ONTD Political

Sikhism is different than Islam; it's a Punjabi religion that has it's own teachings, scriptures, etc.

That's why the shooting seems odd. Who would really have a problem with a religion that is somewhat obscure in the US? Maybe it was a personal vendetta conducted by someone affiliated with the temple.

Of course, you could be write. Maybe the shooter was motivated by prejudice and was too dense to tell the difference between people from India and Arabs.

Yeah, I didn't fully weigh the implications of the term "misguided." You're correct. It's too optimistic to believe that they would know the difference.

And equally inexcusable if they -did- know the difference, of course :(

I suppose you're right. I didn't really keep up with the retaliatory attacks that occurred after 9/11, so I didn't know who was affected or how pervasive the attacks were.

It should be interesting to see who the perpetrator is though. I'm inclined to think that the shooter was affiliated with the group since there's really no impetus for an anti-Islamic attack. Unless this is the rogue Tea Party member blow up that people have been waiting for.

ugh, I took a class about Asian immigration to the US this summer and we watched a documentary about hate crimes and such in the US post-9/11 and there was a whole big section on Sodhi and his family, it made me so upset that people can do things that are so awful

Edited at 2012-08-06 12:56 am (UTC)

It's spelled, 'MURICA!

I wouldn't say that it's a matter of not wanting to educate themselves. We don't exactly live in a culture that encourages people to be nuanced in their perceptions of other people. 2010 was the first census where we actually let people check off more than one racial affiliation; prior we were a check one box society. Throwing people into broad labels and then stereotyping them based on those misfitting labels is the American way.

I think it's rare when people actually think outside of the confines of the society they grow up in and doesn't necessarily note a major deficiency on their part.

I don't want to get too carried away on speculating on the shooter's motivation. But for the sake of conversation, I'll assume that the shooter did this out of some bigotry towards Islam (and he mistook the Sikhs for Muslims).

In this case, I don't hold as much of a grudge against the shooter for being prejudice as I do for his actions. We can acknowledge consciously that we don't like people or certain groups of people and still make the deliberate choice not to harm them. So by trying to understand the root of his prejudice, if that's what this is about, I'm not saying that I condone his actions.

With that out of the way, I don't place the burden of someone's ignorance entirely on society. You noted that people you know have the chance to learn but that they don't take it. I believe that once an idea or habit of thinking is deeply ingrained in someone, it takes more than just pointing out the factual errors that form the idea to get someone to really change their idea.

I don't think that it's that people are willfully ignorant but simply that they have a cognitive block that causes them to reject everything that challenges their view. Though it seems obnoxious and deliberate, it's a subconscious process that they aren't even aware of.

Short of some life altering event, it's tough to get someone to change a prejudice that was instilled in them at an early age. This isn't just the case with bigots. Nearly everyone has one prejudice or another, not even necessarily involving race, that they'll probably carry with them to their grave.

I think it's more realistic to condemn someone's actions rather than their thoughts.