No to a Ground Zero Mosque, Yes to a Community Center

Yesterday, protests at Ground Zero continued to gain international attention. What's at issue is a figment of the American public's imagination: the ground zero mosque. Herds of "well-intentioned" Americans flooded lower manhattan to chant down the construction of what they are calling a ground zero mosque, but what really is an Islamic community center. This case is a powerful lesson in framing, which I was first introduced to by the George Lakoff but you and I experience constantly. If we want to make sure The Community Center at Park 51 is built, we've got to re-frame the conversation, or else the Islamophobes have won!

Bus Ads, Bigotry, and the Ground Zero Islamic Center

Dave Chappelle once did a bit in his stand up routine about hearing a comment that was so racist, even he was shocked. The bit is hilarious (it's in the brilliant "Killin' Them Softly"). Well, Chappelle would probably say something similar about the bus ad that just got approved by the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). Not just because he's a Muslim, or has obviously seen lots of racism in his life, but because...well...damn, this is so racist. It is clearly meant to stir some pure venomous hatred in the hearts of bigots and those who may not really be racist, but haven't had their socially-accepted racism corrected because of the openly anti-Islamic climate in America post-9/11, something I wrote about just a few days earlier. I kid you not, the MTA approved a bus ad from the American Freedom Defense Initiative (nice name for group putting out the worst kind of ad imaginable) that shows a picture of plane #2 about to smash into the already-burning WTC on 9/11 and links it directly with the image of the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero. It is what you see above...really. Yep, they're openly linking 9/11 to the Islamic Center.

The Ground Zero Islamic Center, Fareed Zakaria, and Islamophobia

Aren't you glad we live in the age of Obama, where racism no longer exists? Man, what a load off my mind. You know, there's a black U.S. president. That makes everyone everywhere equal somehow (even though he hasn't actually changed policy that much from his white predecessors regarding U.S. financial institutions, foreign policy, welfare policy, etc. - but those are just facts, don't mind them). Oh wait...sonofa...

Now, I don't usually do the race/identity stuff that much. It's not my thing. I leave that to much smarter folks, like my friend Professor Lewis, amongst many others. However, all the talk about the Islamic Center near the Ground Zero site, the reaction to it, and the press coverage of it made me say, screw it, I'm going to put in my two cents.