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It’s gross to choose Ilhan Omar here as your throwaway example. Omar gets dumped on all day every day by a parade of disingenuous GOP-partisan bullies who are e

It’s gross to choose Ilhan Omar here as your throwaway example. Omar gets dumped on all day every day by a parade of disingenuous GOP-partisan bullies who are essentially indifferent to her words and actions, but feel profoundly threatened by the mere presence of a young, African, Muslim, refugee woman in a position of power. Though she grew up in a really tough situation and has worked hard to overcome it, she does not make herself out to be a victim. She has strong principles and can sometimes overstate her case, but from what I can tell she listens carefully, genuinely wants to help people, and is doing everything she can to make positive change. I have watched a lot of congressional hearings in the past few years, and Omar is more careful, more prepared, and more serious than the vast majority of her GOP colleagues.

cornel_io 6y ago
I dump on Omar and the rest of the squad as a middle-left Democrat for the sole reason that they are costing the left many centrist voters who otherwise agree with us. I also think that the extreme stuff that they push is actually bad and would hurt people. It's fine to be an extremist, I am as well along some axes. But it is just dumb to think that everyone who is not as extreme as you is a Republican/fascist/communist/white supremacist/critical race theorist. Worse, it hurts your cause by tainting the center-ey people who can actually get things done with the stink of rabid activism.
- cloudfifty 6y ago
  They are not extremists.
rayiner 6y ago
I’m not dumping on Ilhan Omar. I’m dumping on the mostly white people in the media who have made her, in my dad’s words, “the face of American Muslims.” She has views that are far outside the mainstream for American Muslims, particularly with respect to social issues and activism. She’s welcome to have whatever politics she wants—it’s America! But it’s wrong for the media to amplify her as if she is representative of Muslims in America as a whole. This is a problem with progressives, which have disproportionate power in the media, and academia. As a group (for example Elizabeth Warren supporters) they’re as disproportionately white as the Republican Party. But they trade on the moral authority of purporting to speak for people of color. To that end, they amplify voices like Omar and Tlaib, whose politics are indistinguishable from those of secular white progressives, and not representative of Muslims. There are probably more Muslims who voted for Trump (about 1/3) then ones who are as extreme in their politics as Omar and Tlaib. This pisses odd people like my parents, who are typical Muslim voters (moderate socially conservative Democrats). It’s particularly problematic when, as the OP points out, whites people are judged differently for amplifying the voices of someone like Omar or Tlaib versus the voice of one of the many Muslims who voted for Trump. It suppresses conservatism within the community—progressive Muslims can count on getting tenure, getting in CNN, because white people are allowed to agree with and amplify them. But when conservative Muslims speak, white people are afraid to agree, and progressive whites often feel comfortable attacking them as tokens. This happens to other people of color as well—in the dozens of Asians you saw on CNN talking about the Atlanta shootings, how many were Trump voters (like 1/3 of Asians?)
- jacobolus 5y ago
  White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions. Omar gets “amplified” predominantly because Fox News inter al. keep dumping on her all the time, and shrieking about what an “extremist” she is (generally without any reference to specific actions – as I said it’s a pure identity politics thing for them). If you have come to think that Omar is an extremist, ask yourself who keeps telling you that. It seems like you are upset that progressives don’t put a lot of effort into boosting the political influence of Trump supporters. But why ever would they? It’s not progressives’ fault that GOP-aligned media made Muslims the bogeyman du jour after 2001 and amped racist people up into believing that Muslim = terrorist, to the point that conservative Muslims can’t get anywhere in GOP politics. As for CNN: CNN is a center-right pro-establishment pro-corporate media outlet that does some good journalism but like all cable news also fills hours every day with bloviating pundits and sensationalized nonsense. People should stop watching cable news so much.
  - rayiner 5y ago
    > White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions. Not even Democrats think she’s a “mainstream Democrat.” Political she’s squarely in the progressive wing. But my point was theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars. I didn’t form any opinions of Omar from watching “Fox News.” I’m a longtime Democrat, from a Muslim country, who started watching Fox News during the Trump era because I was sick of progressives trading on the moral authority of purporting to represent Muslims while amplifying people like Omar whose views are highly unrepresentative of Muslims. Progressives shouldn’t amplify the voices of moderate and conservative Muslims. They should stop acting like they represent “people of color” when the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is as white as the Republican Party.
    - 5y ago

