THE CONFUSED AND CHAOTIC MESSAGE OF AMERICAN TOLERANCE AND DIVERSITY

LINK: PETITION AFTER A 22 YEAR-OLD'S PROTEST ON YOUTUBE CONVINCES KATY PERRY TO SELF-CENSOR FOR MUSLIMS

Tonight, I saw the above story about Katy Perry's self-censorship of a new music video because of an online petition stemming from if not started by the protests of a 22 year-old Muslim that demanded the video be removed from YouTube because a piece of jewelry worn by Perry as part of an ancient Egyptian costume is blasphemous to Allah.  Granted, this is the result of a petition that led to the artist's voluntary compliance with its demand(s), but I am still angered because of the way this represents what I see as the current chaos and hypocrisy that surrounds our ongoing and ever increasing efforts to become more "tolerant," multicultural and diverse. Does nobody see what's going on here?  This doesn't strike me as a sincere protest from an honest victim of anything.  It's yet another ridiculous incident which pushes buttons and uses modern-day Americans' desperate need to feel more "tolerant" and "multicultural" to actually make us look like petty, immature fools.

Culturally, America has all but lost its identity in its struggle to fully understand and comply with the text and spirit of its own Constitution and Bill of Rights.  As the Patty Hearst of nations, at least in the West, its collective case of Stockholm Syndrome has made it fearful and beholden in cases like this to the very people and culture that effectively launched one of if not the most devastating attacks on American soil by a foreign enemy in September of 2001 - and which has continued to make and attempt attacks both successful and failed. We're still a nation in which, statistically, Christianity holds sway, and why not? By itself, that fact says nothing about the tolerance of the average, individual American for others, and no matter what their personal preferences, beliefs or social affiliations, most Christians in America of any race or income bracket are law-abiding citizens that, at most, seek only to live and work in peace, secure in the same rights that are afforded to others and which have historically been theirs all along.  In a time when so many are calling for America to be more like the "rest of the world," I also think it's noteworthy to point out that many nations still identify largely if not entirely with specific religions and denominations therein: India to Hindu beliefs and Buddhism, Pakistan to Islam, Russia and Greece to Christian Orthodoxy, Italy and much

of the Latin World to Catholicism, etc., etc.  And while I'm not an expert, I have read a few articles, seen ARGO and a few foreign policy documentaries, so I am aware of a string of particularly noteworthy foreign policy blunders in the Middle East during the mid-to-late 20th century in places like Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.  Some would love explain if not outright justify the current trend of Islamic terrorism on America by blaming it for the crimes and neglects of certain Middle Eastern dictators and religious leaders behind which the American government put its support - likely for economic reasons - but by now, it's nothing more than a pathetic smokescreen that only exists because our spineless government lets it exist without much protest. 

Most leaders in the Middle East appear to have had Islam to at least partially back up, protect and reinforce their claims to power. They have used the religion's tenets and taken them to the extreme in order to solidify and often abuse that power over a populous that can't seem to decide whether or not it wants to potentially give up the prospect of 72 virgins in order to buck any number of corrupt and, on the surface, theocratic dictatorships.  The Arab Spring was heralded three years ago in places like Egypt, where it arguably began, but Egypt overthrew the dictator Mubarak - who kept his country on good terms with the U.S., yet had a bad human rights record - only to hold elections in which they replaced him with the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt's people almost immediately threw out before the military swooped in to run things until someone new is elected. Iran has a new leader, yet talks over their nukes only ever seem to protect the status-quo, and outside the Muslim world, the European Union has seen mostly economic threats to its effectiveness and legitimacy while Russia flirts with its Cold War ways under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.  That ex-KGB thug used Obama's own empty promises about Syria and the Assad regime to make an even greater fool out of an American President before basically forcing America to comply with the effective protection of Syrian Dictator Assad's abusive, genocidal regime just so long as it doesn't have chemical weapons. It was accomplished with Putin's demand that any agreement with Syria over said chemical weapons forbid the use of a military effort to enforce it - especially an American or European military effort - effectively rendering said agreement almost entirely unenforceable in my opinion.

