No, Michelle Malkin isn't a racist. Not at all. Nope. Just because she objects to Rachael Ray wearing a scarf in a now-pulled Dunkin' Donuts commercial that is, apparently, a keffiyeh. And what is a keffiyeh? According to Malkin, it
How noble of Malkin to complain about "anti-American political correctness" while simultaneously enforcing her own kind of political correctness, such as the implied anti-Palestinian biasthat the Palestinians are just terrorists and not also victims. But Rachael Ray looks like an Arab terrorist and thus appears to be a Palestinian sympathizer - and so is Dunkin' Donuts, by extension. And she has a point when she says that people since would be upset if a commercial spokesperson wore a KKK hood, people are right to be offended by a symbol of "murderous jihad." But that's all a dodge. The real issue underlying Malkin's own political correctness is the denial of Palestinian victimhood, that the Palestinian people are suffering. Under the prevailing narrative, Israel must not be criticized, and any expression of sympathy with the Palestinians is tantamount to criticizing Israel. As Chris Hedges wrote in describing the effects of Israel's security wall:
Yet this branding is precisely what Malkin and like-minded folk aim to achieve. To those of us not prone to seeing demons everywhere, this whole hoopla is rather silly. Look at the picture for yourself. But the reason pundits like Malkin are so successful in getting their warped message across is because they don't waste any opportunity, big or small, serious or silly, in getting it out there.
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On an unrelated note, Bob Cesca's blog really is goddamn awesome. Go!
is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not so ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities and left-wing icons.(Oh, those rascally left-wing icons. They just gotta have that "hate couture," eh?)
How noble of Malkin to complain about "anti-American political correctness" while simultaneously enforcing her own kind of political correctness, such as the implied anti-Palestinian biasthat the Palestinians are just terrorists and not also victims. But Rachael Ray looks like an Arab terrorist and thus appears to be a Palestinian sympathizer - and so is Dunkin' Donuts, by extension. And she has a point when she says that people since would be upset if a commercial spokesperson wore a KKK hood, people are right to be offended by a symbol of "murderous jihad." But that's all a dodge. The real issue underlying Malkin's own political correctness is the denial of Palestinian victimhood, that the Palestinian people are suffering. Under the prevailing narrative, Israel must not be criticized, and any expression of sympathy with the Palestinians is tantamount to criticizing Israel. As Chris Hedges wrote in describing the effects of Israel's security wall:
But this branding of these militants as something less than human, as something that reasonable people cannot hope to understand, is possible only because we have ignored and disregarded the decades of repression, the crushing weight of occupation, the abject humiliation and violence, unleashed on Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel because of our silence and indifference.
Yet this branding is precisely what Malkin and like-minded folk aim to achieve. To those of us not prone to seeing demons everywhere, this whole hoopla is rather silly. Look at the picture for yourself. But the reason pundits like Malkin are so successful in getting their warped message across is because they don't waste any opportunity, big or small, serious or silly, in getting it out there.
****
On an unrelated note, Bob Cesca's blog really is goddamn awesome. Go!
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