to be worried my mother has turned into a bigot?

[tortoisehellOstrich]

my mother is pretty silly, despite being relentlessly "intellectual" in a rather prim head-girl-in-enid-blyton sort of way.

She just sent me this.

I have just been reading emails and a friend from tennis sent me a link to Youtube about the rise of the Muslim population in Europe, north America and Canada: rather interesting to ponder if one can believe the figures of an American Christian movement.

I'm afraid I jumped straight down her throat, asking her under what circumstances she could possibly think that any of what she had said would reflect well on her.

Man - I've had a horrible weekend with perfect DP suddenly seeming to be a lying cheating sod, and now my flipping mother turns into a racist......

doesn't make any sense to me, sorry

Sorry - should have said mother is a WASP. The implication is "those muslims are taking over OUR countries". She equates muslim with Taliban by the way....

She would never say anything in a million years about the damage WASPs have done to the world.

I think everyone has the potential to do damage, just as everyone has the potential to do good, but empirically WASPs have got away with rather a lot more damage in the last 1000 years...

i agree with riven

im thick whats a wasp?

I read that as her showing scepticism about the information she was sent rather than agreeing with it. I think what she is saying is "given that this information was put together by an American Christian movement, I wonder how anyone could believe it to be unbiased". Is this a likely interpretation given your knowledge of your mother?

Really sorry but what is a WASP, OP?

But totally with you. My mum is a bit of a bigot. I wind her up about it now. I told her yesterday that all of the money saved from public spending cuts were going to be spent on building a super-mosque in her town, just to prove to DH how terribly gullible she is about this type of thing...

WASP = White Anglo Saxon Protestant.

A term usually used by Americans, IIRC.

Sorry, but I don't see anything bigotted in what she wrote. I guess there must be a lot of back-story about her previous comments that make it insulting?

She has been sent a link about the rise in the Muslim population. Nothing inherently racist about that, it could just be an interesting piece about how lovely it is that we have become more multicultural over the years, couldn't it?

WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

white anglo saxon protestant.... it implies more about social behaviour than genetic origins or religious belief.

I had thought she was of the guardian-reading undiscriminating mildly selfish variety of wasp, but maybe i should update that to daily mail reading variety...

Eugh. That sounds a bit white supremacist-ish, IYSWIM...

Multiculturalism isn't something she regards as a virtue. So while i see that you could interpret it that way, no, given 35 years of backstory with my mother, sadly I doubt she's extolling the virtues of a mixed-religion society.

Despite the relentless intellectualism she wouldn't recognise diversity in the groups she lumps together into "muslim world" - they're all just women-oppressing osama bin ladens according to her.........

so I guess there is enough backstory for it to be a bit pointless me being shocked by this. It just does shock me that someone with a superb education and enough leisure time to read and think and talk to lots of people, would still come out with "THEY'RE TAKING OVER OUR WORLD".

Apparently I am a "bleeding heart" fluffy idiotic liberal, always taking on causes that I know nothing about.

Gee thanks mum.

I had thought I was an empiricist who refused to make decisions until i had a reasonable amount of data..........

Still, at least my reply did make her feel that her point of view was being challenged

well she probably does have a point - if you look at maps of the spread of Islam, thoroughout history it has been an extremely successful religion, has travelled well & has been taken up by many who were exposed to it's teachings. Rather like ......... what's that other religion called? Oh yes Christianity!

The 'OUR' world is irksome & tiresome isn't it?

I learned long ago not to start any conversations with my mother on religion, politics, sexual preferences. She goes on witheringly about 'single mothers' conveniently forgetting that I am one and, for someone who's own mother was mixed race, can do 'casual racism' even better than Nick Griffith. Lovely woman if you met her, would do anything for anyone, salt of the earth... just slightly right of Alf Garnett. Mad old bat.

(Griffin? Griffith? What's in a name?)

My mum comes out with a lot less bigoted nonsense since she stopped reading the Daily Mail. She's not bad really, just tends to believe what she reads in 'the paper'.

My dad forwarded me an email sent by one of his cronies with some crap about the Holocaust no longer being taught on the National Curriculum because of pressure from Muslims (the gist of the email was about Never Forgetting, but with a nasty undercurrent of Islamaphobia).

I replied to him in a < ahem > robust manner, asking him not to include me in any more of these round-robin things. Unfortunately I pressed Reply All - so it went to pretty much all his friends and relations

I think some people get scared an narrow-minded as they age

OTOH, I know a number who have mellowed and become happier when they get older

Why should you label your mother a racist ? Islam is a religion not a race. You said you "jumped down her throat" and then you disparaged the validity of some statistics quoted by an American Christian movement - isn't that bigotry on your behalf ?