can also be exhibited in the form of an “uncritical exaltation of another culture” in which a culture is ascribed “an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality
Now, I am not here to give you a vocabulary lesson. I am simply giving some information needed to understand my latest rant: hate, fear…ignorance of cultures other than your own.
Tonight, on facebook, I had the joy of reading the latest in my pet peeve list. A status message by a popular “fan page” for my area making a very tasteless joke about the “Mosque at Ground-Zero” controversy. Now, I am far from the most politically correct person you will ever meet. I enjoy tasteless jokes on occasion and I am usually less than polished in my grammar, jokes or language but this pushed a limit not even I am open-minded enough to find funny. As a matter of fact I find it downright disgusting the way people think sometime.
I almost don’t want to copy it here, as to not share the vulgarity, but I fear I must in order to get my point across and to get some opinions on if I am being too touchy here.
The Mosque near ground zero, I say let them build it. But across the street, we should put a topless bar, called “You Mecca Me Hot”. Next to that, a gay bar called “The Turban Cowboy” and next to that, a pork-rib restaurant called “Iraq o’ Ribs” ? And a check cashing center called “Iran out of money”. Let’s see who’s r…eally tolerant!
Now, the ground zero Mosque controversy has been one that I have followed decently and have gotten into debates with a lot of people in my life about. Dad, facebook friends, twitter friends, message boards etc. I have come across a lot of great reads that have been passed along and the most poignant came from a friend who was going to post it to her facebook but worried about stirring up trouble. This particular piece described how it was being blown out of proportion and a lot of lies were being spread to stir up fear within American’s hearts by using the horrific scenes from 9/11 and the people who carried out these attacks.
People who called themselves Muslims but bent the religion to suit their whacked out thought process that the easiest way to show their xenophobia (our word of the day people, did ya catch it?) was to crash jets into buildings in the US. When thought about like that, how does someone not see that this practice leads down dangerous roads? Practices like making jokes based on the simple fact that someone is foreign to you.
This status message from this group is only the last in a string of videos, long-winded rants and political pundit speak that I have endured over the past few months and while I appreciate sharing of opinions and love a healthy debate, I have to wonder if this is actually a healthy debate.
While I would never take away someone’s freedom of speech, I just can’t seem to get over it when I read something like this. I can’t seem to find any sort of intelligent thought process in jokes like these. If you don’t want the Mosque built, that is fine. I can appreciate your stance on it but research, learn, talk and listen. At least do your own research and steer clear of hate because hate leads to actions like those of the 9/11 bombers.
We are a nation whose media outlets have capitalized on fear mongering. The nation we knew days after 9/11 is no more and we have given way to using that date as a scare tactic and justification for our racial profiling, cultural bullying and religious persecution.
Outlets like facebook, twitter and whatever else have allowed a certain amount of internet anonymity where people feel the need to show the worst of themselves.
I hope for a day when a bit more tolerance can be spoken.
/end rant
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This is my little piece of the interwebz and it the interest of full disclosure (AKA blogging about my life again), I have a rant/review. Before I start, allow me to say that 
And I’ll keep getting back up. My blog started out as a cool idea that life just keeps stepping in the way of. I admire those that can update with any semblance of regularity and still have witty things to say day after day.
So, here is my other unfinished “I’m going to get to it” project. Christmas decorations. I got the motivation to take them down, its just the storing them that is the problem now.
So not a very good picture. But that is one of our new ASUS laptops. More to come later when my internet wants to stop acting like a douche.
