{"id":977,"date":"2010-09-09T22:20:21","date_gmt":"2010-09-10T02:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=977"},"modified":"2010-09-09T22:20:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-10T02:20:21","slug":"tribes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/tribes\/","title":{"rendered":"TRIBES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So a pastor in Gainesville wanted to burn a pile of Korans. Never mind that it\u2019s something close to a mortal insult to the belief system of millions of people, some of whom are on our side. This was going to accomplish exactly, uh, <em>what? <\/em>If you want 9\/11 symbolism, burn an effigy of Osama bin Laden, for Heaven\u2019s sake. (Yes, meant just as it sounds.)<\/p>\n<p>Simultaneously on the opposite coast, Los Angeles police have to turn out in riot gear because of violent protests against the shooting of a Guatemalan day laborer who was menacing people with a knife. To his credit, new LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is standing up for his officers. I watch dumbfounded as people scream into news cameras, \u201cWhy couldn\u2019t they just have disarmed him?\u201d If people who say that had ever used a knife for anything more serious than spreading peanut butter on bread, they\u2019d know what farmers and other backwoods home folks know: that it takes mere seconds with even a short knife to decapitate a deer or slaughtered livestock the size of a man. Only an idiot would trifle with an advancing knife wielder. Not for nothing did Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously write, \u201cDetached reflection is not demanded in the presence of an upraised knife.\u201d An upraised knife is exactly what the LAPD officer who double-tapped Manuel Jamines was facing. By the way, that officer\u2019s name is Frank Hernandez.<\/p>\n<p>What it comes down to is tribal values that say, \u201cOur kind is special, and sacrosanct!\u201d White guy shoots black guy in self-defense, and Al Sharpton holds rallies in the streets flashing the race card. Cop justifiably shoots Latin guy, and largely Latin crowds set fires in Los Angeles dumpsters. Black guy shoots white guy in self-defense, and the Caucasians don\u2019t pour into the streets and start throwing Perrier bottles, they engage lawyers to file an unmeritorious lawsuit. Different dance, maybe, but just as tribal\u2026and just as ethnocentrically short-sighted.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, three generations after my grandparents made it to these shores, I am sad for my country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So a pastor in Gainesville wanted to burn a pile of Korans. Never mind that it\u2019s something close to a mortal insult to the belief system of millions of people, some of whom are on our side. This was going to accomplish exactly, uh, what? If you want 9\/11 symbolism, burn an effigy of Osama [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}