Everybody uses stereotypes to form an opinion about others. They are a necessary component that allow people to quickly perceive the world. There is debate whether Muslim women are suppressed. Obviously Trump believes that they are. He made an observation based on this opinion. I can't imagine he did this with any ill intent. He was attacked verbally, and he responded in kind. If you are upset about this, I can only conclude that it's because you are choosing/want to be offended. You and I both know that if you are able to spend time with somebody and "get to know them" it's amazing how often these stereotypes are wrong.
Nope, on just about every level.
He had no good reason to conclude that
she personally was silent because as a Muslim she is not allowed to speak, and not because like every person with empathy would suspect, that she gets
too sad about the violent death of her son to speak about it on a stage. It takes abnormal amounts of courage and composure just to get
on a stage like that for any reason, let alone that one. His conclusion was inherently foolish. His manner of expressing it was crass and self-destructive. Applying stereotypes to individuals is wrong in a case like this.
Think of it this way. Say, you're a white man. I see you eating in a bar. I tell everyone that you're not dancing because as a white man, you probably can't dance, rather than many more reasonable and more likely factors such as you eating at the time. Now, you might be inclined to say that the oppression of women by Islam is a legitimate issue, and it is, and that makes this analogy a poor one because white people not being able to dance is a
false stereotype. Alright. Say at this bar, I conclude and proclaim that you didn't hit on any black women because you're a racist, being a white man. Racism is also a legitimate issue, so does it make it non-objectionable to accuse you of it, with no more evidence than you
being white and existing? That is the entire rational for Trump's conclusion.
But you
already know and believe this. You know you're lying when you say he had no ill intent. Now, I don't mean this just to offend and attack you and dismiss you as a liar, but because it follows from your own argument. You defend him concluding and publicly speculating based on a stereotype as him 'responding in kind'
to an attack. Saying there was no ill-intent for his
attack is wrong because it being an attack precludes this.
Your conclusion that one 'must want to be offended' when the very goal of his attack was to offend (
this is intrinsic to the word attack!), is so unsupported, that you would be well advised to step back and re-evaluate your reasoning for things like unchecked bias.
