This is a vent. This is only a vent.
I will first have to admit to being in a pissy mood due to circumstances unrelated to blogging. As much as I try, though, I cannot set aside the external situations for blogging. Perhaps this pissy mood has made me extra sensitive.
Those who read my blogs regularly know I run about 80% op/ed in my posts. When I do put something out as fact, though, I try very hard to find solid, objective information as a foundation of my piece.
And such it was with my blog on the hard facts of Islam and terrorism. I KNOW places where I could have found very biased research to show that the average Muslim is a murderous thug, but I avoided those places, because I wanted a true objective analysis. And I stand by what I provided in the final cut. While it may not have been as thorough as some like, it did bring out some interesting research and challenges. Furthermore, it actually painted a picture of Islam that is far less violent than we have been led to believe.
I did not rally anyone to violence against Islam, in fact, in one of my replies, I noted that terror attacks were undertaken by about .0001% of the Muslim population; and mentioned that, if compared to the US population, it would be about the same as a church of 300 undertaking terrorist attacks.
And then comes the flame.
A new blogger, apparently under the impression that the best way to make a name for himself is to attack all of us other bloggers, denounces me as a bigot, very publicly and very specifically (by linking the article in his blog).
Folks, I don't care what mood I'm in, that's a charge that stings. Because nothing could be further from the truth.
And so, I thought, what sort of defense do I rally? I could point him to the fact that I was spending 10 hours a week writing letters for Amnesty International while most of my peers were trying to beat "Pitfall". I could point him to the fact that I stood up against the School of the Americas in 1985, when most people didn't know what that WAS. I could point him to the fact that I worked very hard within my school to raise concern for the wrongness of apartheid throughout much of my junior and senior years in high school. I could point him to literally dozens of things I have done in about 20 years as an activist to COMBAT the very bigotry of which I have been accused.
But, I realized, it would be pointless. He has judged me off of a small percentage of my work, without speaking with me and understanding my position.
Am I the only one that sees the irony here?