[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

This is where the distinction lies though Brillo;

I personally have no problem at all with you criticising the religion of Islam, or any other religion. I *do* have a problem with you assuming that all or most people with a "middle eastern appearance or middle eastern sounding name" are hardcore Muslims, or necessarily Muslims at all... and you do / have done that in the past.

Muslims can be Middle Eastern, Black, White, Central Asian, South-East Asian... there are 25 million Chinese Muslims... etc.

There are also plenty of people "of middle eastern appearance" who are of other religions or non-religious - especially those who now live in Western countries. There are almost 1 billion followers of Hinduism in India and I would bet a significant amount that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between someone from India (Hindu) and someone from Pakistan (Muslim) or the Middle East in a line-up...


So this is where your argument has always fallen flat and - you might notice - the ONLY times I have accused you of outright racism. NOT when you criticise Islam... but when you ASSUME people's culture or religion, based on how they look or where they are from, before you know anything more about them. That is racial prejudice... by simple definition... which is synonymous with racism.

[edited to add] Again though, I genuinely don't think that this is something that you do deliberately... it seems to usually be an honest conclusion that you come to. But a misguided one in my opinion. My only (I'm sure unwanted) advice would be to try to reserve judgement until there's enough information to make one without assumptions. But that's advice we could all do to take, I suppose, including myself.

...I was just thinking would there be a debate/news story section if we all waited to ‘judge’ as news stories that are ongoing in their conclusions is a large part of it .....people ‘judge’, that’s what humans do...some more than others, but that’s going to be inevitable as well..as is some being more vocal than others etc...anyways, the main thing I wanted to say in support of Brillo..is that some posts may be open to questioning etc...but from the very small snapshot I’ve had of the forum over the last while...she really has quite a lot thrown at her which is very uncomfortable...not questioning a specific posts but specific, deliberate personal insults...it’s hard to really question things that have been questioned in the thread topic if we can’t all even treat each other with respect ...that’s not directed to you personally btw TS..but yeah, some of the personal stuff said to Brillo at times is quite awful and grim...