A group of hecklers in Tennessee last week cheered at the mention of hate crimes being perpetrated against Muslims. The function was a speaking event held by the American Muslim Advisory Council in response to a recent local Democratic politician posting a picture on his Facebook page that insinuated killing Muslims was something to make light of. The cheering was captured on film and was reported by Think Progress.

“Shame on you!” the speaker (identified by Think Progress as Sabina Mohyuddin) said to the crowd. The heckling continued unabated, however, as it had for nearly the entirety of the meeting. Although the cheering at the mention of destroying a Mosque is one of the worse displays of hatred at the meeting (seen at 1:30:10), viewers can find several other instances. For example at 1:18:05 there is booing when Mohyuddin mentions that many Muslim Americans serve in the U.S. military and at 1:19:35 a woman yells “Welfare! Welfare!” in response to Mohyuddin discussing why people immigrate to the United States.

The entire spectacle reinforces an ugly truth. That for many Americans bigotry and Islamophobia is a reality, answering the question a Time Magazine cover posed in August, 2010. The video also highlights another issue in modern American conservatism, namely that double-speak is a common phenomenon. This results in “welfare queens” serving as a code word for targeting African-Americans, “War on Terror” being taken as a euphemism for military ventures against Muslim Americans, and “support our troops” as a handy way to quell criticism of the United States’ military ventures.

In this particular case the conservative group heckling the presentation was led and organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative and the euphemism on display was “liberty.” According to the group they were present to protest the “trampling of the First Amendment.” However, how a group sponsoring an outreach and allowing hecklers to have their say constitutes an assault on freedom of speech was never fully explained. This is because “liberty” and “free speech” is really just a way to say “dominance” and “intimidation” for many conservatives. Dominance of religious ideas, dominance of culture, dominance over others when they are saying something you don’t want to hear.

The American Muslim Advisory Council, and specifically Mohyuddin, are to be commended, both for the willingness to hold a presentation combating bigotry as well as handling a group of narrow minded hecklers with such grace and poise. If you would like to learn more about the group and their effort to bridge religious differences at the community level their Facebook page can be found here.

Here’s the video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNv8QzS9B04&w=560&h=315]