11/19/2009
Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto, who contributes the paper’s excellent "Best of the Web" blog, is upset that a friend and colleague, Tunku Varadarajan, has been taken to task for not taking the politically correct line on Maj. Nidal Hasan’s mass murder at Fort Hood.
A business professor at New York University, Varadarajan wrote piece for Forbes.com called "Going Muslim," observing that political correctness, the fear of offending Muslims, may have led the Army to ignore the warning signs of Hasan’s impending attack.
"We are a civilized society. One of our cardinal rules of coexistence is that we (try always to) judge people only by their actions and not by their identity, whether racial, religious or sexual. This is our great strength as a society, and also, in the present circumstances, our great weakness: How to address the threat posed by the fact that, of the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in our midst, there are a few (perhaps many more than a few) who are so radicalized that they would kill their fellow Americans? Must we continue to be neutral in handling all people from different groups even though we know that there are differential risks posed by people of one group? The problem here is a heightened version of the airport security problem, where we check all people — including Chinese grandmothers — regardless of risk profiles. But can we afford that on a grand, national scale? (And I mean that question not merely in a financial sense, but also in terms of the price we'd pay in failing to detect a threat in time.)"
Varadarajan’s observation is, of course, correct. But at the end of his column, he did the smart thing and wrote that Army must be lookout for all kinds of extremists, not just Muslims. But that caveat wasn’t enough.
The diversicrats at NYU flew into a rage. A rabbi at the school’s Jewish center has ramped up a "Campaign Against Hate." You'd think a rabbi would have better sense given what Muslims typically want to do to the Jews, but let’s leave that aside.
The president of the school joined in:
"A journalist and NYU clinical faculty member has written a piece for Forbes that many Muslims find offensive. I understand how they feel — I found it offensive, too. I am teaching Muslim students now, and I have taught them in the past; the portrayal of Muslims in the Forbes piece bears no resemblance to my experience; I disagree with the Forbes piece and think it is wrong."
But Mr. Taranto can’t figure out why the diversicrats are upset, at least if I’m reading him correctly:
"How’s that for diversity? NYU’s Jews and Muslims are ganging up on a Hindu and accusing him of promoting "hate" — an inflammatory charge anywhere, but especially on a university campus. Yet it’s clear that Rabbi Sarna knows the charge is unjustified, since his actual criticism of Varadarajan’s work — it "does not deal sensitively enough" — is so tepid."
Perhaps Mr. Taranto might check and rethink his support for his own paper’s editorials. The Journal is nothing if not the nation’s leading editorial page cheering immigration, and by extension, the leftist anti-West hatred that travels under the name "diversity" now appears to have victimized his friend for telling the truth — or at least trying to.
Note to Mr. Taranto: Read Ann Coulter’s latest column: Diversity is the problem.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.