Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category
November 24, 2011
Muslims are jihadis. Muslims subjugate women. Muslims stone adulterers. Sound familiar? Perhaps as familiar as Jews are stingy and control the media, Irish are drunks and raise one child to be a priest or nun, and blacks are ignorant and want special treatment.
These ethnic stereotypes are held by people who don’t know. If you know some Muslims or Jews or blacks you know that they’re just people, some like the stereotype, most not.
I was raised in segregated Delaware and went to segregated schools. The first black family I knew was the Huxtables: obstetrician Cliff, attorney Clair, dyslexic son Theo, and normal daughter Denise, from The Cosby Show. The first Jewish family many people of my generation knew was the Goldbergs, Molly and Jake and their kids Rosalie and Sammy. And the first Indian-Americans many people knew were Gogol Ganguli and his parents, Ashima and Ashoke, from The Namesake.
Most Americans don’t know any Muslims, even though there are almost three million Muslims in America. You can meet several Muslim families from Dearborn, Michigan on All-American Muslim, telecast Sunday nights on the TLC channel.
Some on the right say the program is nothing more than (more…)
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Tags:All-American Muslim, Dearborn Michigan, ethics, ethnic stereotypes, Indian-Americans, jihadis, The Cosby Show, The Goldbergs, the Huxtables, The Namesake, TLC channel
Posted in Entertainment, Ethics-general, Media, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
October 22, 2011
On the morning of October 12, Melissa Franchy boarded the B110 bus in Brooklyn and sat down near the front. For a few minutes she was left in silence, although the other passengers gave her a noticeably wide berth. But as the bus began to fill up, the men told her that she had to get up. Move to the back, they insisted.
When Franchy asked why she had to move, a man scolded her. “If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?’”
That’s from a story in Tuesday’s New York World. The B110 line is a public bus line in New York operated under contract since 1973. But 38 years may be enough for the New York authorities. Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a news conference on Wednesday that gender separation is “obviously not permitted” on public buses. He added, “Private people: you can have a private bus. Go rent a bus, and do what you want on it.”
Let’s see when segregation ends on the B110. Bet it won’t be today.
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Tags:B110 bus, Brooklyn, bus segregation, ethics, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Melissa Franchy, New York World
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
October 21, 2011
The terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed 24 Turkish soldiers and wounded 18 Wednesday in simultaneous attacks in Hakkari province, southeastern Turkey, 1,200 miles from Istanbul.
This attack is the most serious in years, in a battle that’s been on and off since 1984. The violence has been confined to remote areas near the border with Iraq, where the PKK takes sanctuary. Areas favored by western tourists and travelers have been free of violence.
Turkey has a population of 79 million, of whom about 14 million are Kurds, a largely Sunni Muslim people with their own language and culture, which Turkish governments have feared and repressed for decades.
Why should Americans care about this? Because the violence threatens the peace of Turkey, a friend of the United States, a member of NATO, and the Middle East’s only functioning democracy, a secular one at that. And because most Americans who have visited Turkey, especially including me, have fallen in love with the country and with its people.
The roots of the conflict are many and I thought, hard to follow, until my friend Arzu Tutuk, who makes a living showing Westerners the wonderful attractions of Istanbul and other parts of Turkey, clarified it in this crisp and poetic fashion:
Remember how happy we were when the Kurds elected members in the Parliament back in June?
Erdogan’s party did everything they could to not admit these members.
Some are in prison.
What do these people want? Broadcast in Kurdish, name their kids Kurdish names (more…)
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Tags:Arzu Tutuk, ethics, Kurdish terrorists, Kurdistan Workers' Party, Kurds, PKK, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Sunni Muslims, Turkey, Turkish Parliament Kurdish
Posted in Ethics-general, International, Religion, Tolerance | 3 Comments »
August 29, 2011
Americans believe in fair play. That’s why we’re outraged when a ballplayer cheats. Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa went from American heroes to pariahs overnight when we discovered that they were juicing. That may be why voters switched from Kerry to Bush when we learned that The New York Times had used a forged document on the eve of the 2004 election to “prove” that President Bush had pulled family stings to escape being drafted for Vietnam.
Unfair play may account for some of Sarah Palin’s popularity, as we see her being treated shabbily by the media. And now the media seem set on building up sympathy for Michele Bachmann by distortions of her words.
