Let me get this out of the way immediately: Ross Douthat is a dipshit, and finding flaws in the garbage that The Times (amazingly) pays him to write is a pastime for simpletons. Moreover, I don't consider what I'm about to write to be novel in any way. But a blog is a place to vent about the absurdities of this world, so here goes.
On Sunday, Douthat shot off an op-ed regarding the Cordoba House Islamic Community Center proposed to be located a couple of blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. In it, he insists that, before Muslim-Americans can be taken seriously, or fully integrated into the American mainstream, they have to give up ideas like the possibility that American actions abroad might have played some role in the motivations of those who committed the misfortunes of September 11, or that directly answering questions about whether Hamas is a terrorist organization is a fool's game because they're usually founded on disputable premises. Never mind that plenty of American-Americans share those ideas.
No, Muslim-Americans must stop having such thoughts because, to be full members of society, they must appease a group of other Americans "that understands itself as a distinctive culture ... speaks English ... looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism originally, and then a Judeo-Christian consensus ... and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms, and quickly." To that group of Americans, disobedient Muslims and their proposed cultural center are "an affront to the memory of 9/11, and a sign of disrespect for the values of a country."
What I find particularly interesting about this made-up controversy, and Douthat's column perpetuates this idea unquestioningly, is that that group of Americans has laid claim to a few blocks of lower Manhattan, and yet those very same people regularly assert that the rest of NYC isn't "Real America"™, "my America"™, or a part of any other America that they invent when they find it convenient to create division when none exists.
As far as I'm concerned, they don't get to claim the WTC site unless they're willing to claim the rest of Manhattan as part of "their America." Or LA. Or the Bay Area. Or Seattle. Or Portland. Or Chicago. If they want to claim any part of America, then they have to take all of America and everyone who's already living there, too. Until they're willing to do that--until they're willing to take all of America as the "Real America"--then they have no legitimate claim to any other part of it. And they have no leg to stand on to declare the terms under which other groups get to join our society.
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