This is based on the oft-repeated claim of the establishment media and Islamic apologists that “Islamophobia” stems from people simply not knowing any Muslims personally, and if these racist, redneck yahoos would simply meet some of these charming, wise, noble people, they would no longer be greasy Islamophobes, but would morph immediately into metrosexual, horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing donors to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
This absurd notion is based on the false assumption that distrust of Islam stems from “Islamophobic” propaganda, and not from the actions of Muslims such as Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Nidal Malik Hasan, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Syed Rizwan Farook, Tashfeen Malik, and other bloodthirsty jihadis.
“Taxpayer-Funded University Gives Academic Credit To Students For Meeting Local Muslims,” by Eric Owens, Daily Caller, August 31, 2017:
Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana will offer a course which gives actual academic credit to students for meeting Muslims, hanging out at a Muncie mosque, and making a documentary film about Muslims who reside in the local area.
The taxpayer-funded course at Ball State is a seminar titled “Muslims In Muncie,” according to an informational email obtained by The Daily Caller.
The course is scheduled for the spring semester.
A flyer promoting the “Muslims In Muncie” course explains that enrolled students will “learn about the history and diversity of Muslims in America” by participating “in the social and ritual life of the Muncie Islamic Center.” Students will also meet Muslim leaders and collect oral histories from Muslims for a documentary film.
At the end of the course, students will “host a public showcase in May 2018” — presumably in relation to the film.
The for-credit seminar will help students become “empowered as critically engaged, globally aware citizens.”
Students who sign up for Ball State’s for-credit Muslim meet-and-greet course will receive credit through the honors college or for graduation requirements related to humanities, social science, fine arts or religious studies….
Ball State philosophy and religious studies professor Elizabeth Agnew is organizing the course.
Students “need to be selected to join the seminar,” according to the email obtained by TheDC. “Dr. Agnew has already started to interview students for this seminar.”…
“From 2012-2015, Professor Agnew participated with a team of Ball State faculty in a U.S. State Department-funded partnership with Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan to advance the American Studies graduate program at QAU’s Area Study Center.”…
mortimer says
Contradiction alert! They say, “empowered as critically engaged, globally aware citizens.”
– ‘Empowered’ or ‘disempowered’ by Leftist propaganda?
– ‘Critically engaged’ or ‘engaged in the neo-Marxist Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School’?
– ‘Globally aware citizens’ or ‘Global CITIZENS-OF-THE-WORLD’?
Words are used here to mean the OPPOSITE of what they say on the surface. You cannot be a ‘citizen’ of a country and global. This is like a ‘jumbo shrimp’ or ‘liberal principles’.
mortimer says
This pseudo-course is aimed at showing that ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE and they will choose pre-selected Muslims who know what to say to convince the naïve students that JIHAD, Al Walaa wal Baraa, Islamic supremacism, Islamic patriarchal misogyny, and cruel punishments have NOTHING to do with Islam. They will portray Muslims as a group of frustrated liberal-leftists who just want the racist, colonialist white people to leave them alone so they can build Marxism with a touch of lashings and beheadings thrown in.
And ‘Who are we to judge, when Christians are responsible for the Crusades?’ So onwards to the jihad and conquest of the West.
FAREWELL, INDEPENDENT, CRITICAL THOUGHT! HELLO, NEO-MARXIST ‘CRITICAL THEORY’!
Warble Gloaming says
But but but the graduates will have a B.S. degree from B.S. University.
SweetOlBob says
Can we go back to the days of swallowing goldfish and wearing Raccoon coats ?
See, Universities have always been bastions of uumpah and ugg !
But they didn’t give credit for making bombs, or hide killers, or give out faculty positions to people who did.
Now they do that (Bill Ayers) and ignore the centuries written threat of those who would kill all of us and even worse, punish those, and even expel them, who point out their imbecillity and self destructive desire.
And a whole lot of hard working Dads,who sang protest songs, and whose fathers did harmless things like swallowing live goldfish, are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for it.