Ironically, the disdain many rightfully feel toward Bachmann leads them to heap undeserved scorn on her, on top of the scorn her candidacy deserves. And this is helping her, not only with her right-wing base but also with moderate people who believe she’s being treated unfairly.
So some of the media are reporting that Bachmann blamed hurricane Irene on the big-government Democrats in—ugh—WASHINGTON, D.C. Here’s how it went at a widely covered campaign stop in Florida. (more…)
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Tags:2004 election, ABC, big government, CBS, CNN, D.C., ethics, fair play, forgery, hurricane Irene, Mark McGuire, Martin Bashir, media, Michele Bachmann, MSNBC, NBC-TV 4, President Bush, Sammy Sosa, Sarah Palin, St. Petersburg Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Nation, The New York Times., Time, Vietnam draft, Washington
Posted in Ethics-general, Media, Politics, Religion | 2 Comments »
August 28, 2011
Six days after the 9/11 attack on the United States, President George W. Bush went to the Islamic Center of Washington to publicly embrace Islam and, especially, American Muslims. He led Americans away from any idea of blaming Islam for the horror of 9/11. He repeated that theme over and over, making it a part of his second inaugural address, and returning to the Islamic Center for its rededication in 2007.
Bush’s healing message stands sadly in contrast to the ugly anti-Muslim rhetoric we hear lately from so many prominent Republicans, notably Newt Gingrich, Eric Cantor, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Peter King, and Frank Gaffney. To their credit Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have not joined in, but neither have they been very vocal in rejection of Islamophobia.
Ethics Bob never thought he’d be missing George Bush’s leadership, but on this issue he surely does. Bush’s statements are worth reading:
September 17, 2001, at the Islamic Center of Washington (complete remarks):
“Thank you all very much for your hospitality. We’ve just had a—wide-ranging discussions on the matter at hand. Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday’s attacks. And so were Muslims all across the world. Both Americans, our Muslim friends and citizens, taxpaying citizens, and Muslims in nations were just appalled and could not believe what we saw on our TV screens.
“These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s important for my fellow Americans to understand that. (more…)
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Tags:9/11 attack, American Muslims, anti-Muslim rhetoric, diversity, Eric Cantor, ethics, Frank Gaffney, George W Bush, Herman Cain, Islam, Islamic Center of Washington, Islamophobia. leadership, Koran, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Peter King, Republicans, Rick Perry, Rumi, Sermon on the Mount, Sinai, terrorists second inaugural address
Posted in Ethics-general, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
August 23, 2011
Athletic shoes used to be made in Massachusetts. Now they’re all made overseas; Nike’s come largely from Indonesia, where its workers* earn $4.00 per day, barely enough to pay rent, transportation, water, and two small bowls of rice and vegetables..
In the courses I teach on business ethics we wrestle with this question: is Nike’s behavior ethical? In Nike’s corner are those who believe what Milton Friedman wrote fifty years ago: that business’s only social responsibility is to increase profits while staying within the rules of the game. Their argument is buttressed by the fact that the workers take the jobs voluntarily, so they must think they’re better off than if they weren’t making Nikes.
On the other side of the argument are those who believe that it’s just not fair for Nike to sell a pair of shoes for $80 that cost roughly $16.25 to produce, including just $2.43 for labor. Were Nike to pay a decent wage to its Indonesian workers, say double the current rate, it would reduce its profit margin by only three per cent, from $63.75 per pair to $61.32.
One man, Jim Keady, has been hard at work for thirteen years selflessly trying to get Nike to treat its Indonesian workers decently. Jim has even lived in Indonesia on $4.00 per day to see if it’s really a “living wage.” It’s not.
Jim came by his passion to change Nike while studying theology at Saint John’s University, where he was fired from his job as assistant soccer coach (more…)
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Tags:athletic shoes, Business ethics, Christian charity, corporate social responsibility, ethics, Indonesia, living wage, Milton Friedman, Nike, Saint John’s University, swoosh, theology, Timberland
Posted in Business ethics, Ethics-general, International, Religion | 7 Comments »
August 18, 2011
When the Council on American-Islamic Relations recently wrote Congressman Allen West (R-FL), urging him to cut ties with “anti-Islamic extremists, they explained,
“Muslims protect and serve our great country and are afforded equal protection under law. We shouldn’t have to defend our rights to worship freely or participate in the governing of our society.”
