Daily Stormer The Most Censored Publication in History
Andrew Anglin
Daily Stormer
April 9, 2015
“This piece of art hurts our feelings. You must cancel it or we will cry and accuse you of racism.”
The University of Michigan, under pressure from Muslim and Arab students, yanked a scheduled Friday night showing of the Iraq War movie American Sniper. In its place, the university will run a cuddly kid feature, Paddington.
University of Michigan student Lamees Mekkaoui led the drive to get American Sniper tossed. She questioned why the school would play a movie that makes her uncomfortable and promotes what she and others have said are anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiments.
Mekkaoui’s effort included a letter signed by a couple of hundred fellow students and led the university’s Center for Campus Involvement to pull the film from its lineup of UMix events.
But when word of the movie showing being canceled spread, a backlash quickly developed, with a second petition making its rounds through campus Wednesday, accusing the university of censorship.
“The movie American Sniper is not about a racist mass murderer or a criminal,” the latest petition said. “If the university prevents a movie like this from being shown, it promotes intolerance and stifles dialogue and debate on the subject and goes directly against the atmosphere UMix purports to provide. As adults at a public university, we should have the option to view this movie if we so choose and have the opportunity to engage on the topics it presents to come to our own conclusions on the subjects. Students should be trusted to interact responsibly on a movie no different than any other film depicting the lives of the troops at war, such as Saving Private Ryan.”
On Wednesday afternoon, university spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said the university would be rescheduling the movie at a yet-to-be-determined date with “an appropriate educational panel discussion.”
Well, that’s good then. A half-win, sort of. Being that it is in a different context, the Moslems still got their wish.
But the tears continue to flow.
Mekkaoui, a sophomore at the University of Michigan, said she’s seen the movie.
“I felt uncomfortable during it,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “As a student who identifies as an Arab and Middle Eastern student, I feel that American Sniper condones a lot of anti-Middle Eastern and North African propaganda.”
She wrote one letter to the university’s Center for Campus Involvement, asking for it to be pulled from Friday’s schedule.
“I like those events,” Mekkaoui said. “I don’t think this film fits that event, which is supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I think it should be played, but not at this event.”
…
“Student reactions have clearly articulated that this is neither the venue nor the time to show this movie,” the Center for Campus involvement said in a statement it posted on Facebook and Twitter. “We deeply regret causing harm to members of our community, and appreciate the thoughtful feedback provided to us by students.
“We … did not intend to exclude any students or communities on campus through showing this film. Nevertheless, as we know, intent and impact can be very different things. While our intent was to show a film, the impact of the content was harmful, and made students feel unsafe and unwelcome at our program.”
On campus Wednesday, many students said they didn’t have a problem with the film being shown.
She “felt uncomfortable.” So it must be shut down. This is what you call “brown privilege” – the ability to impose your hurt feelings on any person or institution who you claim caused those feelings to hurt.
You can read my reaction to American Sniper here. I got a pretty big backlash for it, as many of our readers viewed it as Jewish pro-war propaganda, and having watched it again since, I do think that the film could have included some acknowledgement that the war in Iraq was not directly linked to 9/11 in any way but through media propaganda. Still, I hold the view that the film was not political, and so was not obligated to make a political argument.