If I was paying for this for a child of mine, I would STOP !
Mirit says
Robert Spencer,
Why don’t you offer your own course about Islam, so students will learn the truth for a change?
Teach them about Islamic history, customs, culture, religion, Koran, Hadith so they would know what they
Tom says
He has written many books on Islam , jihad and their history. Buy them and give it to children and advise adults to buy and share copies with their children .
THE corrupt media will not , neither govt schools will.
PRCS says
“Students “need to be selected to join the seminar,” according to the email obtained by TheDC. “Dr. Agnew has already started to interview students for this seminar.”…
No Islamophobes permitted, of course.
gravenimage says
Spot on…
Gen Jones says
Funny how progressives decry cultural appropriation and “othering” but this course, which makes Muslims sound like an exotic species in a Victorian zoo is ok. It’s as if the professor is saying to a child, “See the nice Muslims, ooh look at the pretty hijab. They frighten easily, don’t startle them.” ?
gravenimage says
+1
Jack Diamond says
yes, don’t frighten our exotic Muslimus Erectus exhibits or make them have to harm you because you’ve hurt their feelings (Sensitivity Training, a new major at Ball State).
they are not responsible, ever, for anything they might do. you are.
remember, all the cages are left open
and there is no sign saying “don’t feed the animals” of course,
there is a sign, however, saying “give them anything they ask for” with a bright red warning label.
PRCS says
Hmm,
Where does “Muslimus Erectus” fit?
http://tinyurl.com/yaxuf5e5
Jack Diamond says
Not found on that scale at all. You’ll find it rather on a devolutionary scale, somewhere underneath that one. A scale they share, appropriately, with no one else.
Here are some devolutionary examples of M.E. in the wild (PG versions):
http://www.barnorama.com/wp-content/images/2013/01/Afghanistan-1970s/18-Afghanistan-1970s.jpg
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/07/04/14/35EE938C00000578-3673721-Executions_have_also_continued_throughout_Ramadan_This_man_was_a-a-61_1467640684777.jpg
PRCS says
Apt.
gravenimage says
Indiana: Taxpayer-funded Ball State University gives academic credit to students for meeting Muslims
………………………….
Uh…right. Will meeting Muslims in Muncie somehow negate the 31,000+ Jihad terror attacks all over the world just since 9/11? I think not.
The head of the Muncie Islamic Center is a “revert” who converted to Islam *after 9/11*. This is especially sickening–to know that Islam was responsible for slaughtering almost 3,000 Americans, and being *drawn* to it.
And what do Ball State students know about Muslims closer to home? How about *this* incident, from just a couple of months ago?
“Indiana: Muslim threatens Goodwill store customers to convert to Islam, attacks police”
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/06/indiana-muslim-threatens-goodwill-store-customers-to-convert-to-islam-attacks-police
“A Saudi Arabian national and former student at Ball State University has been deported after being arrested in March for the alleged violent threatening of shoppers at an Indiana Goodwill store unless they converted to Islam.
“Khalid Sulaiman Bilal, 24, was arrested on March 25, accused of threatening people in a Muncie, Indiana, Goodwill store. Police said Bilal was “forcibly” trying to convert shoppers to Islam, Fox 59 reported…”
PRCS says
Allow me to suggest:
Visit a few violent jihadists incarcerated in U.S. prisons and take the credit.
Like Sharia May sending “her warmest wishes to Muslims around the world” (which would include Ayman al Zawahari)–Ball State administrators really didn’t think this through.
gravenimage says
Now *that* is a great suggestion.
t. says
Good point, gravenimage!
gravenimage says
Thank you, t..
