Reader Comment: “…you’re just a bad writer.”
So says one D. Brooks in response to this article of mine, concerning cab driver Sultan Ahmed’s sudden, unprovoked attack on cyclist Chris Kasztelewicz. I titled the article “Sudden jihad syndrome?” Mr. (?) Brooks evidently took exception to this, and left a comment expressing his disdain for my opinion, denouncing me for my apparent bigotry by making a sweeping generalization of his own: “cyclist harassers are exclusively young or middle-aged white men of either the suburban or overtly redneck persuasion.”
He concluded his statements by remarking that race had nothing to do with this horrible incident.
And actually, I agree with him on that point. Race didn’t have a darn thing to do with this incident. But I was not talking about race…hence my choice of article title, invoking the idea of jihad (which is a concept unique to a particular religion, rather than to any particular race).
For my part, I was being (at least in part) tongue in cheek; Mr. (?) Brooks responded to my comments by denouncing me for my Racism before making a racial statement of his own (and also a sexist statement, if one wants to get technical).
There’s also the small matter of Islam — the aforementioned “particular Religion” — not being a race. I pointed these details out to Mr. (?) Brooks, and he left a reply. I was tempted to just respond to him again in the comments form, and almost did, but I think I’d instead like to pull his comments out into plain view, in the style of the old Reader Mails that I entertained at Time Immortal.
Here’s what Mr. (?) Brooks had to say:
Tongue-in-cheek? Really? If that’s what you were going for you’re just a bad writer. I didn’t make a racial statement. I said all of the people who’ve hassled or threatened me over the course of 22 years have exclusively been white males. That’s just a fact. Also, I never mentioned Islam, you did. I said “middle-eastern”. Apparently you intended the slur against Islamics. I don’t know why anyone would look at this and make the statement you did unless that person is a racist, or an “anti-Islamist”.
I will concede the probability that I am, in fact, a bad writer. I am a terrible writer, in fact. It’s a wonder, and a shame, that they even let me near the Internet on any given day. Somebody should do something™…maybe pass a law or something.
Mr. (?) Brooks and I have had wildly divergent experiences as cyclists, it seems. As noted above, it has been my experience that women, more than men, become very aggressive towards cyclists. In fact, in both cases where I have been struck by a passing vehicle whilst out on my bike, the driver at fault has been a woman. No doubt Mr. (?) Brooks would call such a comment sexist…but I am just repeating the facts of my experiences.
Which brings me to another point: in my own years as a cyclist (and while I’ve not been riding for 22 years, I have got at least a dozen years of experience under my helmet), I have tended to find rural drivers to be substantially more courteous than urban drivers. Indeed, given the choice, I vastly prefer to ride out on the highways that cut through the heart of rural Alberta than on the busy city streets. I vastly prefer to ride in small towns, despite the sometimes poorer asphalt quality, than on the bike paths in Edmonton’s river valley.
I find that I actually wonder how many people Mr. (?) Brooks has met who are actually rural dwellers; in my experience, rural folk are substantially more courteous and friendly than urban folk could ever hope to be, and are also generally more laid back. I’ve never had a problem with the three or four guys in their trucks speeding past me on the highway…and I’ve had no end of problems with the mid-30s businesswomen pulling out of the Starbucks drive-thru on some Edmonton thoroughfare.
And in general, I’ve had fewer problems with white drivers than I have had with non-white drivers. But I should clarify, because those categories are too broad. In general, I’ve had the least amount of difficult from white drivers, with Asian (and with that word, I mean Oriental) drivers coming in at a close second. I generally find drivers of African extract to be ambivalent towards cyclists, and I’ve generally found those of Middle Eastern extract to be somewhat aggressive towards cyclists. And again, as previously noted, I’ve had more problems with female drivers than with male drivers.
Mr. (?) Brooks hastily disclaims that his statement — “cyclist harassers are exclusively young or middle-aged white men of either the suburban or overtly redneck persuasion” — is not racist. Technically, he is correct: within the liberal worldview, one cannot be racist if the target of one’s bigotry is a white male. Objectively, however, the statement is racist, sexist, and classist on its face: it exclusively isolates one segment of the population based on skin colour, circumstance of dwelling, and sex (white, rural-dwelling males) as the sole perpetrators of anti-cyclist violence.
And yet this statement simply cannot be correct. This is just simply a fact, and then one based on my own personal experience: neither my broken finger nor my broken wrist were the result of anti-cyclist actions taken by white, rural-dwelling males. Both were the result of actions taken by city-dwelling females, only one of whom was white.
