From the Minnesota Star Tribune:
[…] Consider some less-talked-about signs of accommodation: Minneapolis Community and Technical College is poised to become the state’s first public school to install a foot-washing basin to help the school’s 500 Muslim students perform pre-prayer rituals. “We want to be welcoming,” MCTC President Phil Davis said, noting a student was hurt trying to wash in a regular sink.
Several nights a week, dozens of immigrants – mostly Somali women – also fill up classrooms at the Volunteers of America Education Center in Minneapolis. They learn English, math and history en route to high school diplomas
Meanwhile, places such as the Karmel Center, a mall off Lake Street in Minneapolis, are thriving with Somali shops, computer schools, sweet-smelling restaurants and a mosque where hundreds of men gather for their daily communal prayers.
Ah yes! The fragrances of immigrant cultures—a fall-back purple prose trope trotted out by multiculturalist-friendly reporters whenever they are hoping to paint the picture a Tolerance Utopia, one that is being foiled by the distrust and bigotry of unenlightened, nativist xenophobes.
Don’t buy it. Sure, there are plenty of people whose mistrust of insular Muslim communities springing up in the midst of their cities is grounded in prejudice and hate; but this doesn’t mean, of course, that mistrust is necessarily engendered by such things. For instance, one need only look at the problems in areas of Europe where multiculturalism has held social and legislative sway to develop a mistrust based on nothing other than empirical analogues—so it is dishonest to suggest that what is preventing a happy commingling of cultures is merely trifling cultural and religious differences coupled with the nearly inveterate intolerance of vulgar Americans.
Too, be wary of words like “accommodation”—which is often (though not always) offered as a euphemism for granting privileges to the Other that would not ordinarily be granted to those in the dominant culture.
And here, we see just such a ploy: a state public school offering a footwashing basin to “accomodate” the religious rituals of Muslims—precisely the kind of separation of church and state “violation” the ACLU tends to rush to have quashed, and that major newspaper editorial writers tend to use as an opportunity to break Jeffersonian authority (which, conveniently in these instances, isn’t damaged by his relationship with Sally Hemmings).
Powerline’s Scott Johnson takes note of this media love of exoticism, writing:
The Star Tribune can get unusually exercised about church/state separation. I doubt that the merger of mosque and state will even be pointed out as such—[article writer Curt] Brown notes it as a “sign of accommodation”—let alone raise any alarms on the editorial page. Indeed, if they take notice, I think the editors will celebrate it in the spirit of Brown’s description of it as an “accommodation.”
To the progressive mindset, there is nothing more ennobling than their own perceived open-mindedness and “tolerance”—a “virtue” that they tend to guard ferociously by (ironically) vilifying those who don’t adhere to the same selective notion of tolerance that they do.
And that is because the progressive mindset is not about tolerance so much as it is about forced “equality”—a dehumanizing and destructive attempt to construct a society whose dominant philosophical impulse will enforce the legislating away of real difference in steps by doing away with power differentials, “dominant” cultural attributes, “Truth” as something that exists outside of contingency, etc. Similarly, it revels in its own embrace of boutique multiculturalism—which is, at base, a narcissistic impulse, especially inasmuch as it is embraced as a way to mark one as enlightened, open-minded, and “continental.”
Intellectual rigor demands that those who oppose, say, “Under God” in the Pledge, would likewise look upon government sanctioned footwashing basins with some suspicion.
Personally, I’m not bothered by the “accommodations” so long as they are applied equally to differing religious groups. But then, I’ve never believed the Establishment Clause was meant to keep Church and State artificially separated so much as it was written to prevent the Establishment of a particular state religion.
So I don’t really have much of a dog in this fight—other than noting that I’d like to see some consistency from the multicultural warriors, who tend to be the same people who gasp at crosses appearing on state crests, even when they are merely historically indexical in nature.
(h/t CJ Burch; see also, Katherine Kersten’s “Sharia in Minnesota?”, WSJ)
I’m wondering how to get a set of communion platters and a portable babtistry inserted into the budget at my local juco. Anybody have any ideas?
Free tickets back to raghead land.
Reminds me of the old joke of a guy breaking a leg when raking leaves—he fell out of the tree.
I’m inclined to let the Mohammedeans have their foot basin if, for no other reason, it keeps their damn feet out of the face basin.
Any avoidance of injury is, of course, pure bonus.
I think our enlightened writers at the Minnesota Star of the female variety should accomodate their muslim brothers and sisters by covering their faces in public, refraining from speaking, and staying at their homes until given further instruction by whatever male happens to be in their vicinity
Hmm. Stations of the cross in a public school gymnasium?
It has been variously observed that the left (stereotype alert) don’t actually have principles.
The constant selectivity of tolerance would seem to indicate that this is true.
On the one hand it is not entirely unheard of for institutions of higher learning to have religious facilities of one sort or another – though they are controversial. Well, controversial unless they’re…
On the other hand, there is an ongoing problem with schools and Islam – the famously reported “Islam classes” in California (and New York, and elsewhere), for example, where non-Muslim students role-played Islamic prayers and were even led in recitations of Shahada, which effectively means they “joined” Islam (according to Islamic tradition).
