“Your ignorance cramps my conversation. ” ~Anthony Hope
If someone close to you – a family member, coworker, friend – came up to you and sincerely thought that Barack Obama is a Muslim terrorist; how would you respond? Would you feel it is your civic duty to set them straight or would you IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE and then drink?
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Definitely set them straight. But not for them. For you.
However, there’s at least one study out there that suggests people who identify as conservatives are more likely to entrench incorrect beliefs when presented with evidence that contradicts those beliefs. That is, rational argument may have the opposite effect.
Whew! Drinking would be necessary, but I think my first step would be to ask them why they think that. And then, depending on who they are, ask them if they realize how crazy that sounds.
My MIL’s boyfriend tried to tell me over Thanksgiving dinner that Obama is a Muslim. “He says he isn’t, but he is,” he said. When I pressed him to tell me in which reputable source he read that, he couldn’t answer. I almost punched him in the face. So instead, I walked away while he was still talking.
For what it’s worth, I’ll give my response after my blood pressure goes down a bit.
Well, what I did was say “MOM YOU ARE INSANE.”
There are two ways to look at this:
1) This person is open and susceptible to suggestion, therefore you might gently remind them they can’t believe everything they hear/read, and they’ll be grateful.
2) This person is one of the (many!) people who become totally irrational during an election, and you should just tell them you really admire Barack Obama and perhaps they could direct you to the nearest terrorist conscription office.
Ignoring is probably the safest way to go. And the drinking could help too.
So… wait a second… are you saying that Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim terrorist?!? Aw, man… you just can’t trust those random emails that show up in your in-box.
I’d probably look at them like they’re insane and blurt out something incredulously.
I’m not very good at hiding my thoughts.
And I’m simultaneously passive – so when my uncle told me Obama might secretly be a Muslim, I just nodded. It’s so annoying to get into.
Can’t wait to hear your reaction.
Lord, I would WANT to set them straight, but I’ve learned people who really believe things like that aren’t going to listen to reason. A simple, “You’re absolutely wrong, and there’s an insane amount of evidence to prove how wrong you are out there if you are interested in finding it.” Then DOWN AS MUCH ALCOHOL AS YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON.
I would definitely try to set them straight, but I would also keep in mind that they probably have zero interest in being set straight. (Sadly, I have people in my own family who believe that Muslim = Terrorist. My aunt has a letter from her pastor hanging on the fridge. Every day as she reaches in for her morning orange juice, that letter spells out all of the reasons why God doesn’t want her to vote for Obama.)
I would probably laugh awkwardly in disbelief and then back away slowly before I caught their crazy.
Maybe eventually I’d come back and tell them that they were crazy and why, but probably not. I mean, with the election only a week and half away, is there anyone that doesn’t know the truth that really *wants* to?
I had a CLIENT send me the whole e-mail a while back (packed with facts of Obama’s upbringing in a RADICAL MADRASAH)and I ignored it in written form, but the next time we talked, it came up in a gentle way, and I said hey, just so you know, that e-mail was debunked a while back. Miraculously, it wasn’t awkward or weird, and I didn’t get fired, and I think he believed me.
I’m not sure I would feel it is my civic duty to set anyone straight. People hold a lot of crazy notions. I would react the same way I would if someone said — who knows — Bill Gates has three nipples. I would just ask question, trying to figure out what they thinking. Where did you hear this information? Is there any proof of this?
In the case of Obama: Are you saying that he is Muslim OR a Muslim terrorist? What would be wrong with having a Muslim president? Has he expressed anti-American ideas? Why would Joe Biden and the entire Democratic Party be supporting a terrorist? If he is this clever to hide all this information from everyone — he must be a super-genius — and perhaps he is our best choice for getting us out of our economic and international messes, right?
I would probably drink and let my majored-in-political-science-husband do the explaining.
I think I would simply say,”I’m sorry but that’s not true. You shouldn’t believe everything you read.” Then walk away quickly to the nearest margarita.
There is definitely a drink involved in here somewhere. I’d probably be speechless because I would be in shock that anyone I actually know would think that.
My younger sister thinks Obama is a terrorist. I ignore that because if I try to explain to her that he is not it might ruin our relationship, at least for a little while. I figure she is young and stuck in her narrow beliefs and VERY heavily influenced by my dad and stepmom who probably think the same thing. Unless I could get them to change their minds, which I would bet my left boob that I can’t, then I’m not going to be able to change her mind.
I know saying I would ignore it is the easy/lazy sounding answer, but it’s what I do.
This really depends. If it were the coworker who kept sending me emails that could have been prevented by visiting Snopes first, I’d just drink-heavily.
