CNN contributor: "Sikhs 'unfairly targeted'"

[muriel_volestrangler]

Wow. If you can't get decent commentators, then don't get any at all, CNN.

Buzzfeed tweets: "CNN saying Sikhs "unfairly" targeted because they are mistaken for Muslims seems to imply it's fair to target Muslims"

CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor replies: "not what I was saying at all. Relating what experts have said why Sikhs have been targeted in the past."

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/cnn-sikhs-unfairly-mistaken-for-muslims

The CNN guy is full of shit. 'Unfairly' is a value judgement - not someone else's, but his - and he says it at least twice. And it implies that targeting mosques is not 'unfair'.

[winstars]

1. Been saying this since yesterday!!! It would be OK if they were Muslims? WTF!!!

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I was saying exactly this to my wife. A commentator said they were "the wrong target."

Who, then, pray, is the RIGHT target?

[pinto]

2. Great point.

[CBGLuthier]

3. The word inaccurately has too many syllables for an american audience.

I would say it is reasonable to call their targeting inaccurate.

Says a hell of a lot about this country that our bigoted hate monsters are too stupid and lazy to know the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. And a wjhole lot of them are now saying,

"Ragheads, all of them. Good riddance."

Sometimes we seem but a short distance from Germany 1933.

Other times it seems like we're already there.

[LiberalLoner]

26. Yup. :(

[awoke_in_2003]

36. We have a propaganda machine...

that would make Goebbels blush.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. If he'd stuck to 'mistaken', it would be OK

It is reasonable to report that they get mistaken for Muslims by the bigots. But when, in the same sentence, he describes that as 'unfair', it implies a similar attack on Muslims would not be 'unfair'.

Ignorance knows no bounds - in Britain, the house of a pediatrician was graffiti'd by people who couldn't tell the difference between that and a pedophile.

Just what is the truth? In August 2000, a female paediatrician consultant called Yvette Cloete was indeed labelled a "paedo" after a campaign by the News of the World to name and shame paedophiles in the community.

The incident took place in Newport, Gwent, not in Portsmouth (where there had been anti-paedophile protests after eight-year-old Sarah Payne was murdered) or London.

Dr Cloete returned from work at the Royal Gwent Hospital to find "paedo" spray-painted on her front door. Local police believe the graffiti was written by someone who confused her job title with the word paedophile.

It was no doubt a very distressing incident for Ms Cloete, who decided to move home shortly afterwards. But there is no evidence that a mob was involved or of any threats or incidents of physical pressure or violence.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4719364.stm

[Heather MC]

17. I don't think the shooter cared.

[Jackpine Radical]

41. That very well could be.

They hate everyone who is different form them. Jeez, even we Unitarians are k\Godless & different enough to provoke attacks from the hatemongers.

[Heather MC]

42. It's our own fault for not being born white gun toting men with wifebeater shirts, we ask to be

attacked. If god loved us we would all be bald white men with nothing better to do than shoot innocent people

[Jackpine Radical]

44. Hey, I'm an old, bald white guy.

And I have a pickup truck, own guns, and live in the country.

[Heather MC]

45. I am married to a bald white Military man with a pickup truck, but he doesn't

wear wife beaters I won't allow it!

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. like the hemophiliacs who are innocent victims of HIV

I guess the media has to differentiate between the deserving and the undeserving

[malaise]

7. 100% correct

This is disgusting

[msanthrope]

8. Who the fuck would be the 'fair' target? nt

[winstars]

10. Why Muslims of course!!! I gotta a bad feeling on how this is gonna play out on...

the MSM and it could get really stupid if what we are seeing in these early hours is any indication.

[Ghost Dog]

30. Stupid Fuckin' White Men of course.

Jeez.

[freshwest]

46. The newsreader had a Freudian slip.

[mountain grammy]

11. But I didn't mean it like that..

wahhhh! Our mainstream media continues to fail in their duty to present news and facts and maintain some shred of journalistic integrety. Wonder if they even realize their role in the decline of our democracy or if they're just too busy "looking good?"

[Spitfire of ATJ]

12. That echo chamber is going to pick this up

And some jerk out there will pick up on the message that it's okay to target Muslims.

Then again, there are those who will hear this as coming from the "Liberal Media" and think it's okay to target Sikhs too and consider it to be "thinking for themselves" or "going against the conspiracy".

[zeemike]

22. It's all part of our national madness.

sometimes I think we should check the watter for lead in right wing places.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

23. "Water" Try the AIR. A lot of those places are near coal fired power plants.