Japetto Donatelli says
This university course can’t help but be skewed in favor of islam and muslims at the expense of our future safety and freedoms. Yes, let’s have a meeting with muslims and expect them to provide an accurate appraisal of who and what they stand for. No doubt they’ll tell us how much they like hot dogs, baseball, and religious freedom. And jihad? oh hell, that’s all about exercise and eating right, you stupid islamophobes. Then the liberal, antifa-loving students will hold up their study and say, “See! they’re just like us! They don’t want to kill and conquer us like those other bad muslims!” even though the bad muslims get their financial and moral support from the “peaceful” ones, along with their foreign ideology that demands allegiance above our laws and humanitarian ideals . And that’s why I consider anyone that defends islam to be a traitor to our country. Because the doctrines of islam are a religious and political mandate for the destruction of our laws and democracy through violence and intimidation. These are not merely ideas of some rogue muslims, they are the social and political understructure of entire islamic nations and the terrorists they fund. If islam is not our enemy then nobody can be our enemy, for we must be living devoid of moral understanding and patriotic duty.
So go ‘head Dr. Agnew, we know you’ll be totally unbiased in this earnest endeavor to deny the obvious, which is that muslims have no desire to assimilate, hate our culture and freedoms, and will ultimately destroy western democracy for their demon religion. Like we need a special course to find that out. Universities are no longer a place to get smart, they’re a place to get dumb.
Greyhound Fancier says
All beef hot dogs are favored by Mohammedans, of course. As well as shar’ia, beheadings, amputations, rape gangs, grooming girls for rape gangs, FGM, honor killings, and jihad.
Naturally, suicide bombings are only necessary to defend Islam (says 9% of U.S. Muslims polled by SMART, a U.S. government contractor at the University of Maryland that does research and publications on terrorism).
Even if the non-violent Mohammedans had the best will in the world, they have no power over the terrorists. The Islamist terrorists are following Mohammed’s example.
Alec Rawls says
It is Christians who these leftists ignorantly hate. If they are going to get credit for anything it should be for actually meeting some Christians.
Jack Diamond says
…and asking embarrassing questions such as Hugh Fitzgerald’s in his Ask A Muslim piece will no doubt get you a Fail, if not kicked out of college. Hand-picking the students who get to meet the local Muslims is an attempt to screen out potential troublemakers (or just anyone with high intelligence).
Yes, this assumption that people (deplorable people) are Islamophobic because they just don’t know any Muslims is the new snobbery among Western elitists. An exchange I came across and thought remarkable enough to copy was on Ricochet this April, between Claire Berlinski, the writer, and a commenter—
Nick Baldock: “I’m fairly sanguine about Islam because I taught last year at one of the best high schools in Birmingham, where many of the best pupils are Muslim, or at least from Muslim backgrounds. The numbers are also steadily increasing at Oxford and Cambridge. They are our future doctors, lawyers, business executives (and sporting champions) and, although it’s not my father’s England, it’s not in bad hands. They aren’t crazed academics nor malignant influences.”
Berlinski: “I think the more contact people have with normal, everyday Muslims, the more people feel this way. If you live somewhere where there are few or no Muslims and only read about them when there’s a terrorist attack or some other outrage, it’s easy and understandable to conclude that the Muslim world is terrifying, alien, and absolutely incompatible with ours. And no doubt there’s a subset that is. But I tend to like Muslims, by and large, and since — cliché as it is to say this — my best friends are, indeed, Muslims (as you would expect, given that I lived for ten years in a Muslim-majority country), I find the undifferentiated criticism I often hear here of Muslims painful.”
As if Copts in Egypt with concerns about Islam and Muslims or an aversion to both, must have not had enough contact with normal, everyday Muslims and with Islam. They must not really know Muslims or Islam. They need a meet-and-greet. As if the Lebanese Christians, if they had concerns with Islam or Muslims, it was not from living with their Muslim neighbors. Or Christians in Iraq or Pakistan or North Africa. Or any other non-Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries.
In fact, it is just the opposite than what Claire Berlinski is suggesting. As personified in this memorable exchange between Canadian TV host Michael Coren and Father Zakaria Botrous, the Coptic priest from Egypt– “we know them because we live among them fourteen centuries!” :
FZB: Muslims pretend to be nice people…
Coren (appalled) Oh, but this is so jarring to Canadian ears!
