As basil.CA readers know, I go to Clarissa’s Blog every morning. It is always so smart and vivid. (No need for a second cup of coffee.) This morning in a post titled “Offensive Defense” she writes:

Yet another fellow on TV suggested that “ISIS wants us to turn against Muslims because that will make it easier to recruit.”

This oft-repeated idea paints an offensive picture of Muslims as people who are uniformly two seconds away from turning into terrorists and mass murderers. Nobody says shit like that about anybody else. “Don’t say anything mean about Ukrainians or they might run away and join a gang that rapes children and murders people for fun.”

Can’t we, instead, just say that it’s not acceptable to persecute Muslims because it’s wrong to do that to people and not because we are terrified of the inner animal that supposedly hides in every Muslim?