Open Carry Oath Keepers Swear to Keep Bigotry Alive

Photo by Ryan Dickey

CBS Detroit reported that a group calling itself the Oath Keepers--an open carry group--rallied yesterday in Dearborn, Michigan. Dearborn is a suburb of Detroit with a large Muslim population. According to CBS, a rally organizer explained:

As this invasion of Muslim colonization continues unchecked on American soil, we can only expect the same suffering now endured by EUROPE…Now is the time to act.

It's true that Dearborn has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the US, a demographic phenomenon that began back in the mid-1970s with an influx of Lebanese fleeing their country's civil war. As Michigan Radio reported last year:

  Today, Dearborn is a unique Arab-American community--both nationally and among the smaller Arab communities scattered around Metro Detroit.
  The Dearborn community is overwhelmingly Muslim, and majority Shiite Muslim. Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world. It’s also mostly Lebanese, with smaller pockets of Iraqis, Yemenis, and Palestinians.
  Nationally, Arab Americans are roughly half Muslims and half Christians. Metro Detroit also has a number of smaller Arab communities, many of them majority Christian—like the growing Chaldean community in Sterling Heights.

Is this an "invasion" or "colonization?" Hardly, but not surprising that some people think that. The British polling firm Ipsoso MORI found that people in the US tend to wildly overestimate the number of Muslims in the country:

According to the new poll, US citizens guessed the Muslim population of the US to be about 15 percent when asked “Out of every 100 people, how many do you think are Muslim?” This would mean that the US has 47.4 million Muslims. The reality is quite different, with current research putting the percentage of Muslims in the United States at about .8 percent of the population, with an estimated 2.6 million Muslims in the US as of 2010 [quoted here, see also the Pew Foundation's similar estimate here, which also predicts a doubling of that population by 2030, to 1.7% of the US population].

But given that Oath Keepers label this tiny demographic shift an invasion of colonization (an odd conflation of two different concepts), no wonder they want to gather in Dearborn, openly bearing their weapons. They've a country to defend! Even humanity to defend, for yesterday's "resistance" was part of a nation-wide "Global Rally for Humanity."

Apparently, humanity excludes Muslims, who make up almost a quarter of the world's population. What are we to make of a group that dehumanizes such a large number of people? Worse, a group that connects the demand for unfettered gun rights to the fear of Muslims?  And not just fear of them. This regurgitation of John Birchers (see a profile of their leader here) is afraid of the United Nations, of a black president, same sex marriage, and immigrants in general who don't look like what they think an American should look like, even if they're Christian (see here for a resume of Oath Keeper actions). Must be tiring to go around lugging those guns, day to day, afraid of so much.

They remind me of a lovely person I live with who happens to be tragically sliding into dementia, talking to people I cannot see, who won't come out of her room because there's a "man" out there, who fears unlocked or open doors, who is constantly startled by whatever. But she has no control over this. The Oath Keepers, on the other hand, have made the choice to live a life of fear, and to take it out on others.

According to one source, only "about twelve" showed up, just four of them openly armed. The Detroit News reported that

Saturday’s boisterous assembly included about 75 people, mostly counter-protesters, according to Dearborn Police Chief Ronald Haddad.

That heartens me. Only a paltry number in Michigan exhibit, at least publicly, this collective dementia that unjustifiably translates difference into existential angst.

Postscript to Minor Rant on Conspiracy Theories

Blog Song for the Moment

Angelo Badalamenti, "Dance of the Dream Man," Twin Peaks (1990)

Perhaps some of the few who read this blog may wonder why I often have a knee-jerk reaction to conspiracy theories of this sort, and why I rarely can keep my satirical scorn in check.  I have been asking that of myself today, and I think I've boiled the answer down to these points.

1) A significant part of my occupation and vocation is research and writing (though I've done more of the former than the latter), as well as passing on my learning about research methods and writing to students.  The conspiracy theories that get passed on to my Facebook page, or that I run across while wandering through the web, violate the rules of evidence and logic that govern my work  (admittedly, not always successfully).  Anecdotal evidence is not sufficient; nor are generalizations from an individual experience.  Claims about this or that should be based on two or more sources.  Sources should be read with their origins and context in mind (not only who produced it, but for what, under what circumstances, for what audience, etc.).  So theories about things such as President Obama's origins, or his intentions, that are based on evidence ripped out of context, or are based on syllogistic logic, won't get the time of day from me.  Actually, I consider them an effrontery.  Fear-mongering without merit.  Hence my mild outrage.

2) An idiosyncratic reason: I immediately discount any conspiracy theory that I've noticed before in the history of our country, e.g., dangerous, diseased, immoral immigrants; a non-Christian fifth column in the country (Catholics, communists, Muslims); the US succumbing to some other power, whether a secretive elite, those Rothschilds, the Trilateral Commission, or the UN.

3) Another idiosyncratic reason: I also tend to dismiss claims made by pundits or bloggers who affix "Dr." before their name, often a PhD not related to their topic at hand, a sign of intellectual insecurity to me, and an effort to legitimize otherwise shoddy reporting and investigation.

4) But more important, these conspiracy theories distract us from real problems and challenges at hand. Think of all the intellectual energy spent on them rather than current issues such as balancing civil liberties with national security (Congress just renewed the Executive's foreign surveillance powers), or assuring long-term economic stability while addressing grievous economic stress in the here and now (the "fiscal cliff"), or reconciling the claims of marginalized groups with the values of the majority (e.g. gay rights).

All that said, it's not just been President Obama's race that has encouraged them (though clearly many of the theories about him share the premise that he's not one of us, not a part of "real America" as Sarah Palin put it).  There have been small cabals of the powerful that have done measurable damage to our polity, economy, and foreign affairs--I'm thinking Vietnam, Watergate, the Savings and Loan crisis, the Iran-Contra affair, the Enron debacle, as well as the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  I imagine some think, well, if that can happen, why not this more grandiose "X" conspiracy theory?  The difference is, though, these were ill-advised or ill-intentioned policy choices, ones challenged rather quickly, though not ameliorated very well at all.

And finally, I realize that there are left-wing conspiracy theories, too, that are equally specious. Off the top of my head--Oliver Stone's JFK assassination as attempted military coup (JFK), the US empire engineers everything bad in the world (e.g., Empire's Workshop), to the alleged sympathy of the Bush II administration towards right-wing Christians advocating theocracy (here, for example).

So, professor that I am, I'm asking those who repeat conspiracy theories--please do your homework.

MoJo's summary of Obama conspiracy theories

Blog Song for the Moment

Tom Waits, What's He Building in There?  Mule Variations (1999)

A couple of months ago, Mother Jones created a venn diagram summarizing all the wingnut conspiracy theories about Obama (below, or you can access the original article here)
 
My favorite: President Obama is actually a "lizard overlord" (just can't believe people buy this--clearly, he's an aardvark).

MJ could have added the viral rumor that the Obama administration handed China "eminent domain" rights in the US as collateral for debt owned by China (another one that's obviously untrue--the evidence is that all the Chinese restaurants are actually the collateral).

Or there's the one about Obama's intentions to give up US sovereignty to the UN (intentions?  It's already happened folks!  We're already duped!  That's the power of Obama.  Don't look into his eyes the next time you see him on TV unless you've covered your head with foil.)