FZB: And so the Westerners are very naive. They say that ‘they are very peaceful and love people’…. Coren: Surely, most Muslims are peaceful people….
FZB: Naive!
Coren: You think every Muslim is like that?!
FZB: Look, every TRUE Muslim is like that. A moderate Muslim, polite and moderate. But when the Islam prevails, all of them they will become true Muslims and follow that strategy. We know them because we live among them fourteen centuries! We live among them and we know them very well. But the Western people did not live with them. So they just only see the peaceful way. But one day will come and they will know the truth but it will be too late. I’m sorry to say that.
FZB {later on}: Islam is not just a religion, Islam (is) a State..Islam is ideology, Islam wants to prevail (over) the whole world. And 9/11 is not so far from us. This is their ultimate intention.
Coren: Many Muslims watching will be so hurt by what you are saying. They don’t want to take over the world, they simply want to live their life, be happy and be good….
FZB: Those people follow the Meccan Islam because they are weak now. But when they have the upper hand (knowing laugh) they will do more than that.
Needless to add, the growing “Islamophobia” in Europe is coming from Europeans “knowing” Muslims, all-too-well. From contact with real Muslims, not from never seeing any and just absorbing fear-mongering propaganda. As they used to say, a neo-con is a liberal who has just been mugged.
These may not be the Muslims Claire Berlinski knows, the journalists and more secular-minded academics, but they are much more representative of “everyday” Muslims than she is letting on. A world terrifying, alien, and absolutely incompatible with ours. That is an accurate depiction of Islam in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and in the manuals of Islamic law, Islam in so much of history, and Islam in any country trying to impose Allah’s terrifying, alien, incompatible (with freedom) laws. That is the Islam any pious Muslim (doctor, lawyer, or taxi driver) is obligated to believe in and work toward establishing, just as they are obligated to hate and have enmity for the very same non-Muslims they are among (even when smiling in their faces).
Which makes Mr. Baldock’s sanguine acquiescence to an Islamic England all the more disturbing.
Again, the assumption the violent, intolerant Muslims are the poor and uneducated ones. The future is bright because his best pupils are Muslims, and they are going to be the future doctors and lawyers and business executives… you know, doctors like Ayman Zawahiri. Lawyers like Anjem Choudary. Business execs like the bin Ladens.
No, Muslims doctors in Britain (“Westernized” Muslims) would never plot to blow up Glasgow Airport. Would they? There would never be 45 Muslim doctors caught plotting jihad terrorism in America. There would never be a Nasser Muthana, a Muslim from Britain who had been accepted to study medicine at a British university, but who instead left the U.K. and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and made a jihad recruitment video, saying: “Oh you who believe, answer the call of Allah and his messenger when he calls you … what gives you life is jihad.” Smart, educated, privileged guy like that? You’d almost conclude there was “something about Islam” driving this, and not poverty and ignorance at all.
You would, but not High School teacher Nick Baldock and not Claire Berlinski. And not Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
gravenimage says
Jack Diamond wrote:
As if Copts in Egypt with concerns about Islam and Muslims or an aversion to both, must have not had enough contact with normal, everyday Muslims and with Islam. They must not really know Muslims or Islam. They need a meet-and-greet. As if the Lebanese Christians, if they had concerns with Islam or Muslims, it was not from living with their Muslim neighbors. Or Christians in Iraq or Pakistan or North Africa. Or any other non-Muslims living in Muslim-majority countries…
…………………..
Spot on, Jack. Another false trope of the Left.
PRCS says
I have Berlinski’s “Menace in Europe”.
Guess I’ll have to take the time to read it.
gravenimage says
An important book, but a very pessimistic one.