Obviously if that behavior was mirrored with Catholics or Baptists, there would be lawsuits, and screaming, and daytime TV shows…
I’m beginning to think that “modern liberalism” (does Marx qualify as modern? Gramsci? Fabian?) or whatever you want to call the movement is like a cultural autoimmune disease.
I suggest that the basins be kept in glass cases like the cross in the Wren Chapel.
<blockquote>…the state’s first public school to install a foot-washing basin…blockquote>
We had those for the Iranians back when I went to college. They especially liked how if you pressed the chrome handle in the back it automatically rinsed them for you.
Hmmm.
Don’t Christians need a full-on baptismal tub in case a bunch of infidel unbelievers decide to join on up?
Or how about upscaling it and going for a nice big jacuzzi.
With a built-in mini-bar?
And a creche or an easter parade is proof of a theocracy, how?
So, I’m pretty much with you in terms of the principles you’re expressing and your elucidation of progressive tactics. You kinda lost me early on in this post, though, because it seems like you’re highlighting a rather mild example of cultural “accomodation”. The footwashing basin, in particular, seems more pragmatic than anything else, as Kirk pointed out.
Nothing else in the passage you quote comes off, to me at least, as a particularly egregious or dangerous example of the progressive multiculturalist mindset. Certainly not deserving, in and of itself, of the apparent vehemence of your response. In fact, the article mentions Somali women going to school to learn English – a practice which appears to fly in the face of the multi-lingualist component of multiculturalism.
All I’m trying to say is that it seems like there are far more illustrative examples of the dire consequences of the multi-culti mindset, some of which I’ve seen discussed here in the past. Am I missing something about this particular case? Not trying to be obtuse or contrarian here.
I wish I could draw on the internet. Well I wish I draw at all, but that’s neither here nor there.
It would be neat to do a cartoon of a modern school facilities building with the signs over each of the necessary doors.
A simple cross, a star of David, (or star of Saint David as I heard a particularly witless sports commentator refer to it in re of the England – Israel football match last week), a load of squiggles, (cos you can’t have pictures), a load of squiggles and a bomb vest, (for the more seriously religious), a picture of a dinosaur, etc, etc.
I personally would be torn between the large question mark and the picture of a raddled, half-naked, Italian woman.
All I have to say is, Penis Mud Packs.
“The footwashing basin, in particular, seems more pragmatic than anything else, as Kirk pointed out.”
Why is allowing one accomodation for one religion granted on grounds of pragmatism? When and where did that ever pertain? The reason is that no reasonable person wants others sticking their feet into sinks or drinking fountains? That’s not a practical accomodation; that’s staving off what would constitute unruly behavior by anyone not of the ROP.
If I stuck my foot into a drinking fountain, I then have the right to demand changes/additions to plumbing fixtures?
If I decide that a fountain now had to be periodically used for holy water, would one then be roped off for my use?
If a non moslem decided to use this new foot fountain (!?!) would moslems then have the right to complain that it’s been rendered unclean? This is the reason we’ve been told that a simple prayer is forbidden in schools; supposedly persons have been ravaged by an onslaught of prayer.
This is no different from the imagined need to cover the face when an ID photo is taken. It’s not permitted in most moslem countries, is of recent origin, and it ignores precisely how moslems have somehow managed to stagger through the American eductation system without bursting into flames.
Also known as assault and blessing.
All’s I know is that it was 81 degrees and sunny here in St. Paul yesterday. All this “Islamic Invasion” stuff is gonna have to wait ‘til October, ‘cuz most of us are gonna be up at the lake for the next several months.
TW: I’m very52 eager to get back out on the water again. Ice fishing just isn’t the same.
On the other hand, there is an ongoing problem with schools and Islam – the famously reported “Islam classes†in California (and New York, and elsewhere), for example, where non-Muslim students role-played Islamic prayers and were even led in recitations of Shahada, which effectively means they “joined†Islam (according to Islamic tradition).
Do you know what would happen in Salt Lake City or Denver or Phoenix if there were “Mormon classes” held where students role-played Mormon religious practices? Would you like to see the ACLU break the sound barrier on foot?
When I was at Cornell, my colleagues in the department went out of their way to make sure there were fruit juices along with the wine at the social gatherings for me and the other Mormon. I could tell how incredibly pleased they were that they could be so tolerant and inclusive of the exotic Mormons from far-away Utah. (Exotic despite the fact that Mormonism had its birth about a half-hour drive from Cornell.)
But they were singularly incurious about my actual beliefs. I guess they didn’t want to have to learn anything they “already knew” just in case they had a hard time tolerating it.
“it seems like you’re highlighting a rather mild example of cultural “accomodation”
when did the ROP become a culture!?! Did it somehow transform itself from a religion to a culture? If so, how? When?
And where’s Amanda Marcotte when we need her? She should be doing something useful, like loading up the footie fountains with her patented “white, sticky stuff” or laser beam toting sharks, or something.
Perhaps we can tell her that the footie fountains are actually baptismal fonts and that all the girls will be forcibly enslaved by the Christofascists. The ROP will find her wielding a sledge after third period (I had to get a period reference in there somehow)and we can stand back and sell tickets.
About the same time it became a race, apparently.
Nah. Just spread the rumor that they’re actually bidets.
I fill their coffee cups with piss when I find where they hide them in the bathroom.
Stupid Brown People.
Stupid moby.
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Sure, Jim, but do they work in Hmong?