Local Hate Crime - Columbus Mosque Attack

[Henny]

LOCAL HATE CRIME: COLUMBUS MOSQUE ATTACK
http://www.wsyx6.com/newsroom/oh/topstory/topstory3.shtml

It's a crime that deeply concerns the Muslim community and the worshipers in central Ohio.

The Columbus police report called it a biased attack on Muslim men leaving a mosque after prayer during the Ramadan season, a holy times of year for people of the Muslim faith.

Friday night, as two worshipers were leaving the mosque after prayers a group of young men started swearing at them. The suspects then threw rocks and bottles at the victims, hitting one person, and shattering a glass door.

Spokesmen for the Ohio Council on American Islamic Relations, Ahmad Al-Akhris and Romin Iqbal, say the mosque is certainly a target. Police have recorded these crimes as actual hate crimes and will prosecute.

It's coming on the evening of Ramadan: giving, sharing, feeling the suffering of everybody, its considered is a special month of prayer.

Al-Akris says more people are going to the mosque to pray because of the month of Ramadan and he says people should be able to pray in peace. The spokesmen call upon all people of all faiths, catholic, jewish, christian, muslim, to condemn this act.

Detectives in the Strategic Response Bureau are investigating the assault, but have no suspects so far.

Last Updated: Tuesday, September 18 2007, 05:26 PM

[Michael Tee]

I'm getting the feeling that the Muslims are the new Jews.  If the local police are unable or unwilling to protect them from shit like this, they had better learn to protect themselves.

[Lanya]

 I hadn't heard about this. 
I'm very worried about it. It seems like this country is going into darkness.

[Amianthus]

LOCAL HATE CRIME: COLUMBUS MOSQUE ATTACK

Hmm, Ohio must be in the racist south as well.

[Michael Tee]

<<I'm very worried about it. It seems like this country is going into darkness.>>

You got THAT right.  And no surprise either, considering the current leadership.

[Michael Tee]

<<Hmm, Ohio must be in the racist south as well.>>

Borders Kentucky, if I recall.  Huh.  I just can't understand why racism doesn't stop dead at the state line.

[Amianthus]

Borders Kentucky, if I recall.  Huh.  I just can't understand why racism doesn't stop dead at the state line.

Ahh, yes. Kentucky. One of the Union states that fought against the Confederacy.

And your point was?

[Lanya]

Race-based legislation in the North
1807 - 1850
...............

The situation in what was then the northwest region of the country was even worse. In Ohio, the state constitution of 1802 deprived blacks of the right to vote, to hold public office, and to testify against whites in court. Over the next five years, more restrictions were placed on African Americans. They could not live in Ohio without a certificate proving their free status, they had to post a $500 bond "to pay for their support in case of want," and they were prohibited from joining the state militia. In 1831 blacks were excluded from serving on juries and were not allowed admittance to state poorhouses, insane asylums, and other institutions. Fortunately, some of these laws were not stringently enforced, or it would have been virtually impossible for any African American to emigrate to Ohio.

from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2957.html

[Amianthus]

Thanks for supporting my claim that many northern states are just as, or more, racist than the southern states.

[Amianthus]

Borders Kentucky, if I recall.  Huh.  I just can't understand why racism doesn't stop dead at the state line.

Oh yeah, Ohio has a border with Canada as well, Ontario specifically. Does that mean that Canada is racist as well, since it doesn't stop at the state line?

[Michael Tee]

I guess by the time it's spread from the South through to the Ontario border, what's coming across is a pretty thinly-diluted solution.  But, yeah, some of it spreads here.  We fight it, though.  We have ARA (Anti-Racist Action) and other programs.

[_JS]

Canada still has trouble resolving issues with the First Nations, especially concerning land claims.

Though, I'd still say they have gone further in that area than we have.

But racism is alive and well in many parts of Canada, especially in some of the right wing parties that had success in the last election.

[Michael Tee]

Well, quite frankly, I hadn't realized Kentucky fought on the Union side.  So I have to thank Ami for that information.   

I always thought of Kentucky as the South.  I spent a night in Newport once, across the river from Cincinnati, and I was CONVINCED I was in the South.  There was nothing northern about Newport.  Even Wikipedia says:

The Commonwealth of Kentucky (IPA: /kənˈtʌ.ki/) is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is normally included in the group of Southern states (in particular the Upland South), but it is sometimes included, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest.[3]

I guess fighting for the Union isn't the only thing that makes a state northern or southern.  When the culture and mores are what they are, it really doesn't matter what they did in the Civil War.  That's a pretty artificial and technical way of looking at things.   Geographically and culturally, Kentucky IS the South.  Even the state song was written by Stephen Foster, for God's sake.  How South can you go?

[Amianthus]

Geographically and culturally, Kentucky IS the South.

Geographically, everything south of the Mason-Dixon line is "South," basically anything south of Pennsylvania.

Which includes a lot of real estate that is not considered "southern" by most.