Jack Diamond says
Her current bugaboos are Donald Trump and Russia, way more concerning to her than Muslims. She’s a big believer in moderate Islam, and as I recall, said she was voting for Hillary Clinton. I remember being impressed by her book when it came out,
if I re-read it I might find causes for concern now. She is doing a follow up book to Menace in Europe, which I am positive I will have concerns about.
gravenimage says
Thank you, Jack. Depressing to hear.
Westman says
“..receive credit through the honors college or for graduation requirements related to humanities, social science, fine arts or religious studies…”
Another amazing learn-nothing-useful course to add to a student’s loss of time and more debt. Of course, the science and engineering majors will be the first to sign up, since Islam has a great appeal to logical thought processes – flying plastic horses that reach the destination in one super-extended leg-stretch, a Sun that sets in a flat-earth muddy swamp, and the like. When is Baraq, the Transformer, movie in theaters?
gravenimage says
This is more than just learning nothing useful–it is indoctrination that if embraces will lead to our destruction. Hideous.
gravenimage says
if embraced
Fools says
This is a good reason not to donate any money to any university unless to medical school research. This is worse than offering a PhD in basket weaving…how long until studies in Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc. will be banned from the course syllibus? Next I predict all chapels, Christmas trees, etc. will be banned by the leftists who want to destroy Christianity, Judaism. etc. as they exalt Islam, before they themselves are decapitated, thrown off buildings, taken as sex slaves, raped, etc. Then they will whine, and it is not as if they were not warned. Why not a comprehension course for these children in university, to learn what taqiya means, or God forbid any of the biblical phrases in Proverbs warning foolish people.
John A. Marre says
Want to get your degree? Kiss a Muslim ass. No need to learn anything like science or literature. You won’t need those things when the USA becomes an Islamic Caliphate.
Expat88 says
Can the students get extra credit for getting to know Hindus or Buddhists?
Jack Diamond says
No not until Hindus or Buddhists commit 31,000 acts of terrorism in the name of their religion and kill 3,000 Americans in one day. This has to be earned.
gravenimage says
+1
Wellington says
Here’s a given: There will be no such academic reciprocity from the Islamic university in Pakistan named above for Muslim students there meeting Christians. Count on it and again can be seen that with Islam it’s always a one-way street.
You’d think by now almost every non-Muslim in the West would have figured this out by now. Sadly, not even close. “Good,” obsequious, obedient and just plain foolish dhimmis abound. This is why Islam still gets a pass, not because of Muslims, no, almost not at all, but because a plethora of non-Muslims keep making all kinds of excuses, some extremely embarrassing ones, for the worst religion of all time. As here demonstrated at Ball State.
The madness, stupidity and ignorance continue. Surely.
gravenimage says
Yes. The “bridge”–as Syeed Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood said–just goes one way.
Wellington says
Indeed, gravenimage, the weirdo Qutb whom you mentioned. There was a fine example of Muslimthink if ever there were one, the “intellectual Godfather” of al-Qaeda and all that rot.
Really, from what I have read about this particular “masterpiece of erroneous thinking,” he was a total nerd who just couldn’t deal with American jazz (replete by him with that typical denigration of blacks so frequently found in Islam via the Arab imperialism “spirit” and partially why ANY black being a Muslim should have their head examined), women’s short skirts, freedom to be wrong, etc. Yeah, he couldn’t deal with, or understand, what he found in America, so, in full and typical Muslim lazy mode, he simply condemned it. Rather like Mohammed himself, who couldn’t appreciate alcohol or music, and so he too made it verboten (but not screwing a nine-year old). Very, very Islamic.
In brief, getting back to Qutb, he was a “fine” Muzzie and that always signals a red light for liberty since the more that Islam exists the less that freedom does. It’s an inversely proportional relationship of the first order. And fools aplenty, including leaders in the West, like the present Pope, a “masterpiece” in his own right, the ever clueless John McCain, McMaster of course, May across the pond, that extremely damaging Chancellor of Germany and, yes, Putin, who stupidly still is imprisoned in total Russianthink, for instance that nations like Estonia and Poland are more of a threat to Russia than is Islam, exist seemingly here, there and everywhere.
