to be a bit sick of the notion that we need to do things to ensure there is no division of muslim vs other?

[myoriginal3]

I don't hear about these attacks and then go about the place attacking anyone dressed in Muslim attire?
Why does everyone feel the need to tell us NOT to hate the muslim community?
I see no evidence of anyone actually doing this.
It's quite insulting to be honest. As if, because one man has committed a heinous act I would go around abusing all Muslims.
Give us some credit.

I see ISIS as a cult who are very adept at brainwashing vulnerable young men and women.

What I see as vital is identifying the most vulnerable people in society and engaging them...this means better mental health services and support. There are already organisations out there who will and do work with young people at risk of being radicalised.

The same with gangs....some excellent organisations doing fabulous work to help youngsters appreciate the dangers of becoming involved with gangs, kids like my DS who has learning difficulties are very vulnerable to manipulation.

Young men who follow Islam but are isolated for whatever reason are equally vulnerable to being groomed for extremism.

Obviously the final decision lies with the young person. Nobody MADE this young man go out with a backpack plucked with explosives. He made that final decision but I suspect he was years in the making with extremists encouraging him and dispelling his doubts all the way.

On the other hand, I would like the British Muslim community to look more inwardly into what it is about their religion that appeals to extremists.* *

Why should they? are we white people going to have a sit down and think about what we as a community can do about the white extremist hate that led to one of them killing Jo Cox? If we can accept that white nutters can do stuff that has nothing to do with us why can't we accept that Muslim nutters do stuff that has nothing to do with other muslims?

I moved from a very liberal, multi cultural part of south London to a rural part of the uk ten years ago. The racism and islamophobia here is rife, even on comments posted on the local news Facebook pages - and it isn't deleted. There are bubbles of the uk that have no idea how prejudiced other areas are.

It does royally piss me off OP. The second something like this happens my facebook page is full of long posts about how not all muslims are terrorists i.e handwringing apologists, and absolutely nothing about the victims.
Such people are not only desperate to flaunt their PC credentials rather than caring about any of the victims but also assume that the rest of us are complete morons who need to be told that "all muslims are not terrorists" when it's perfectly obvious that this isn't the case.
Everybody knows terrorists are in the absolute minority I don't need some numpty giving me lectures about it.

Gak need to edit that - we all know that all muslims are NOT terrorists.

OP you do realise not everyone thinks the same as you? Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist which is what your original post is implying. So yes yabu there is a need.

Because i got called a fing pki the other day when out with my 3 week old and 2 year old. By a man who slowed down his car beeoed his horn and flipped me the finger. Im not even of that originso it was a stupid comment. Im white british and muslim with a headscarf. Scared me nad with hormones walked all the way home in tears. Happened 3 times to me in 3 years. Always the same thing they say.... so people are obviously uneducated

I don't think OP means that AT ALL, I think like me she finds it annoying that people have to pop up all the time and state the obvious to make themselves look impressive.
You'd have to be a real fuckwit to believe that all muslims are terrorists so when someone tells me this I can only assume they are calling me a fuckwit and I find that highly offensive.

"Doesn't IS bear about the same relationship to Islam as the IRA did to Christianity?"

It wasn't much fun being an Irish Catholic at the height of the IRA bombing campaign.......

I've never been racially abused in america or the Uk so I should assume black people never get any abuse. (Even though I'm white)

I don't think the hard right or the hard left are particularly covering themselves in glory over this at the moment.

A perfectly normal friend of mine shared a meme of the rivers of blood speech after the Paris bombings. I (naively) assumed she didn't know the whole speech and tried to talk to her about it. No she meant it.

Also the quieter people are when abuse starts happening people assume the situation is changing in their favour. You create a space to be filled with hate.

You'd have to be a real fuckwit to believe that all muslims are terrorists so when someone tells me this I can only assume they are calling me a fuckwit and I find that highly offensive.

Yes but it's sometimes hard to distinguish the fuckwits from the normal people. I don't see why a message intended for thousands of people on social media or in the newspaper should specifically offend you. Unless people are coming up to you especially and telling you? Which is just weird.

Yes, when I see such messages I press like and share them.
I don't get offended.
Most people I know will too.

There it is...the difference between mermaid and jollypirates getting called something abusive is that mermaid 'assumed' these people were calling her a f*ckwit online, which she found offensive.
Yet, jollypirates was actually called a vile name in front of her DC, irl, reducing her to tears. Oh and this is not the first time it happened!
That 3 year old witnessed the division, but let's not talk about that as it makes OP sick!

