Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Regan Schaeffer
Central Michigan University
If You Walk Away, I’ll Walk Away:
Alternatives to Our Demonization of the Other
If You Walk Away, I’ll Walk Away
I don’t know how many of you recognize the title of my paper as a quotation from the lyrics of a
song called Landlocked Blues, by my favorite band, Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst, the singer-songwriter, sings:
There's kids playing guns in the street,
And one’s pointing his tree branch at me.
So I put my hands up; I say "Enough is enough,
If you walk away, I'll walk away."
And he shot me dead.
My presentation is based on a longer paper examining the national emotional controversy over the
proposed construction of a Muslim mosque and community center near the site of the 9/11 attacks on the
World Trade Center.
In the lead-up to the mid-term election season, last summer of 2010, the very idea of this
construction became a catalyst for the expression of the anxiety, fear and anger that New Yorkers and the
rest of America feel about the Muslim world, emotions which, immediately after the events of 9/11 were
appropriately directed at radicalized expressions of Islam.
It seems to me, that we Americans often don’t attempt much critical understanding of either
international Islamic issues or the real beliefs and real experience of our Muslim-American neighbors. We
rely instead on information from and opinions of peer groups with whom we are comfortable: family,
friends, school and church community, familiar, but biased news media, and popular culture figures.
These opinions can be inflammatory.
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