Is this the 'rest of the world" that America is supposed to be more like?  Because if so, then I might just call for a return to isolationism - economy be damned.  The way I see it, this story is just an extension of those kinds of attitudes nowadays in America. Where Islam, in particular, is concerned, understand that in instances such as this, Americans are going out of their way to avoid offending a cultural and religious group whose citizens of America stay almost wholly silent and inactive while the rest of America lives under the constant threat that one or more of them here or overseas might turn terrorist and not only kill us, but - as seems to happen nowadays - actually force America under the microscope and into becoming the big defendant by subjecting the country to scrutiny over the way in which it handles said terrorists. Meanwhile, we have a strong and growing anti-bullying movement going on which, on principle, I support - yet, interestingly enough, a majority of those appearing in commercials for the movement, whether celebrity or otherwise, seem to be members of a "minority," non-White ethnic group.  Should I behave like that 22 year-old Muslim and start angrily accusing the anti-bullying movement of what is euphemistically called "reverse racism" by basically implying that most, if not all bullies, racists and homophobes are white and, more specifically, white males? From where I'm sitting, if I did that, I would at least have some empirical evidence to suggest some such true motivation whereas, in Perry's case, we're talking about a pop star with virtually no public stance on current events to speak of that basically admits to having just picked the jewelry because it looked good and she wanted to use it to entertain.  Period.

    

In its heart of hearts, I don't think the world at large really cares how tolerant or progressive America is except and perhaps only when it affects the way its people are treated as immigrants to America.  I doubt the world cares how it all reflects on America's leadership status since so many seem to resent the very fact that America remains such a powerful world leader.  After all, so much of the world is still behaving in fairly intolerant ways not only towards Americans and Christians (and even Jews in America's ally Israel - again), but towards their neighbors in general, regardless of culture or ethnicity. There seems to be a strengthening anger and resentment - whether directly connected or not - towards and surrounding the fact that, as dominated by "white" corporate, Judeo-Christian culture as it allegedly remains, America is sill so influential and powerful, culturally and militarily, despite its growing list of obvious inner turmoils. In fact, this is something that has been steadily building since as far back as the end of the second World War, but it has taken on a whole new air of legitimacy, I think, with the advent of multimedia and especially the Internet.  So many different people now stand a more equal chance of being seen, heard, believed and generally represented for their viewpoints because of the World Wide Web.

In the past, the medium was the message because only a few people really controlled one or two dominant mediums, which were used to convey news and ideas, and those people generally exploited those mediums to get their own basic messages across sometimes.  First, it was the press or, more specifically, the newspaper, which managed to exponentially increase its circulation and influence with the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the electrical presses and the motorized vehicles used to put out more papers in more places, more often, in less time and with more up-to-date reporting.  In the first half of the 20th century, most major newspapers were controlled by only a handful of people and conglomerates, with William Randolph Hearst's being one of if not the most significant up until the 1950's. More local and privately-owned papers would take their cues from the big guys. Then, there was television, a more expensive and more corporately controlled medium which was really an extension of radio and, to at least some degree, of Hollywood, itself.  The networks and news programs were headed up by editors and managers with strong, admirable beliefs about a free and honest press for "the people" and simultaneously similar beliefs to the predominantly liberal Hollywood establishment (even while it was being censored and under scrutiny by more conservative elements). Still, those were the two major mediums for public opinion that remained fairly separated and, for the most part, carved America up into a much, much smaller handful of groups and different political and ideological perspectives. That lasted until and even into the 1980's and early 1990's, when cable television and networks such as CNN began to seriously threaten newspapers as well as traditional network and local television, yet it also foreshadowed the next big leap which has been the Internet and its World Wide Web. 

Now, instead of just a few powerful and influential news outlets remaining largely untouched and uninfluenced by individual readers and viewers, the Internet is affecting an unprecedented merging of the mediums and granting almost totally free and unfettered access to everyone - with both good and bad results. It is the ultimate expression of free speech and yet, hearkening back to Elia Kazan's 1957 film A Face In The Crowd starring the late Andy Griffith as radio and TV personality Lonesome Rhodes, the world of the 21st century is filled with "Lonesome Rhodes" clones, especially in America and along various points on the political and ideological spectrum. Most are fairly innocuous and merely catering to their small crowds of followers. Yet the consequences of their collective efforts is, for better or worse, the astounding level of divisiveness that we're seeing in America now. It has had the unfortunate and somewhat mind-boggling effect of both empowering and hamstringing so many people at the same time that almost nobody can really lead effectively and make any real progress and, instead, almost everyone looks like a potential obstructionist and ideological villain.