I get the feeling that's why West Virginia is so messed up.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

24. BTW: Check this out...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021080736#post146

[stockholmer]

40. not lead, fluoride

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

13. I'm sure the shooter THOUGHT he was targeting Muslims....

Six people dead because some dumbass flunked high school geography...

[Robyn66]

14. Don't you know there is a class of people its ok to target

Muslims, Doctors who perform abortions and IRS agents to name a few. Its disgusting. They didn't say the movie theater in Col was "unfairly targeted" just the FACT it was a TRAGEDY!

[Ganja Ninja]

15. I was channel surfing this morning looking for more info on this shooting.

My only choices were CNN & FOX. Pathetic to put it mildly.

[AlbertCat]

16. Who IS "fairly" targeted?

[allan01]

18. re:CNN contributor: "Sikhs 'unfairly targeted'"

condoleces to the familes . and anyone who is "different " is targeted.

[datasuspect]

19. are seeks terra muslins anyway?

didn't think so.

[pscot]

34. Closer to Bahai than Islam, I believe

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. "Never attribute to malice that which is explainable by incompetence"

It's the modern disease that people don't think much.

He used a stupid turn of phrase. That on its own is not evidence of malice toward Muslims.

He's incompetent. He should be fired for incompetence, not malice.

[arely staircase]

21. probably not what he meant

But probably a.Freudian slip that says a bit about him.

[dembotoz]

25. i live in milwaukee area and this type of coverage is rampant in the local media

and some of it brought on by the Sikhs themselves

sort of a we are peaceful we must have been mistaken for someone else kind of vibe.

who the someone else is?

pretty obvious

we should prob excuse some of this because hey some fool just shot up their church.

sad day

sad coverage

[cthulu2016]

27. When you think about it, we all do this with children

After the Oklahoma City bombing there was all that endless stuff about the "innocent" kids in the daycare center who had done nothing wrong.

As opposed to the federal government employees who one could understand blowing up???

And we get extra outraged about "senseless" crimes like beating someone to death for $22.00. They never specify the dollar figure that would make the crime sensible... $38? $146?

[AlinPA]

28. It sounds like he is copying Fox "news". That something they would say.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

29. It's a double edged statement.

It's technically correct in that Sikhs are not Muslims (although braindead idiots think they are) and by that false assumption, they have suffered as a result.

But it has the tendancy of being overread to assume that it would have been somehow more excusable had the shooting occurred at a Islamic mosque instead of a Sikh temple.

I doubt that was the intended purpose of the speaker, but whatever.

It reminds me a little of the Susan Smith situation where Smith had falsely claimed her children had been kidnapped by a black man. This seemed to stoke racial fires--white woman trotting out the scary black man stereotype. But the ultimate truth was that Smith had killed her own children and there had never been a kidnapping. Thus, it would not have been right for her to falsely claim that a white man kidnapped her kids, either.

It's a tricky line to walk.

[Douglas Carpenter]

31. I cannot help but wonder how the media and public would react if this had been a Mosque and it had

been Muslims who had been killed by this same gunman?

[Ghost Dog]

32. Search on entire thread reveals the term "towelheads"

referred to so far not once.

Well done, DU.

[ashling]

33. That was my first thought

Must have been like a mass murder gone bad

[YoungDemCA]

35. This is the kind of garbage that passes for commentary on CNN

What an asshole.

[elias7]

37. I disagree with most here

I don't read an implication that because Sikhs are unfairly targeted, that Muslims are fair game. I think they could realized the ambiguity in the statement before putting on air, but no one here is giving an inch.

[JI7]

38. There was a Sikh guy on with Don Lemon yesterday who responded to these type of comments

he said how it woulodn't be ok even if they were Muslim. he used better words but i was glad to hear it.

[marble falls]

39. Insightfull point. Its not alright to target any class of people.

[DFW]

43. Someone saw the film "Inside Man"

The NYPD mistaking a Sikh for an Arab is exactly what happens in a scene from Spike Lee's film.

[JHB]

47. Back during the Iranian hostage crisis these nuts would target anyone who fit their bill...

...which covered a lot of people, including Iranian Christians who were here in the first place because they were fleeing the Khomeini regime.

They don't care about the details, it's all people they hate anyway.

[PavePusher]

48. Tempest, you need a bigger tea-pot.

Yeah the guy chose his phrasing poorly; impromptu speaking can do that to anyone.

I have seen no evidence of malice involved. If someone has some, please present it.

And if you want to fire him for this, you'll have to fire all talking heads everywhere, on every network.

Heh, that might actually be a good thing....