So now we have identified Mr. (?) Brooks making a statement that is both incorrect and exclusively targeted at a segment of the population with a certain skin pigmentation. If that is not a “racist” statement, then Mr. (?) Brooks does not know what a racist statement is.
Mr. (?) Brooks is correct in that he never mentioned Islam…but then, I never said he had. I mentioned Islam first, through my invocation of the concept of jihad. I did this because there has been a rash of incidents in the last few years in which persons of the Muslim persuasion have suddenly and inexplicably opted to engage in acts of shattering violence, often with little to no emotion on display, and also often turning themselves in some hours later.
It wasn’t my intent that this post be a broad slander against Islam…it was my intent to wonder at the cab driver’s motives, to wonder at whether this might not have been just one more example of an otherwise well-to-do Muslim individual suddenly deciding to strike a blow against the infidel, because the opportunity to do so was…just there.
And being that Islam is an identifiable demographic group within society, but not a racial group, the statement I made cannot, by definition, be racist.
I will, however, cop to the plea of being anti-Islamist, in the sense of what has become the normative definition of the term “Islamist” (e.g. a person of the Muslim faith committed to the use of any of a number of ways and means — including, but not limited to, violence and terrorism — in service to the cause of sharia law becoming the law that governs the world). Yes, I think it is safe to say that I am against that, and then very strongly against it.
Steynian 292 « Free Canuckistan! (December 1, 2008, 1:28 pm).
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Allow me to respond. First, you took my quote “cyclist harassers are exclusively young or middle-aged white men of either the suburban or overtly redneck persuasion” out of context. You selectively omitted the disclaimer “In my 22+ years of cycling experience… ”, which takes it out of the realm of being a generally racist experience and puts in into the realm of a factual personal experience. If I said “white people hate cyclists”, that would be a racist statement. But obviously that’s not true. It’s just that all the people I’ve had problems with were white. Perhaps that’s simply because the majority of the population where I live is white. Likewise, your statement of personal experience is no more sexist than my statement was racist.
But your original column made several assumptions about Mr. Ahmed. First, because he has a middle-eastern name, that he is Islamic. We have no evidence of that. Second, you assumed that if he is in fact Islamic, that he in turn hates Caucasians, Americans, you name it. And third, you assumed that he hates them so much that he is willing to do horrific bodily harm against someone of that group that he does not know. That is racism. Making unfounded predications against someone based on their country of origin, race, or religion, and that alone – is racism.
I personally don’t hate races, or sexes, or anything – except ignorance. The majority of my unpleasant encounters with motorists have stemmed from pure ignorance, the remainder being from simple selfishness. That Mr. Ahmed is capable of that kind of violence is no more relevant to me than the same acts perpetrated by a white person or anyone else. It’s the actions that I detest, not the people. Likewise, the cyclist could have incited Mr. Ahmed to the point that he engaged in violence. I’ve done it, I know lots of cyclists who do in this type of confrontation. This is in no way to make any excuses for Mr. Ahmed, but as a cyclist vs. someone driving a large piece of machinery akin to a loaded gun, you have to be mindful of your words more than you might like at times.
As an aside, the vast majority of my cycling is in rural areas. Some rural people are very tolerant, others (the aforementioned rednecks) not so much. I can’t predicate reactions to me based on that demographic, but again, it seems to be an issue of tolerance vs. ignorance, not skin color or religion.
You needn’t supplicate for the ability to respond. Simply leaving a comment will suffice.
It is true that I omitted your experience in the quotation as cited, though I did reference it later on. At the same time, I don’t think duration of experience is all that relevant given that I’m not exactly a rookie myself when it comes to cycling, and yet would seem to have had an experience that is wildly divergent to your own.
So at the end of things, discounting personal experience (which is subjective, at any rate, and variant from person to person and locality to locality), all we have left is the statement you made, the one I cited. And discounting experience, suddenly the statement is not so out of context after all. I find it only a little less than impossible to believe that in over two decades of cycling, you have only ever had problems — remember, you used the word “exclusively” — with white males. I have never had problems with white male drivers (though I have had problems, as noted, with white female drivers).
And I’ve never had problems with rural drivers of any sex or colour.
(Incidentally, the majority of the population where I live is white — additionally, rural Alberta is very white, given that most of the non-city-dwellers in these here parts are of Germanic or Slavic extract.)
Granted…but I already admitted that I was being, partly, tongue in cheek with the choice of article title. I’ve since noted that his actions conform to an established pattern seen both in and outside of Canada.