Sorry 2 year old DC -

I think rather than the muslim community needing to look inward, the level of racism is what makes young British muslims vulnerable to recruitment by ISIS. I remember my friend's little brother celebrating the 9/11 bombings. His family were both furious and very concerned. He argued that he had no reason to care about white people who were racist - and sometimes violently - to him on a daily basis. He did, however, care about people he shared a religion with who were being killed in the Iraq war. We'd made him feel so unwelcome his whole life. Now he'd never have been violent himself - but if someone brainwashed him? And things have only got worse since then.

Everyone has a responsibility to be louder than the racists & to challenge them.

BertandRussell

My dad as a young man (with a snazzy tache) who frequently travelled between Dublin & London was pretty much always stopped at the airport & regarding with suspicion.

There was a lot of anti Irish/catholic sentiment at the time of the IRA. It's ignorant & not nice but I'm not sure how you stop people thinking this.

I agree with you.

After every attack the individuals who want to find an excuse to express their racism will use this - either in direct attacks or the casual racism that is more common.
To imagine that a comment like that from the powers that be is going to make a jot of difference is arrogance itself and to be honest never ring's true.

If they made comments that were truthful - ie the majority of people recognise this is a few individuals and for the minority that do not saying that any racism will not be tolerated and using these attacks as an excuse will be dealt with severely may make more sense

To me the way it is said now sounds so fake and not genuine

I work for an organisation that supports disabled people access the community. We have many muslim staff and service users who despite the beautiful weather are fearful of getting out and about due to the reactions of some people based on recent events. Its real and it happens so yes YAUBU.

OP,
these suggestions to not blame all muslims are clearly not aimed at you. They are aimed at people who do believe this, of which there are many. Someone who i am facebook friends posted a meme of a muslim woman on her phone, in a headscarf, walking over the westminister bridge past a victim lying on the ground. The meme suggested that this muslim woman didn't give a sh*t cos this is what muslim people are like ie. evil. I then posted another counter meme of a white person doing the same thing - this was not to suggest that all white people are bad but to show how people are using these images to fuel muslim hatred. Infact, both pictures were of people looking fearful and wanting to get to a place of safety.
When i post stuff suggesting this is not representative of muslims, it is aimed at those kind of people. Not people like you.

I rarely witness racism. I imagine thats because I'm white and live in a white area. Doesn't mean I'm ignorant enough to think it isn't a daily occurrence.

Why should they? are we white people going to have a sit down and think about what we as a community can do about the white extremist hate that led to one of them killing Jo Cox?

Actually the historian Tom Holland was interviewed by the BBC yesterday and made a very convincing case that actually the white European community had 'sat down' and thought about what it as a community could do. Although not in relation to Jo Cox, but in relation to the holocaust and empire. He argued that Europeans had completely reassessed their cultural underpinnings and dropped dominant ideas about racial and cultural superiority, nationalism, tribalism, etc, etc, etc.

The jist of his argument was very much that Islam as a whole still has dominant schools of thought which are othering, divide the world into us and them, good and bad, right and wrong and views Islam as a superior set of values and those outside of less worth and more deserving of hatred purely on the basis of their race or beliefs. And that this set of values is what is at it's most extreme producing extremist terrorists. It sounds very much like European attitudes in the 1930s.

He argued that Islam needs to have a process of assessing it's cultural underpinnings just like Europeans did post war and rejecting those that discriminate or push hatred.

I think he makes a very good point. Someone who doesn't want their children to marry white people or wants them to go to a segregated school and 'mix' or chooses not to interact with white neighbours or stereotypes white people as drunken fornicators might not be letting off bombs, but they're building a societal pattern of behaviour which produces some people who can't relate to those around them of a different race or with different beliefs as equal humans just as deserving of life and respect as people like them.

People show their true colours at a time like this and, while most people shine, some just reveal how nasty and ignorant they really are.

I was called a 'thicko' by some random man on Facebook, after I pulled him up on his comment that 'Islam isn't a real religion'. I deleted another person's comment because it contained the phrase 'tolerance gone mad' (is that even possible FFS)

One of my Muslim colleagues normally goes into Manchester on her day off as we live fairly close. Her brother rang her on Tuesday morning and asked her not to go as 'it's not safe'. As far as I can tell, she's too busy working and being a parent to bomb anyone, yet her life and the lives of people like her are being restricted due to fear over reprisals for the actions of an unhinged fanatic.