What a waste. Completely. Meanwhile Islam waxes and does not wane. Time for a beer.
Jack Diamond says
a beer and some jazz.
Art and alcohol both have in common putting you beyond the Complete Control of allah and the cult of No Fun (at least until you reach Jannah, the heavenly whorehouse where you get everything you missed in life, unless you were a mujahideen and got hold of some war booty, six years old on up, in this life). Still, I wouldn’t expect any jazz in Jannah. Just the Hell of the adhan every waking minute. Jannah meaning Hell, of course. Duke Ellington would never be in Hell.
gravenimage says
Agreed, Wellington and Jack.
I’m sure you have both read Qutb’s account of a dance held at a church basement in Greeley, Colorado in 1948. By the way, Greeley was in a “dry” county at the time, so there was of course no alcohol, either–not even beer or wine.
But his description made it sound like a seamy fleshpot. Women were wearing dresses exposing their ankles and arms! Unrelated people were dancing together! There was music from a record player!
Of course, normal people would have considered it good, clean fun–or maybe even a bit on the dull side. But then, when have pious Muslims ever been normal?
Jack Holan says
Once again the Emperor isn’t wearing clothes. Who will be the one to point out the fallacy of this study which is what it’s really all about and not the Human story of Tom meets and Greets Ahmad. Tom learns about Islam and Ahmad’s culture and history. They become best friends for life. This is not the Agenda.
Has anyone noticed the flow and assumptions of things. It must be Christian or Jew whitey who is prejudiced or will become so. If the Muslim is a recent immigrant he is leaning zero about the culture history and People of his Host Country. Most importantly you would think but pin-doctor is PC isn’t it possible both could benefit and learn about each other’s religion by attending one, one week and the others the next week. We know however this type of serious intermingling of the cultures and religions won’t take place primarily because of one side. Doctor you damn well know prejudice comes from the other side as much if not greater but the structure of you Course (study) sure doesn’t reflect it.
Stop Kafirophobia says
“… metrosexual, horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing donors to the Southern Poverty Law Center.” LMAO Robert, you slay me ?
gravenimage says
I’m always heartened by Robert Spencer’s being able to maintain a sharp sense of humor in the face of all this savagery.
Stop Kafirophobia says
I look forward to it every day, gravenimage ??
gravenimage says
🙂
James Stamulis says
How about all the women all over the world who have been raped by the inbreds? I bet they want the inbreds shot at sunrise even though they met the little darlings up close and personal.
gravenimage says
Good point, James.
BestefarJohn says
Let’s face it, it’s a dumb idea. I’m sure the creators of the course have the best motivations but it simply isn’t going to work.
The students won’t be meeting the terrorists. They will meet the “tame” Muslims who are glad to be included.
It’s a silly farce that provides students with some easy credits. That’s the best that can be said about it.
gravenimage says
These students won’t be meeting “tame” Muslims, for the most part, but Taqiyya artists happy to lie to credulous Infidels.
But it will make young people even less able to recognize the threat of Islam than their elders, most of whom learned next to nothing about Islam in school, but at least were not indoctrinated with this pap.
Geppetto says
Jihadists fully comprehend the power of propaganda and indoctrination as a weapon of covert war. Institutions of “higher learning,” here and around the world, are extremely vulnerable and receptive to what they are easily led to believe are hard, irrefutable facts. No need for independent study and research. These Imams and Mullahs are “obviously” noble victims of irrational prejudice in a guilt wracked American society with a long sordid history of racism. Shed a tear and spread the indoctrinated, intellectuals version of a “terribly abused religious sect,” Islam, whose adherents must, at all cost, be protected from the evil “Islamophobes” who, at best, must be ignorant, Alt-Right, racist, bigoted fools. And who is to question the wisdom, knowledge and selfless ethics of these illustrious college professors?