Congressman West responded with one word, in what the Miami New Times reporter wrote “might be the dumbest thing ever written on congressional stationery.”
Thanks to the Facebook page, “Americans Against Islamophobia,” for spotlighting this ugliness.
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Tags:Allen West, Americans Against Islamophobia, anti-Islamic extremists, civility, Council on American-Islamic Relations, equal protection, ethics, Miami New Times, Muslims, religious freedom
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | 2 Comments »
August 4, 2011
Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) has been criticized for appointing Sohail Mohammed, an American Muslim, to a New Jersey superior court. Yesterday he defended Mohammed, using words like ignorant, crap, baloney, and crazy to describe Mohammed’s critics. His statement was strong and inspiring for its passion and plain English.
Defending Muslims as patriotic Americans, and ridiculing the notion that Sharia law is a threat to America, is sadly rare in today’s Republican Party. Christie is an up-and-coming Republican politician, and his spirited defense of an American Muslim appointee will cost him many friends on the Republican right. America badly needs leaders who will stand up—like Christie—to the extremists in their parties.
Thanks to Jack Marshall and his Ethics Alarms blog for anointing Christie an ethics hero.
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Tags:American Muslims, Chris Christie, ethics, Ethics Alarms, Ethics Hero, extremists, Jack Marshall, New Jersey superior court, plain English, Republican Party, Sharia law, Sohail Mohammed
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Religion, Tolerance | 1 Comment »
June 15, 2011
It feels awkward to praise in an ethics column somebody for showing simple decency, but considering today’s Republican candidates, simple decency is nothing to sneeze at.
So hooray for Mitt Romney for standing up for the rights of American Muslims. Romney dismissed the idea that Sharia law could ever be applied in American courts (“We have a Constitution”), and rejected Herman Cain’s position that Muslims should be singled out and treated differently (“We treat people with respect regardless of their religious persuasion.”)
By contrast, Cain and Newt Gingrich made it clear that they would be very reluctant to have any Muslims serve under them. The other participants, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul didn’t comment in the debate.
Bachmann has in the past shown suspicion toward American Muslims, while Santorum has stated that he considers Muslims to be as good American citizens as anybody. Paul has been downright heroic on this issue, blasting those in the conservative movement who use “hatred against Muslims to rally support.”
On another subject Paul earned praise from Ethics Alarms for his ethical and libertarian position on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. He was the only candidate to reject the policy.
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Tags:American Muslims, Constitution, decency, Don’t ask, don’t tell, ethics, Ethics Alarms, GOP debate, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republican candidates, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Sharia
Posted in Ethics-general, Government, Politics, Religion, Tolerance | Leave a Comment »
June 12, 2011
Turks went to the polls today in numbers that should make Americans blush: 44 million of 50 million registered voters, or 88 per cent.
The results should get two cheers from American friends of Turkey. The victory of the Justice and Development (AK) party was a foregone conclusion. AK got 49.9% of the vote and 325 seats, losing eleven seats from the current level.
But the critical issue for Turkey is what happens to the Turkish constitution, which was written by the Army after the 1982 military coup. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is committed to writing a new constitution. He hoped to capture two-thirds, or 367, of the seats in parliament, which would have allowed his party to write the new constitution by itself. Failing that he hoped for three-fifths, or 330, of the seats, which would have allowed the same unilateral drafting of a new constitution but subject to a popular referendum (which he would have been heavily favored to win). But on Sunday AK fell a little short of even the 330 threshold.
This matters for two reasons. First, AK is an Islamist party, and while many (more…)
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Tags:AK party, American friends of Turkey, democracy, Erdogan, imprisoning journalists, Islamist party, Justice and Development party, military coup, parliament, press freedom, Turkish constitution, Turkish election
Posted in Government, International, Religion | 2 Comments »
Muslims are jihadis. Muslims subjugate women. Muslims stone adulterers. Sound familiar? Perhaps as familiar as Jews are stingy and control the media, Irish are drunks and raise one child to be a priest or nun, and blacks are ignorant and want special treatment.
Ethics Bob 