Trump and Muslims: The Problem of the Exceptional Case

Some years ago at a discussion at the liberal River Road Unitarian Church, in Bethesda, Maryland a speaker decried the fact that although Blacks constituted only 12% of the population they were over 25% of those in jail.
Someone from the audience observed: "Yes, that's because they commit 25% of the crime. Their presence in prison reflects their behavior in society."

Of course, that is arguable. Many factors likely contribute to the high incarceration rates for minority races, including a judicial system which is rigged against them, poor legal representation, but one of the factors is their own behavior. Politically incorrect as that may be, it is likely the truth.


You can argue about why minorities commit more crime: their feeling it's the only option they have to achieve wealth--so poverty, under education, impoverished family structure, drive decisions to do crime,  but in the end, Blacks likely do commit a disproportionate amount of the robberies, murders, and  other such crimes. "Black crimes" as Chris Rock says, and so they wind up in prison.

Now we move to the guys with the beards (or in the case of the Boston Marathon bombers, without beards) who are young Muslim men who decide to go crazy.

Just a couple of normal looking Boston guys.

 If we have 3 million Muslims in this country and half are male and many of those are young males, we are talking about likely 750,000 young Muslim males and out of that group we'll get maybe a thousand who are watching ISIS videos and smouldering with resentment because the bouncy blonde cheerleaders at their high schools and colleges have no interest in them or even taunt them, so they consider going out and blowing up a marathon race or running their truck into some bicyclists. (The latest Islamic ISIS maniac wannabe is only 5 feet tall; you can imagine where his resentment began.)

Calmly planting a bomb to kill those kids.

So Trump bellows, "close the borders,"   but of course, that horse is already out of the barn.  The Uzbekistan malcontents are already here. Closing the borders would not have screened out the Boston Marathon bombers or this latest whack job in New York City.


So you are down to "round 'em up." 

And where does that leave us, when we identify a suspect population?
It leads, logically to American concentration camps, like the ones that once house Japanese Americans?

Oh, that was sweet. All those innocent, loyal, industrious, Japanese immigrants who had no affinity for the Emperor but were caught in America as more or less hostages.

That's what we are talking about: You are a member of this group. White, Christian Americans look at you and question your loyalty.

Of course these same White, Christian Americans do not look at the White guy who drove his truck into a crowd in Charlottesville and see him as part of a suspect group. 
That White guy was the exception case.
We are not Ku Klux Klan just because we are White Christians.
The President suggested there was wrong on both sides in Charlottesville. (Wrong on both sides of that fender? )
But when it comes to Muslims, well they are all suspect.