Family or friends require intervention. Asking what source they got that information from, commenting that not everyone named Adolf is a Nazi and inviting them to sit with me and look at the REPUTABLE websites providing information.
Thankfully, I haven’t encountered that kind of stupidity. Though if I were still at my most recent job, I suspect that a few of my colleagues are in that faction.
Shall I send you a bottle of Mi Tres Amours?
Set. Them. Straight.
Not all black men are Muslims. Not all Muslims are terrorists. I’d be willing to bet there are more fundamental Christians than fundamental Muslims out there.
My best friend in Canada is a Muslim; I get a little touchy about Muslim equaling terrorist. Sorry.
Set ‘em straight. STAT.
Oh my, that happened to me, too. I am usually polite to a fault, but I laughed in this guy’s face (and made a mental note-to-self to remember that he is a fucking idiot)
Set them straight of course. And wonder what is going on with them?!
Well, this hasn’t happened to me, but I do have a friend who went to a Sarah Palin rally in Florida and dresses her three year old daughter in Palin Chick tshirts — then posts pictures of the whole nonsense on Facebook. Seriously, it makes me want to barf a little, but in that case I have pretty much just been ignoring her. If she ever started throwing out Obama rumors, I’d definitely set her straight, though. There is too much ugliness in this campaign and too many people are buying the bullshit hook line and sinker. Your friend might not (probably won’t) believe you, but I think you’ll feel better if you at least try to get the real story into his/her head.
Delurking to say that ohmigod, this is what I get on a DAILY basis at work, from not one but two otherwise reasonable women. The other day they started in on the oldied-but-goodie “Obama doesn’t have a valid US birth certificate.” When I pointed them to the unbiased, non-partisan factcheck.org site that disproves the whole birth certificate controversy, they fixated on the fact that it was produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which receives a small amount of funding from a board that Obama once served on, and clearly it wasn’t non-partisan at all. ARGH. I’ve given up on the two of them.
What you do is you take this person to a computer and pull up both Snopes and FactCheck and then say, “Read it and weep!”
Does the drinking actually involve “drinking” or can you just pour your beverage of choice over their head? Either way, trying to refute them with actual facts or pouring a drink would be a waste of breath and a good buzz. Any wanker who still believes that BS after it’s been refuted over and over doesn’t want to listen to reason or the truth.
I’ve heard this too. I DO respond. The standard for me is this, “Ah yes, I’ve heard that. Though it appears that major news organizations have only been able to refute these claims because there’s no proof. He’s been running for 21 months now, I’m pretty certain that if there were a factual basis for this it would have made the news, not just e-mail forwards.” And yes, there is a very heavy snarky overtone that goes with that. Plus I get really pissy about the Muslim equaling terrorism thing so I usually add a note about that.
I’ve heard it in conjunction with the Ayers issue a couple times, as though it’s a double whammy for terrorism.
I would do my best to set them straight, because they are ignorant and need education. LOTS of education.
Yah. The education bit – I work in a total redneck agricultural-area high school and I hear the worst of it. “Facts” being repeated just as they heard them discussed last night at dinner (fill in your choice of venison & Budweiser or squirrel & PBR here) and I do my best to gently point out the difference between fact and mud-slinging rumors and inuendo. And then there are times that my students make comments, too. Can’t wait for this election to be over……
Also delurking to say, yes, I would totally try to set him or her straight. Try being the operative word. I’m pretty outspoken though, and not prone to ignoring things.
There are some who it is worth engaging in the discussion. There are some who will argue with you until you give up and go home just because that’s how they play the game of life. The first set of people are worth saying something to- the latter are not – they drive people to drink.
Fortunately, even the conservatives near me are not as irrational as to think that Obama is Muslim terrorist. My biggest issue is this guy at work who talks nonstop about converting people to vote democrat. He is pushing people harder than they want to be pushed and he’s turning people off. What to do about that?
I’m still struggling with this. I recently went home, and while my father doesn’t think he’s a terrorist, per se, he is way more racist than I ever thought possible.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just left it alone. He’s old, I’m not going to change him, and I’m thankful that he was somehow able to keep these beliefs he holds from me for all this time, so I didn’t grow up with them. So I bit my tongue.
I wish I’d said something, though.
Sadly there is usually little reasoning with someone who is so narrow of mind. I think that to even believe something like that, the seeds of hatred and ugliness has to have been planted in your heart already. It is likely that they will believe whatever drivel is spewed at them about someone because in reality, it is what they want to believe.
