Will whites riot? Aren’t they doing it already?

The Root.com has some interesting observations on enduring prejudices among whites about blacks being inherently prone to violence that remind me of common attitudes towards Muslims.

Will White People Riot? | Views | TheRoot.com

"Would black people riot if Sen. Barack Obama didn't win the election?" That was the question a white man in Memphis recently asked a racial reconciliation group with which I am involved.

After five years of being a columnist for the daily paper in Memphis, I wasn't surprised by the absurdity of his query. Many whites still labor under the illusion that black folk act en masse and that if you ask the right one, you can get the official position of some 40 million people. If a few of us get angry, that logic allows, it must surely result in a riot.

There's more.

A familiar and long-standing frustration for Muslims, of course.

I'm reminded of the psychologically-clueless, geopolitically-illiterate and openly bigoted quips about "Muslim Cartoon Rage" that abound in the rightwing swamps of the Blogosphere, assumptions that reduce Muslims to mindless, raging cliches who just lash out indiscriminately (white/Christian/"normal" folk only misbehave similarly when they have a logical reason–e.g., "celebrating" their team winning a game–but  Muslims don't need a reason, being violent by nature).

Incidentally, judging by this kind of hair-raisingly prejudiced (yet in a weird way almost refreshing for its intellectual honesty) stuff, concerns about white riots don't seem all that far-fetched. These hateful sentiments are "fringe", perhaps, but that fringe is present everywhere within today's GOP. (And then there's the question of "taqiyyah" by the mainstream GOP. How atypical is this attitude really? Be honest now, Islamofascist Menace-peddlers.)

White "rioting" probably won't take the form of burned buildings, but you can be sure there will be hell to pay when their guy gets ignominiously crushed on November 4.

And to think people were (absurdly) professing concern about assasination attempts against a President Obama by Muslims not so long ago.

Time to take a long, hard look in the mirror, rightwingers.

Truth really is stranger than fiction.