Muslims
My dad’s a defense contractor. Yeah, the defense contractor has a banker son. I’m looking forward to going against the wall with him.
Anyhow, he spends a lot of time in Afghanistan. I asked him once why he still goes, something that makes my mother crazy with worry - he’s got plenty of work in America, the UAE, other areas - and he tells me “They need our help.” I’ll throw up some of the pictures he’s given me of the kids, the cities, the homes, and the families. Afghanistan is a place where human beings live, humans like the rest of us, who want little more complex or extraordinary than a modicum of peace and safety in their lives.
This is true of most people in most places. Muslim places, Christian places, Buddhist places, Atheist places.
Today, a man with a Muslim name appears to have shot several of his comrades at Fort Hood. Shep Smith of Fox News has already had the gall to state that
“The names tells us a lot, does it not, senator?”The name doesn’t tell you jack fucking shit, Shep. It doesn’t tell you anything but “This is the name of a man who shot a few scores of people at Fort Hood.” It doesn’t tell you if he was blinded by rage, or grief, or jealousy, or the trauma of long-term exposure to his fellow soldiers’ pain. It doesn’t tell you if he fired the gun with a wish to kill or a prayer to die. It doesn’t explain, justify, categorize, or fucking ethnically profile his actions.
But guess what, Shep Smith, names do tell us a lot. And you just told America that “Shep Smith” stands for “bigoted scum.”
