I don't feel it is "making excuses" for people so much as recognizing reality and dealing with it accordingly. You can condemn people for their ignorance, or you can try to educate them and make them see things in a way they never considered before. While I am certainly guilty of the former, at least in principle I prefer the latter.

As for educating the kiddies I am all for that, but I have seen what kind of "education" on race my nieces and nephews have gotten in school: white people are evil, white culture is inherently racist, we all should feel guilty for what the white man has done to others, etc. While the crimes perpetrated against minorities are things every American needs to learn about, I see no reason why my nieces and nephews should be made to feel guilty for these things, as it was not their family, their generation or their people (Irish) that were responsible for these things. The belief in collective responsibility is itself a form of racism. I also don't think that we should selectively address "white" racism while ignoring racism from other ethnicities and cultures, whether here or abroad. The emphasis on "white" to the exclusion of all else strikes me as suspect, especially since many of the people pushing this selective view are, in fact, extremely hostile and racist in their attitudes towards whites. This is particularly true with regard to Islamophobia, which I am reasonably certain afflicts black and hispanic Americans to near the degree it does whites.

Go play the intellectual-dishonesty game with somebody else.

now i'm sure programmer craig is going to accuse me of justifying attacks on civilians. that's not the case. i stand opposed to the authoritarian tendencies within my community which hold those positions in the same manner i am opposed to all forms of authoritarian rule.

how many of our people have died form US bombs and US bullets? how many hundreds of thousands of us have you killed? what about the plunder of our lands? what about the rapists and dictatorships you prop up in our countries? what about the loved ones and lovers of the resistance fighters in Iraq who were taken hostage by the US military?

i'll be the last person to admit that the forms of resistance are imperfect, but that doesn't invalidate the right to resist, both armed and otherwise.

you mentioned suicide bombing. this is a very touchy subject, but i like the line out of "The Battle for Algiers" — give us a fully mechanized army and a commensurate defense budget and we won't have to resort to this.

but my opposition to suicide bombing is rooted in the fact that i want my people to live; it's rooted in the simple yet beautiful notion that i value the life of my people, a principle that racists and imperialists will never understand. i want my people to experience and enjoy life, in addition to the fact that they can accomplish so much more by a lifetime of organizing.

the racists are the ones who are mystified by this. you destroy our homes, our communities and our economies and then call us degenerate when we fight back.

i'll end by saying, programmer craig, you're right. i'm exactly what US Empire and white supremacists such as yourself are fighting against: an Arab man whose got a lot to teach you about democracy. i'm your worst fucking nightmare.

programmer craig, i'm not sure exactly what you're inferring when you mention the "benefits" i get to accrue to myself, but i think i know what you're getting at. i'm sure you're not referring to the racial profiling i endure when i travel, or even when my democratic "rights" get stomped on by the police or other arms of official society when i organize for Palestine, or labor or education rights.

it's true i don't live under a military occupation, or live as some of the super-exploited layers of our society, such as immigrant workers or much of the black community in this country. but, i also don't take responsibility for the oppression of women, queer folks and people of color that's perpetrated by white supremacists (programmer craig, that's you), patriarchs and the rulers of this country especially when i spend a major part of my week organizing against those oppressions.

C.H. i think your question concerning those Americans who aren't Muslim raises an important point along these lines. just like Arab and Muslim societies, American society is made up of complex layers and groups. there are millions of everyday women, white, people of color, straight, men and queer folks who are just trying to get by day to day who in do not make any concerted effort to support any of the aforementioned oppressions. but there are many everyday folks who do, in addition to the rulers of this country.

my indictment of US Empire is an indictment of the latter. i certainly don't see America as one homogenous group. there are many layers stratifications and classes of people. in fact i would argue that non-Muslim Americans have a stake in fighting US Empire and occupation. why should those hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars be used to oppress people when it's clearly needed in places like the California education system? just look at how the Patriot Act attacked all Americans.

as brown folks we all know that there have certainly been political traditions who have tried to lump all Americans into the "oppressor" category, but i think multiracial and international solidarity is possible. there are Americans who can and must join the struggle.

while there are real divisions create by white supremacy, patriarchy and other oppressions between normal everyday people, they need to be torn down — not papered over or ignored — and replaced with real living links of solidarity because it's going to take an international democratic movement form below to free us all.

the debates about race theory prompted by national liberal movements, Black Power and within Marxist traditions have made rich contributions to the concrete strategic and organizational implications that serious organizers need to consider if we're to avoid repeating the same mistakes of past movements.

i think that's what you're comment was getting at. even if not, i still stand by those points.