cornel_io 6y ago

I dump on Omar and the rest of the squad as a middle-left Democrat for the sole reason that they are costing the left many centrist voters who otherwise agree with us. I also think that the extreme stuff that they push is actually bad and would hurt people. It's fine to be an extremist, I am as well along some axes. But it is just dumb to think that everyone who is not as extreme as you is a Republican/fascist/communist/white supremacist/critical race theorist. Worse, it hurts your cause by tainting the center-ey people who can actually get things done with the stink of rabid activism.

cloudfifty 6y ago
They are not extremists.

rayiner 6y ago

I’m not dumping on Ilhan Omar. I’m dumping on the mostly white people in the media who have made her, in my dad’s words, “the face of American Muslims.” She has views that are far outside the mainstream for American Muslims, particularly with respect to social issues and activism. She’s welcome to have whatever politics she wants—it’s America! But it’s wrong for the media to amplify her as if she is representative of Muslims in America as a whole. This is a problem with progressives, which have disproportionate power in the media, and academia. As a group (for example Elizabeth Warren supporters) they’re as disproportionately white as the Republican Party. But they trade on the moral authority of purporting to speak for people of color. To that end, they amplify voices like Omar and Tlaib, whose politics are indistinguishable from those of secular white progressives, and not representative of Muslims. There are probably more Muslims who voted for Trump (about 1/3) then ones who are as extreme in their politics as Omar and Tlaib. This pisses odd people like my parents, who are typical Muslim voters (moderate socially conservative Democrats). It’s particularly problematic when, as the OP points out, whites people are judged differently for amplifying the voices of someone like Omar or Tlaib versus the voice of one of the many Muslims who voted for Trump. It suppresses conservatism within the community—progressive Muslims can count on getting tenure, getting in CNN, because white people are allowed to agree with and amplify them. But when conservative Muslims speak, white people are afraid to agree, and progressive whites often feel comfortable attacking them as tokens. This happens to other people of color as well—in the dozens of Asians you saw on CNN talking about the Atlanta shootings, how many were Trump voters (like 1/3 of Asians?)

jacobolus 5y ago
White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions. Omar gets “amplified” predominantly because Fox News inter al. keep dumping on her all the time, and shrieking about what an “extremist” she is (generally without any reference to specific actions – as I said it’s a pure identity politics thing for them). If you have come to think that Omar is an extremist, ask yourself who keeps telling you that. It seems like you are upset that progressives don’t put a lot of effort into boosting the political influence of Trump supporters. But why ever would they? It’s not progressives’ fault that GOP-aligned media made Muslims the bogeyman du jour after 2001 and amped racist people up into believing that Muslim = terrorist, to the point that conservative Muslims can’t get anywhere in GOP politics. As for CNN: CNN is a center-right pro-establishment pro-corporate media outlet that does some good journalism but like all cable news also fills hours every day with bloviating pundits and sensationalized nonsense. People should stop watching cable news so much.
- rayiner 5y ago
  > White “progressives” have not made Omar (or Tlaib) the face of anything, nor does Omar pretend to speak for all Muslims (or all Somali refugees for that matter). Omar also does not have “extreme” views; she is a mainstream Democrat with mainstream center-left policy positions. Not even Democrats think she’s a “mainstream Democrat.” Political she’s squarely in the progressive wing. But my point was theological. She has extreme views on social issues recognized by virtually no American Muslim scholars. I didn’t form any opinions of Omar from watching “Fox News.” I’m a longtime Democrat, from a Muslim country, who started watching Fox News during the Trump era because I was sick of progressives trading on the moral authority of purporting to represent Muslims while amplifying people like Omar whose views are highly unrepresentative of Muslims. Progressives shouldn’t amplify the voices of moderate and conservative Muslims. They should stop acting like they represent “people of color” when the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is as white as the Republican Party.
  - 5y ago