I believe I mentioned something about “the infidel,” warming (as I was) to the theme I had established. Not so sure I directly accused Mr. Ahmed of hating white people.
Given that he did do horrific bodily harm to someone, I can’t really say it’s my assumption that he did what he did.
No, racism has nothing at all to do with religion. Please feel free to consult any dictionary in order to confirm this fact.
And yet you have no problem making sweeping generalizations about white, rural-dwelling males.
On this point, I would agree with you…which, again, is why I find your statement that you have been exclusively harassed, as a cyclist, by white, rural-dwelling males to be so very incredulous; having practically grown up around that exact demographic, I have to say that I find them to be rather far from ignorant, and also rather far from selfish, as a general rule. City dwellers are much more likely to be boorish, rude, selfish, and (yes) ignorant — not necessarily in a “book learning” sense of the word, but certainly in a “life experience” sense.
So, given your cited statement concerning white rural-dwelling males…if by some chance it had been my experience that I had been, to use your words again, harassed exclusively by drivers who happened to be Muslim, you’d have had no problem with my comments?
To be fair, I’ve tried to egg on drivers before…and at times, I’ve been blatant about it. Heck, at times, I’ve even crossed the line (e.g. scooping up a snowball and hucking it at a passing vehicle — a cab, driven by someone of obviously Middle Eastern extract, mind you — that had attempted to run me off the road). Never had anyone attempt violence against me, though.
And you’re right: there’s no excusing what Mr. Ahmed did. I wish you would have left the statement at that; your “but” remark, while accurate to a point, more or less defeats your acknowledgement that what Mr. Ahmed did was wrong.
And since you earlier dressed me down for making suppositions about facts not in evidence, might I point out that you have again shot your own argument against me in the foot by doing something you had just finished scolding me for? Because we do not know whether Mr. Kasztelewicz did anything to egg Mr. Ahmed on; they did have some manner of altercation, but it could have been as simple as Mr. Kasztelewicz getting angry at nearly being run off the road.
My cycling has been split about 70/30 between urban and rural outings, and even adjusting for the imbalance there, urban drivers — especially women — are far and away the worst menace I have encountered on the road; rural drivers are a breeze by comparison. I also dispute whether it’s actually a case of ignorance vs. tolerance…I think it’s simply an issue of worldview. City folk are more selfish; rural folk more courteous. City folk are more stressed and rushed; rural folk are more laid back, calm, and measured in terms of how they utilize their time. Living in a city teaches you not to care too much about those around you; living in the country teaches you to care not only for yourself, but for your neighbours as well.
So your whole issue is that you think I’m lying about my personal experience, based on your personal experience? That argument is completely free from reason. Here’s a tip – try strapping on a bunch of lycra, shaving your legs, and riding around the rural American south and see how it goes.
While you’re trying to escape on the technicality that Islam isn’t a “race”, you are being racist, as you have ascribed a whole scenario to someone knowing nothing other than his name. Period.
No, my point is that personal experience isn’t as relevant to the discussion as you think it is, precisely because we can both draw on over a decade (two in your case) of experience and yet come up with wildly divergent conclusions.
But while we’re on the subject of reason, might I point out that if you’re going to base your conclusion that cyclist harassers are “exclusively” (your exact word, remember) white rural-dwelling males, and yet concede that your principal cycling experience is “the American South,” that’s actually one further reason to reject your conclusion as bigoted, because it’s based on a highly skewed sample.
To be more succinct: you make a sweeping conclusion based on an admittedly skewed sample…but chastise me for failing to display reason? Tsk.
Let’s come back to Mr. Ahmed, though.
Yeah, I made a pithy little comment. It’s not a wholly baseless comment, of course, given that what I and others term “sudden jihad syndrome” is rapidly becoming a very identifiable pattern in Western society. And certainly, Mr. Ahmed’s actions do fit the profile (to use that other ugly word).
Do I know for certain that’s what happened? No, of course not. But then, I didn’t claim that I did know; I was speculating, nothing more.
Last time I checked, it wasn’t racist (or anything-ist) to speculate whether an event that matched an established profile might have been another incidence of the profiled event. And while you might dismiss it as a technicality, it’s actually a highly significant point that Islam is not a race — to use, then, the term “racist” as you did, is at once to both speak in ignorance of the plain meaning of the word, and to also cheapen its value in this discourse.
Especially when you simultaneously have no problems making sweeping judgements about white rural-dwelling males despite the fact that you admit to what sounds like a very heavy bias in your own sample space.