To be sick to death of being told to not confuse terrorists with Muslims on every social media/discussion site

[Elsmom]

Erm yes... I'm not thick, I do know this. It's condescending, patronising and presumptuous. I actually think based on the lives of my Muslim neighbours and friends that there hasn't been this presumed outpouring of islamophobia and Muslims are not suffering due to the attacks in Paris at all? We, most of society can be trusted to make the distinction between terrorists and Muslims. Just sick of being lectured everytime I log onto anything!

You may not be that dumb but based on sales of the sun many are.

YNBU

As said above, you might well be able to make that distinction but a lot of people simply can't.

All the people trying to blow me up in the 1980s were Christian or Atheist. Did I ever hear about their religion? Did I bollocks. You might not need reminding but lots of people do.

But I think most people actually can. I honestly do not know anybody who has reacted in this way. All of my friends, family, work colleagues and neighbours of various faiths and ethnicities have enough about them to be level headed about the Recent atrocities. But it seems that all of society are being accused of not being able to make the distinction when actually I think it's a very small minority and I'm bombarded by lectures all day long about how I shouldn't blame the whole Muslim community when I don't actually know antibody that does!

if you're hanging out on sites where people say "muslim doesn't equal terrorist", it's probably not surprising that you don't know anyone who blames the whole Muslim community. But there's a whole world out there.

I think it, and most prejudice, is a lot more subtle than that. Not thinking every Muslim is a terrorist is one thing, but ask any beardy, brown bloke you know if he gets looks when he gets on a bus with a backpack. Ask any woman who wears a veil if some people are a little less friendly after terrorist attacks.

Like it or not the words Muslim and terrorism have become linked. In a way that didn't happen with the IRA and Christianity.

Nope that's not it. I'm talking about general everyday sites... Inc Facebook and last time I typed "Muslim doesn't = terrorists on google that didn't come up. And yes I do happen to know there is a whole world out there I'm not talking from some privileged little cut off world and besides I live in birmingham (see Fox News ??)

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30777841

Well, being one of those people making such postings, maybe we are preaching to the converted. Unfortunately I listen to BBC radio 4 and it makes it sound like all Muslims are a danger to society, while in France there have been several attacks on mosques since the Charlie killings.

All the people trying to blow me up in the 1980s were Christian or Atheist. Did I ever hear about their religion? Did I bollocks. You might not need reminding but lots of people do.

Does this mean you did hear or you didn't? Can't figure it out. Because from my point of view you definitely did hear plenty about their religion.

To be honest I don't think any non Muslim is in a position to say that islamophobia doesn't exist.

Of course islamophobia exists and I'm not saying it doesn't, I abhor it. My point is that many people's first reaction to terrorist atrocities is to assume that the whole of society is suddenly going to tremble at sight of a Muslim and start all sorts of prejudice behaviour. I think society as a whole deserves a bit more credit. Those posting these sort of lectures aren't exactly going to convert the extreme far right and just insult the rest of society who in my experience aren't as bloody stupid as the poster thinks. I kind of get the feeling that the type of people posting these things has some superior notion they are far more liberal and have much more insight than the masses. Maybe I'm wrong? However I live in a large multicultural city and I just don't see this, and have not been told this by Muslim friends. Correct me if I'm wrong!

Canyouforgiveher I don't remember the Baader-Meinhoff (sic) being repeatedly called 'Atheist terrorists' or the IRA constantly having news articles sandwiched with stuff about Catholic teachings about abortion (in the way you see 'Sharia Law' constantly in the same news sources as ISIS/IS and Syria). The IRA were referred to as the IRA, not as Catholic terrorists. Catholicism (actually Christianity because no one is making intelligent distinctions between Sunni and Shiite either) wasn't suspicious and scary. People weren't marching against Christianity. Catholicism wasn't seen as the root of the terrorism; instead the history, poverty and territorialism/colonialism were.

There are some parallels; my parents had a NI car reg at the time and they got stopped a LOT by Police.

If you look at most of the media coverage on the situation I think you'll find that the islamophobia is indeed in full force.

If you look at most of the media coverage on the situation I think you'll find that the islamophobia is indeed in full force

This

From what I see of comments on facebook, some people understand the fine distinctions perfectly but certainly a lot of people on the BBC have no understanding whatsoever and they are supposed to be the experts.

I think that islamophobia is alive and kicking. It has to be remembered that Britain First has over a half million followers on Facebook. To put that into context at least one in hundred people in the UK needs telling that not all Muslims are terrorists. (Half a million people and possibly their families is a lot of intolerant idiots)

Extremism exists in every religion and culture on earth. White extremism is no better than Islamic state.

www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-30780965 Possibly the fact that the massive arse media mogul Rupert Murdoch thinks all Muslims are responsible might explain some of this...

You seem to be very annoyed by this, and taking it way too personally.

I don't feel the need to start a thread saying that I feel patronized by people pointing this distinction out - I simply agree with them, and go about my business.

Odd.

Why on earth are you insulted by this? If you are not stupid enough to be racist/prejudist because of terrorism then that's good, the 'lectures' aren't aimed at you, they're aimed to help people who are being victimised.

I think I know where you're coming from, OP.

My Facebook news feed, for example, is full of this kind of thing. Political cartoons, quotations, general musings on the topic. It starts to seem as if they're all trying to outdo each other in public displays of support for 'everyday Muslims'.

Thing is, it's a bit like the 'Because SCIENCE' and 'Atheism rocks' posts. They're more about people pinning a badge on themselves, than about actually educating anybody. I'm pretty sure all of their FB friends are educated, politically-left people in the first place, so they're preaching to the converted.

It's all pretty harmless, but I do agree that it starts to feel patronising.

Yy Koala. It's superficial and also it trivialises other events such as the horrors going on in Nigeria.

In addition to that I would guess that a lot of the people posting these things have deep down provincial conservative history themselves and it's their way of dissociating with that. A lot of the people that I know that do this certainly didn't grow up in a multicultural city.

It comes across as fear of being seen as an outsider or something. Either way, it says more about themselves than it does about anything else. Post once. Fine.

I let vegetarians off the hook though.

Elsmom - I suspect that most of the people you know can indeed differentiate without being told.

But there is a substantial proportion of the population who quite possibly can't. Bear in mind that the IQ of 100 is the AVERAGE IQ of the population. That means there are a lot of people with an IQ of less than 100 who don't have the thinking/analytical capacity that you do, and who may well just believe everything they read in their propaganda-organ of choice.

The IRA may not have been regularly described as Catholic terrorists but then their terror campaign was nothing to do with Catholicism, whereas there is a link between the current campaign and Islam (if only in the minds of the extremists). The IRA were routinely referred to as Irish terrorists though, and many Irish people were verbally abused (or worse) in the mainland UK because f it.

Judging by the reaction of people round here, YABU.