I face this issue on a daily basis. I speak to at least one person a day who tells me that I am putting the lives of my children in danger by supporting Barack Obama. I used to get angry. Then it made me want to cry. At times I just had to laugh at their ignorance. Then it made me want to pick my children up and move them away from this closed minded community. But at the end of the day, it just makes me want to get on the phone, get on line, blog, write, call, tweet, to every person I know with as many FACTS as I can hand them, showing who Barack Obama really is.
It’s sad how something so historic and monumentous has brought out the ugly in so many people.
Oh, and I am still looking to move to a new community if anyone has any suggestions.
I got hate e-mail from a family member this week – truly – that referenced him “hanging around” with terrorists, stopping short of calling him one. It included several other gems as well.
I don’t go point for point on these because quite frankly I don’t have time and the meanness made me cry (this is my family and I hate what I’m learning) And I’m with Backpacking Dad on the entrenchment of views bit…Still, I do say that I disagree and won’t argue about things that are so irrational.
And yes, then I drink.
1. I would argue with them.
2. I would drink either way.
3. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You should ignore it and drink, because it’s your birthday. Happy birthday!
People like that won’t listen and if you try to present them with documentation proving otherwise they just send you those stupid emails that go around and around.
I’ve added their email address to my spam/junk folders so I don’t even have to know they sent me anything — unless I look. I look. They just will…not…stop.
So I just have a drink and ignore.
I’ve never had someone say that too my face but I did get ton’s of the emails. After correcting them and giving them like a link to urban legends, if they continued with that crap I tell them that they are pushing ignorance around and to look up the mess they are forwarding around before blindly pushing send….
then I go and have a drink.
i can’t even tell you how many close friends and relatives i have who actually, seriously think this.
it drives me mental.
I would laugh in their face and then drink. Is there ever a bad excuse to drink?
Yeah, the first issue is definitely trying to clarify that being Muslim does not necesesarily equal being a terrorist (and being non-Muslim doesn’t necessarily equal being not a terrorist). Then there’s the issue of 1) why does the speaker believe Obama’s secretly a Muslim and 2) why does the speaker believe Obama’s a terrorist? (And in the case of an e-mail I received the other day, 3) why does the speaker believe Obama is the Antichrist and that Sarah Palin has “the Anointing”?)
But yeah, I might think all those things, but I seldom actually say them out loud because it tends to give irrational people the additional irrational idea that I’m out to get them and try to make them look foolish with my devilish rhetoric. So in conversation, I tend to say as little on the subject as possible (which for me is not saying nothing, it’s correcting MILDLY).
In the college composition classes in which I’m teaching persuasion, however, I’ve been using the whole “pals around with terrorists” thing as an example of logical fallacy and ad hominem attack, and for the most part, the students are getting it, which gives me hope.
Yeeeah. Dealt with this as well last week: she said “All the issues aside (?!), I just can’t have someone named Obama in office.”
For the love.
This was also the same week that my mother proudly sent me her anti-Obama website that she just put together.
I just don’t know what to say anymore.
Ok, like I have said before, I am a McCain supporter. If someone made that comment to me I would burst out laughing. I mean, come on! Even McCain would set you straight if you made that comment to him (which he did in rally recently). If only every voter would actually do their research and use their BRAIN!
I would lose my shit.
My cousin sent me one of those emails a while back, so I just replied with the Snopes link debunking it. Usually I just ignore it. There’s a segment of my family that’s a little crazy, so I tend to not open any emails from them that are obviously forwards. Luckily this stuff hasn’t ever come up in person with them.
When they say that Obama is a Muslim, I simply point out that nowhere in the requirements to serve as President does it state that the candidate has to be of a certain religious background; i.e. One does NOT have to be a Christian to be President.
I don’t argue about whether or not he’s Muslim or Christian or whatever, I just point out that it’s a moot point.
When they say he’s a terrorist, I ask them why they think that. If they say it’s because he’s Muslim, I point out that in the past there have been those who are white and claim to be Christians who’ve launched terrorist attacks on Americans. Tim McVeigh ring a bell, anyone?
I figure it’s easier to point out that anyone could be a “terrorist”, not just someone of Middle-Eastern descent.
I would set them straight. But it seems that the people who actually believe this cannot be convinced that he isn’t a terrorist. Which is the scariest thing about this.
A little late to the game here, but a couple weeks ago I was discussing “crazy McCain rally lady” with the woman cares for my children every day while I am at work. After I finished ranting and raving about the fact that crazy rally ladie seriously believed Obama was an Arab muslim terrorist, the babysitter looked at me and said, with all seriousness, “But isn’t he Muslim?” Way to be informed and learn about the candidates America!
Ladie=lady.
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