Really? Correcting flawed misunderstandings

Really? That was my first thought after reading Christopher Skeet's editorial about Islamophobia on the Chicago Flame's website. Word after word, line after line, I became more and more worried; not that the allegedly violent nature of the Islamic faith was being exposed, but that a piece that is written by someone who is so clearly uneducated in regards to the Islamic creed might actually be taken seriously.

Now, according to Skeet's article, every Chicago Flame staff member should be anxiously awaiting some sort of backlash against their offices (perhaps by someone who drives a cab, can barely speak English in his always angry accent, beats his wife, and fulfills every other over-generalized stereotype). Their energy, however, would be better used in quality control as opposed to fearing a community of nearly 400,000 American Muslims in the Chicagoland area.? Skeet's diatribe of a write-up is flawed in two major aspects: his clear prejudice in his choice of examples - examples that really show the logical fallacies of his article - as well as his clear lack of understanding of Islam.

The history of any group of people presents the opportunity to use a broad, fat brush, to create an unjust representation, using paint from an easel of radical occurrences.? In an age of social-justice, this neo-racism shouldn't be taken as a viable opinion, let alone tolerated as a public voice at all. Blinding hatred of a group, in this case Muslims, acts as an impediment towards objectivity, an impediment that was all too clear in Mr. Skeet's choice of examples. He needn't have hand-picked his examples of extremist (not peaceful) Muslim behavior from lands so far as Mogadishu, or even the newly-adopted land of Brett Favre - he could've gone to the Ickes Projects or the Mosque on Homan Avenue, where a group of Chicago Muslims have tables full of food to serve to those who need it on a weekly basis (rain or shine, warm or cold). He could've gone to Villa Park, where one of the largest mosques in the United States, Islamic Foundation, holds monthly food and clothing drives for the needy members of the Chicago community. He could've even attended the UIC Muslim Student Association's "Fast-a-thon" an event that encouraged fasting for a day, no matter your background, in order to yield sponsorships that would send donations to impoverished citizens of our great country.?

Yes, he could've used all of these examples and more, but this wouldn't have helped his argument; he needed examples that weren't the norm, examples that went against the grain, examples that could be manipulated and made to feel like they were of the majority when in fact they were from a group that forms the stark minority.?

This leads us to the second glaring flaw in Mr. Skeet's article, his holistic misunderstanding of Islam. Not once, in his article, does he cite a textual Islamic source - neither the Qur'an, nor the Hadith (actions and statements of Muhammad). Completely ignored are the numerous reminders rebuking murder in the Qur'an, such as the example found in chapter 5, verse 12, "Whosoever kills a human being for other than Murder or Creating Mischief in the Land, it is as if he had killed the whole of Human Kind and whoso saved the life of one as if he has saved the life of all Mankind." Blunt disregard is also dealt to the abundance of hadith that encourage being a peaceful and heartfelt member of society, such as the statement of Muhammad, "none of you is a true believer?until his neighbor is safe from his abuse."?

In exchange for these tangible, textual sources of Islamic creed, the reader is expected to just trust Skeet's opinion on the Qur'an, simply because he makes the claim, "and yes, I've read it." It's this mentality that's all too prevalent across all types of media, the mentality that we can't form our own opinions, but we should just trust someone's misinformed view because they are self-proclaimed experts. And it's this exact mentality that will bring me to the close of my response to Mr. Skeet's article.

My article was not written to defend violence done by people who happen to be Muslim, nor was it written to apologize for something that Muslims didn't do.? This article was written in order to shed light on the truth behind that's being covered up by ignorance, as well as to encourage all readers to not be content with simply trusting someone's opinion because they tell you "I've read it," but to desire more, and desire to different points of view in order to make an informed and well-read opinion on a given issue. It's this kind of bigotry, the likes of which we see in Mr. Skeet's article, that not only ignores, but actively insults the population and minds of the American public. It's this kind of bigotry, the same kind of bigotry that Maj. Nidal Hasan is guilty of, that needs to be stomped out by informing people the right way, the objective way, and allowing society to receive information that isn't based on pushing a prejudiced agenda, but is based on seeking the truth.