As usual, government is an easy scapegoat for just about any national problem, but now more than ever, most politicians have increasingly little to gain by adopting a steady and reasonable position on the issues which represents a majority of their regions' constituents.  Whether Republican or Democrat, it is no longer as simple as having to represent and appeal to the people of your party.  Now, you have to decide which one or two small, usually fringe groups within your party are the loudest and most likely to vote because if you can't get re-elected, you're really not going to be able to do anything no matter what rhetoric you adopt. It is why we're seeing such different and sometimes radical behavior work for both Democrats and Republicans in DC.  President Obama definitely represents not only the Democratic Party, but arguably a good deal of the political left in America.  Though his actual effectiveness and track record so far on perceptibly partisan issues such as the environment, income inequality and even race relations has been sketchy and criticized by his own people, the strengthening in his second term of his fairly consistent and well-spoken political rhetoric has ensured that whichever way the polls shift from time to time, America on-the-whole remains fairly receptive if not wholly committed to his agenda.  On the flip-side, though, is the Republican Party, which has seen a string of hard losses in the last two or more Presidential and Senatorial elections amidst an unprecedented fracturing of the party between the older, slightly more moderate "mainstream" and the fairly new and often radically conservative Tea Party and other small groups (including some Libertarians).  Yet, despite record low approval ratings, the party continues to hold and is actually expected to continue holding a firm majority's control in the House.   

This is why our wires are so crossed in places like America, even when it comes to our more noble and moral endeavors - endeavors that are becoming increasingly stained by little hypocrisies and inconsistencies, whether real or more opportunistically imagined.  As the country becomes more tolerant of some things, it is becoming less tolerant of other things - even those otherwise good things which used to define us in ways with which, at the very least, most of the world had little or no outward problem. The worst part, though, is how little responsibility we, "the people," take for the very issues of divisiveness, hostility and, yes, intolerance that we claim to protest. Instead, we seem more comfortable blaming politicians and faceless corporations for a phenomena that is an inherent extension of our own cherished democracy. In my experience, some of the same people that will go online and use Christians and Christianity in particular as the embodiment of outdated and narrow-minded superstition - which, they say, all modern and "civilized" peoples must eventually leave behind - will also sign petitions such as this one.  Likewise, they'll defend fairly extensive and exhaustive university curriculum having to do with foreign and/or Eastern religions and lifestyles such as Islam for the sake of "diversity" while using the same old accusations of racism and bigotry to excuse the banning of any and all "conservative," Christian speakers on a campus.  Make no mistake, though - the courses are not merely educational, as they are known to involve the temporary, yet mandatory adoption of religious tradition and lifestyle habits on the part of the students for a grade.  This is how my half-sister was converted to Islam in the late 1980's.  Meanwhile, many public schools are pretty much prohibited nowadays from teaching anything resembling creationism as a valid, alternative perspective on the Earth's origins.  Creationism, of course, is also strongly if not solely associated with Christianity despite applying, as a theory, to any number of religious perspectives around the world regardless of which god is alleged to have done the creating.

As of now, there is a decision to be made which I do not believe the government can make for us.  Especially for Americans, that decision is whether or not our increased tolerance, respect and multiculturalism is genuine and real, applying to everything as fairly and evenly as humanly possible, or whether it's really just a euphemism for the systematic rejection and undoing of certain "uniquely American" traditions and beliefs, and why?  Because America's demographics are changing and, no matter what we say, there is never really going to be room for every religious, political and ideological face in the crowd. If it's the former, then things like this have to stop - or, at the very least, the press, the government and pretty much anyone online has to stop giving them so much legitimacy through public visibility.  Having acknowledged its mistakes, America needs to act on what it has learned, yet finally put away its collective guilt so that it can continue being the strong, yet inclusive nation to which immigrants around the world have been attracted for centuries.

In conclusion, things like this petition and Katy Perry's response are not representative of progress, but of increasing amounts of wanton self-doubt and of fear. As I implied at the beginning, imagine if every Christian in America reacted that way every time the name of God or Jesus was used in vain in movies and television. There would be no end to the turmoil and petitions, but apparently, we're so screwed up and confused that we have to cater and cow-tow en-mass to the oh, so fragile beliefs and sensibilities of a religious group which is fundamentally intolerant of people of other faiths and, if we're honest, anti-Semitic to the core!  This is why the modern movement for expanded tolerance and diversity is so hypocritical and screwed up - because almost no religion, group or individual as outwardly and universally rigid, quasi-sexist and specifically anti-Semitic as Islam or most sincere Muslims would be tolerated in the mainstream world for very long, let alone patronized in this manner.