Neither Melting Pot Nor Mixed Salad
Aug. 16th, 2005 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThe phrase "Melting Pot" was once the great ideal of American culture: people who came here became Americans, first and foremost, their foreignness subsumed by a broad array of American cultural norms. Over the years, individuals and communities asserted their right to retain some of their culture, and the story became "Mixed Salad": identifiable individuality and group membership but all getting along in a more or less harmonious blend.
Now, we're a cheap metal tray in a bad buffet for retirees, the kind with the ridges that keep every food on the tray completely separate from every other. Nothing makes that clearer than an article in the Seattle Times which should be labeled, Dhimmitude Comes To The Emerald City.
Jewish and Amish and other communities that wish to keep their interests separate from those of "America" in general do a good job of creating their own alternative outlets, and those private interests are exempt from the laws that require equal access. Private rentals of public pools falls into that category, and the Seattle Times article makes a point of mentioning that the "Muslim Women Only" pool times are "a private rental."
However, the "private renter" is the Children's Home Society, which last year received 2/3rds of its funding from government agencies. When asked to explain the contradiction, the woman at CHS explained that they were funding the swim "to respect the immigrant womens' culture."
I'm sorry, and I know this is "politically incorrect," but we have to recognize that "separate but equal" treatment from the government does not work, and the last thing I want my tax money going to is encouraging people who have chosen to live in America to behave like they're not Americans. If Muslim women want to use a pool in a private and exclusionary way, they should come up with private and exclusionary funds with which to do it, rather than use taxpayer cash. If they can't, well, that will tell us all something about the attitude of Islam toward women. I object to playing the dhimmi[?] and having my taxes become jizyah[?].
Now, we're a cheap metal tray in a bad buffet for retirees, the kind with the ridges that keep every food on the tray completely separate from every other. Nothing makes that clearer than an article in the Seattle Times which should be labeled, Dhimmitude Comes To The Emerald City.
Jewish and Amish and other communities that wish to keep their interests separate from those of "America" in general do a good job of creating their own alternative outlets, and those private interests are exempt from the laws that require equal access. Private rentals of public pools falls into that category, and the Seattle Times article makes a point of mentioning that the "Muslim Women Only" pool times are "a private rental."
However, the "private renter" is the Children's Home Society, which last year received 2/3rds of its funding from government agencies. When asked to explain the contradiction, the woman at CHS explained that they were funding the swim "to respect the immigrant womens' culture."
I'm sorry, and I know this is "politically incorrect," but we have to recognize that "separate but equal" treatment from the government does not work, and the last thing I want my tax money going to is encouraging people who have chosen to live in America to behave like they're not Americans. If Muslim women want to use a pool in a private and exclusionary way, they should come up with private and exclusionary funds with which to do it, rather than use taxpayer cash. If they can't, well, that will tell us all something about the attitude of Islam toward women. I object to playing the dhimmi[?] and having my taxes become jizyah[?].
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-16 07:53 pm (UTC)At least in Canada, all sorts of minority and gender based organizations and projects get government funding; I've always presumed it was similar in the States. If that is the case, and tax funds go to some such organizations, I'll present a hypothetical: would you advocate that organizations such as battered women's shelters wanting the use of public facilities "do it on their own dime", abandoning government funding, or that they open their doors to males as well? Or would you be satisfied as long as they could show that the percentage-of-monies-spent-on-discriminatory-uses is lesser than the share of their annual income coming from non-governmental sources (and so could have been paid for without the use of taxes)? Of course in the last scenario, there is still the problem that donors to such exclusive causes get a tax deduction for charitable contributions, so in a way the government's money is still diminished...